‘ FIRE AND FURY’
President President lashes out out in in response to to reports reports of new milestone in regime’s nuclear quest
North Korea threatened a ballistic missile strike on the U. S. territory of Guam, the latest incendiary exchange between the rogue nation and President Trump, who vowed “fire and fury like the world has never seen.”
Trump lashed out Tuesday at North Korea in response to reports of a new milestone in its nuclear quest. The
Washington Post said a confidential Defense Intelligence Agency report concluded that North Korea produced a miniaturized nuclear warhead that can fit inside its missiles. The breakthrough is a crucial advance toward producing a nuclear- armed missile that can strike the U. S. mainland.
“North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States,” Trump said from the clubhouse at his golf course in Bedminster, N. J., where he is on a working vacation.
North Korea’s military said it is considering a missile launch aimed near strategic U. S. military installations in Guam, according to South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency, to send a strong message that its Hwasong- 12 missiles can neutralize the bases that house nuclear bombers and other key assets.
Despite Trump’s warning, U. S. military officials said there are few good military options to deal with North Korea. In addition to its nuclear arsenal, the nation has rockets and artillery aimed at Seoul, the South Korean capital of 10 million people that is only 35 miles from the North Korean border. Nearly 30,000 U. S. troops are stationed in South Korea.
A conventional war on the Korean Peninsula would “involve the massive shelling of an ally’s capital, which is one of the most densely packed cities on earth,” Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said this year.
Gen. Mark Milley, Army chief of staff, warned that “we are at a point in time where choices will have to be made one way or the other. ... None of them are good.”
Trump said Tuesday that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un “has been very threatening beyond a normal state, and as I said, they will be met with fire and fury and frankly power, the likes of which this world has never seen before.”
In January, Trump tweeted, “North Korea just stated that it is in the final stages of developing a nuclear weapon capable of reaching parts of the U. S. It won’t happen!”
The Post said the Defense Intelligence Agency ( DIA) completed the latest analysis on the miniature warhead in July, shortly after another assessment that sharply raised the official estimate for the total number of bombs in the communist country’s atomic arsenal.
“Today is the day that we can definitely say North Korea is a nuclear power,” Harry Kazianis, director of defense studies at the Center for the National Interest, told USA TODAY. “There is no more time to stick our heads in the sand and think we have months or years to confront this challenge.”
Kazianis said it is not clear whether North Korea has developed the heat shield technology required to allow a missile to leave and re- enter the atmosphere. He said the United States should assume the worst.
The DIA and Pentagon did not respond to USA TODAY’s requests for comment on the Post report. The State Department declined to comment, citing “intelligence matters.”
There has been growing international concern regarding North Korea’s nuclear and missile testing. North Korea has launched more than a dozen test missiles this year. Concerns were heightened late last month when tests of an intercontinental ballistic missile indicated the regime may be within a year or two of obtaining the technology to reach the USA with nuclear missiles.
China, North Korea’s biggest supporter, urged its ally Sunday to halt its testing. That was a day after China and Russia joined the United States in a unanimous United Nations Security Council vote approving the toughest economic sanctions against the isolated country of 25 million.
The sanctions target about a third of North Korea’s $ 3 billion in annual exports. North Korea expressed outrage at the U. N. vote, vowing to launch “thousandsfold” revenge against the United States. In an effort to defuse the crisis, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said last week that the United States was not demanding regime change and was willing to talk with Kim’s government — if he abandoned his push for nuclear weapons. North Korea has refused to conduct negotiations on halting its nuclear progress.
Experts on the crisis repeated a call made by the Trump administration: China must step in.
“Today’s news makes clear that much more than these sanctions is required to protect U. S. interests,” said Jay Lefkowitz, a former U. S. special envoy on human rights in North Korea.