Securing N Korea nuclear sites ‘needs ground invasion’
THE ONLY way to locate and secure all North Korea’s nuclear weapons sites with certainty was through an invasion by US ground forces and, in the event of conflict, Pyongyang could use biological and chemical weapons, the Pentagon told lawmakers in a new, blunt assessment of what war on the Korean Peninsula might look like.
The Pentagon, in a letter to lawmakers, said a full discussion of US capabilities to “counter North Korea’s ability to respond with a nuclear weapon and to eliminate North Korea’s nuclear weapons located in deeply buried, underground facilities” was best suited for a classified briefing.
The letter said the Pentagon leaders “assess that North Korea may consider the use of biological weapons” and that the country “has a long-standing chemical weapons programme with the capability to produce nerve, blister, blood and choking agents”.
The Pentagon repeated that a detailed discussion of how the US would respond to the threat could not be discussed in public.
The letter was written by Rear Admiral Michael Dumont, the vice-director of the Pentagon’s Joint Staff, in response to a request for information from two House members about “expected casualty assessments in a conflict with North Korea,” including for civilians, US and allied forces in South Korea, Japan and Guam.
“A decision to attack or invade another country will have ramifications for our troops and taxpayers, as well as the region, for decades,” Ted Lieu and Ruben Gallego wrote to the Pentagon.
“We have not heard detailed analysis of expected US or allied force casualties, expected civilian casualties, what plans exist for the aftermath of a strike – including continuity of the South Korean government.”
The Pentagon said calculating best- or worst-case casualty scenarios was challenging and would depend on the “nature, intensity and duration” of a North Korean attack; how much warning civilians would have to get to the thousands of shelters in South Korea; and the ability of US and South Korean forces to respond to North Korean artillery, rockets and ballistic missiles with their own retaliatory barrage and air strikes.
The letter noted that Seoul, the South Korean capital, was a densely populated area with 25 million residents.
Any operation to pursue North Korean nuclear weapons would probably be spearheaded by US Special Operations troops.
Last year, Barack Obama and then-defence secretary Ashton Carter gave US Special Operations Command (Socom) a new, leading role to co-ordinate the Pentagon’s effort to counter weapons of mass destruction.
It did not receive any new legal authorities for the mission but gained influence in how the military responds to such threats.
Elite US forces have long trained to respond in the case of a socalled “loose nuke” in the hands of terrorists. But senior officials said Socom was increasingly focused on North Korea.
Dumont said the military backed the US strategy on North Korea, which was led by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and focused on ratcheting up economic and diplomatic pressure as the primary effort to get North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to stop developing nuclear weapons.
Tillerson, Defence Secretary Jim Mattis and Joint Chiefs of Staff chairperson General Joseph Dunford jr have emphasised that during trips to Seoul this year.
In contrast, President Donald Trump, who goes unmentioned in the Pentagon letter, has taunted Kim as “Rocket Man” and expressed frustration with diplomatic efforts, hinting that he was considering pre-emptive military force.
“I told Rex Tillerson, our wonderful secretary of state, that he was wasting his time trying to negotiate with Little Rocket Man,” Trump tweeted on October 1, adding, “Save your energy Rex, we’ll do what has to be done!”
On October 7, Trump said in additional tweets that North Korea had made fools of US negotiators. “Sorry, but only one thing will work!” he said.
Mattis and other Pentagon leaders have often cited the grave threat faced by Seoul, but the military much less frequently draws attention to its plans for an underground hunt for nuclear weapons.
Air Force Colonel Patrick Ryder, a Pentagon spokesperson, said Dumont and other Pentagon officials had no additional comment about the letter.
A senior US military official in South Korea, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss operations, said that while the 28 500 US troops in South Korea maintained a high degree of readiness, he had to believe North Korea did not want a war, given all the nations aligned against it.
“If you open the history books, this is not the first time that we’ve been in a heavy provocation cycle,” the official said. On the side of South Korea and the US, he said, “there is no action taken without extreme consideration of not putting this in a position where a fight is going to happen.”
Dumont’s letter also notes that “we have not seen any change in the offensive posture of North Korea’s forces”.
A statement by 16 lawmakers, released with the Pentagon letter, urged Trump to stop making provocative statements that impeded diplomatic efforts.
The Pentagon’s “assessment underscores what we’ve known all along: There are no good military options for North Korea,” said the statement, organised by Lieu and Gallego and signed by 14 other members of Congress who are veterans, all but one of them Democrats.
Lieu said the intent of asking the Pentagon for information was to spell out the cataclysmic consequences of war with North Korea and the aftermath.
“It’s important for people to understand what a war with a nuclear power would look like,” said Lieu, citing estimates of 300 000 dead in the first few days alone. More than 100 000 Americans are potentially at risk.
Lieu, who spent part of his time in the Air Force on Guam preparing for military action against North Korea, called the letter a confirmation that a conflict would result in a “bloody, protracted ground war.”
The joint chiefs were “trying to send a message to the American public,” he said. “This is grim,” Lieu said. “We need to understand what war means. And it hasn’t been articulated very well. I think they’re trying to articulate some of that.”
Gallego said he wanted information because of what he saw as a cavalier attitude in the White House about military action in North Korea. The idea that a ground invasion would be needed to secure nuclear weapons was eye-opening, he said, and raised the possibility of the US military losing thousands of troops.
“I think that you’re dealing with career professionals at the Pentagon who realise that the drumbeats of war could actually end up leading us to war,” he said. “They want to make sure there is full transparency and information out there about what can occur if our civilian leaders make wrong calculations.”
The Pentagon letter also notes the possibility of “opposition from China or Russia”.
“The Department of Defence maintains a set of up-to-date contingency plans to secure our vital national security interests,” Dumont wrote. “These plans account for a wide range of possibilities, including third-party intervention, and address how best to ‘contain escalation’.”
The letter says either Russia or China might prefer to avoid conflict with the US, or possibly co-operate with the US. – The Washington Post
Lamothe covers national security for The Washington Post
Morello is the diplomatic correspondent for The Washington Post