Guam attack plan by mid-August
WASHINGTON • North Korea on Wednesday dismissed Donald Trump’s threats of “fire and fury,” declaring the U. S. president “bereft of reason” and warning ominously, “Only absolute force can work on him.”
In a statement released on state media, General Kim Rak Gyom, who heads North Korea’s rocket command, also said his country was “about to take” military action near the U. S. Pacific territory of Guam. He said the North would finalize a plan by mid- August involving mid- range missiles hitting waters 30 to 40 kilometres from the island.
The plan will then go to the commander in chief of North Korea’s nuclear force and “wait for his order,” Kim was quoted by KCNA as saying. He called it a “historic enveloping fire at Guam.”
While nuclear confrontation still seems incredibly remote, the comments have sparked deep unease in the United States, Asia and beyond.
A day after suggesting the use of overwhelming U. S. military might, Trump touted America’s atomic supremacy. He said his first order as president was to “renovate and modernize” an arsenal that is “now far stronger and more powerful than ever before.”
It was a rare public flexi ng of America’s nuclear might. And Trump’s boasting only added to the confusion over his administration’s approach to dealing with North Korea’s expanding nuclear capabilities on a day when his top national security aides wavered between messages of alarm and reassurance.
If Trump’s goal with two days of tough talk was to scare North Korea, Kim, the commander, put that idea to rest.
He called Trump’s rhetoric a “load of nonsense” that was aggravating a grave situation.
“Sound dialogue is not possible with such a guy bereft of reason and only absolute force can work on him,” the KNCA report quoted him saying.
Kim said the Guam action would be “an effective remedy for restraining the frantic moves of the U. S. in the southern part of the Korean peninsula and its vicinity.”
The suggestion that Trump has done anything to enhance U.S. nuclear firepower was immediately disputed by experts. Still, Trump tweeted: “Hopefully we will never have to use this power, but there will never be a time that we are not the most powerful nation in the world!”
The tweets did little to s oothe concerns in t he United States and beyond that Trump was helping push the standoff with North Korea into uncharted and even more dangerous territory. Trump’s talk Tuesday of “fire and fury like the world has never seen” compounded fears of an accident or misunderstanding leading the nuclear- armed nations into conflict.
This week, an official Japanese report and a classified U. S. intelligence document, as reported by The Washington Post, combined to suggest that the North was closer to being able to strike the United States with a nuclear missile than previously believed. The U. S. document reportedly assessed that the North had mastered the ability to fit a nuclear warhead on its longrange missiles.
After North Korea issued its first warning to the U. S., suggesting it could attack the American territory of Guam, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson sought to calm the sense of crisis.
Speaking earlier Wednesday on his way home from Asia, he credited Trump with sending a strong message to North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un on the “unquestionable” U. S. ability to defend itself, so as to prevent “any miscalculation.” Tillerson insisted the U. S. isn’t signalling a move toward military action, while it pursues a policy of sanctions and isolation of North Korea.
“Americans should sleep well at night,” Tillerson told reporters. He added: “Nothing that I have seen and nothing that I know of would indicate that the situation has dramatically changed in the last 24 hours.”
No sooner had Tillerson ratcheted down the rhetoric than Defence Secretary Jim Mattis ratcheted it back up.
Echoing Trump’s martial tone, Mattis said North Korea should stand down its nuclear weapons program and “cease any consideration of actions that would lead to the end of its regime and the destruction of its people.” As seldom as it is for a president to speak of using nuclear missiles, the reference to the “destruction” of a foreign people is equally rare.
It was unclear, however, how serious to take all the war talk. Markets weren’t rattled by the back-and-forth threats. Trump had no meetings on his schedule Wednesday. There were no indications from the Pentagon of urgent planning or new assets being hastily deployed to the Pacific region. And Tillerson even made a prescheduled refuelling stop in Guam, the target of the North’s purported military designs.
The “fire and fury” proclamation that Trump delivered at his New Jersey golf club was his own message, his spokeswoman said Wednesday. It came after Trump and his chief of staff, retired Gen. John Kelly, had been in conversations with members of the National Security Council.
“The tone and strength of the message were discussed beforehand” with advisers, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said. But she said: “The words were his own.”
Trump didn’t mention the words “fire and fury” in a conference call with advisers, according to two officials familiar with the discussion. And Kelly and the other aides didn’t know he would use such vivid terms, said the officials, who weren’t authorized to speak publicly on the matter and demanded anonymity.
The State Department s aid Tillerson s poke to Trump after he made the comment, a conversation that lasted for about an hour.