US denies plan for ‘bloody nose’ strike

WASHINGTON » The United States doesn’t have a “bloody nose” strategy for North Korea, senators of both parties and a Trump administration official said Thursday, rejecting claims the U.S. wants to strike the North’s nuclear programin a way that avoids an all-out war.

The harmonized message could quell speculation that President Donald Trump is contemplating limitedmilitary action to demonstrat eU.S. resolve toward North Korea without provoking a wider conflict. Such a strategy would be widely seen as dangerous given the North’s capability to inflict a devastating retaliation on U.S. ally South Korea.

A senior White House of- ficial, at a briefing Wednesday, told lawmakers that no such approach has been adopted, Sens. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., and James Risch, R-Idaho, said at a Senate hearing on Thursday. An administration official who was testifying confirmed their accounts.

The White House had “made it very clear there is no bloody nose strategy for a strike against North Korea,” Shaheen told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which was considering the nomination of Susan Thornton, Trump’s choice to be the top diplomat for East Asia.

“We were told clearly by administration people about as high up as it gets that there is no such thing as a ‘ bloody nose’ strategy, that they’ve never talked about, they’ve never considered it, they’ve never used that term, and it’s not something that that people ought to be talking about,” Risch said.

Thornton confirmed the administration’s policy remains one of “maximum pressure” through economic sanctions to get North Korea to negotiate on eliminating up its nuclear weapons. At the same time, the U. S. is keeping military options on the table

he “bloody nose” moniker emerged in December, when a British newspaper, The Daily Telegraph, cited unnamed sources saying the White House had “dramatically” stepped up preparation for a military solution because diplomacy was not working.

U.S. intelligence officials this week assessed the risk of conflict with North Korea as higher today than at any time since the end of the Cold War.