US sees big death toll even in non-nuclear war
Renewed conflict on the Korean peninsula could kill 30,000 to 300,000 people in the first few days even if no nuclear weapons are involved, according to a new report by the Congressional Research Service.
Given population densities on the peninsula, military conflict “could affect upwards of 25 million people on either side of the border, including at least 100,000 U. S. citizens,” according to a 62-page assessment sent to U.S. lawmakers Friday and obtained by Bloomberg News.
The grim report comes after tensions between the U.S. and North Korea peaked over accelerated missile and nuclear tests by Kim Jong Un’s regime, exacerbated by a war of words between Kim and President Donald Trump.
Earlier Friday, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis visited the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea, saying the U. S. continues to pursuing diplomacy as the preferred choice to resolve the crisis.
Mattis’ visit was meant to show U.S. solidarity with South Korea against a muscular North, which Mattis accused of building nuclear weapons to “threaten others with catastrophe.”
But the trip also highlighted the central contradiction in the Trump administration’s rhetoric on North Korea: For all the talk of military options, there really aren’t any that wouldn’t put the South’s sprawling capital, Seoul, with its population of 10 million, in the cross hairs of thousands of the North’s artillery installations.
Standing with Mattis atop an observation post to gaze at the North, South Korea’s defense minister, Song Young-moo, seemed at times to be giving his U. S. counterpart a guided tour of how a strike against North Korea’s nuclear facilities would quickly trigger retaliation.
“There are 21 battalions” stationed over the border, Song told Mattis, gesturing toward the hills of North Korea in the distance. “Defending against this many LRAs is unfeasible, in my opinion,” he said, alluding to the bristling array of long- range artillery pointed at his country.
Song said that the United States and South Korea would have to destroy the North Korean artillery “the moment the war starts.”