Trump warns 'fire and fury' if N.Korea threatens U.S., Pyongyang weighs Guam strike
President Donald Trump warned North Korea on Tuesday it would face "fire and
fury" if it threatens the United States, prompting the nuclear-armed nation to
say it was considering firing missiles at Guam, a U.S.-held Pacific island.
As tensions escalated, Pyongyang said it was "carefully examining" a plan to
strike Guam, site of a U.S. military base. A North Korean military spokesman, in
a statement carried by state-run KCNA news agency, said the plan would be put
into practice once leader Kim Jong Un makes a decision.
In another statement citing a different military spokesman, North Korea said
it could carry out a pre-emptive operation if there were signs of a U.S.
provocation.
Washington has warned it is ready to use force if need be to stop North
Korea's ballistic missile and nuclear programs but that it prefers global
diplomatic action, including sanctions.
The consequences of any U.S. strike would potentially be catastrophic not
only for North Koreans but also South Korea, Japan and the thousands of U.S.
military personnel within range of any North Korean retaliatory strikes.
"North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States. They will
be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen," Trump told reporters
at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey.
The U.N. Security Council unanimously imposed new sanctions on North Korea on
Saturday over its continued missile tests, that could slash the reclusive
country's $3 billion annual export revenue by a third.
North Korea has made no secret of plans to develop a nuclear-tipped missile
able to strike the United States and has ignored international calls to halt its
nuclear and missile programs.
It says its intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) are a legitimate
means of defense against perceived U.S. hostility. It has long accused the
United States and South Korea of escalating tensions by conducting military
drills.
U.S. stocks closed slightly lower after Trump’s comment, while a widely
followed measure of stock market anxiety ended at its highest in nearly a month.
The U.S. dollar index pared gains and the safe-haven yen strengthened against
the U.S. currency.
TENSIONS RISE
The United States has remained technically at war with North Korea since the
1950-53 Korean conflict ended in an armistice rather than a peace treaty. The
past six decades have been punctuated by periodic rises in antagonism and
rhetoric that have always stopped short of a resumption of active
hostilities.
Tensions have risen since North Korea carried out two nuclear bomb tests last
year and two ICBM tests last month.
Republican U.S. Senator John McCain said Trump should tread cautiously when
issuing threats to North Korea unless he is prepared to act.
"I take exception to the president’s comments because you got to be sure you
can do what you say you’re going to do,” he said in a radio interview.
The Trump administration's attempts to pressure North Korea into abandoning
its nuclear and missile ambitions have so far gained little traction.
U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has warned of an "effective and
overwhelming" response against North Korea if it chose to use nuclear weapons
but has said any military solution would be "tragic on an unbelievable
scale."
The United States has 28,500 troops in South Korea to guard against the North
Korean threat. Japan hosts around 54,000 U.S. military personnel, the U.S.
Department of Defense says, and tens of thousands of Americans work in both
countries.
Seoul is home to a population of roughly 10 million, within range of massed
pre-targeted North Korean rockets and artillery, which would be impossible to
destroy in a first U.S. strike.
The Washington Post reported on Tuesday that North Korea has successfully
produced a miniaturized nuclear warhead that can fit inside its missiles,
according to a confidential U.S. intelligence assessment.
But U.S. intelligence officials told Reuters that while North Korea has
accelerated its efforts to design an ICBM, a miniaturized nuclear warhead, and a
nosecone robust enough to survive reentry through the Earth’s atmosphere, there
is no reliable evidence it has mastered all three, much less tested and combined
them into a weapon capable of hitting targets in the United States.
“There's a lot that we don't know," about the North Korean nuclear weapons
program, including whether Pyongyang has developed "the guidance and control
system, guidance and stability control, to move a rocket that distance without
it breaking up," U.S. Air Force General Paul Selva, the vice chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Air Force Association's Mitchell Institute on
Aug. 3.
U.S. intelligence officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, also said
there is no certainty about the number of nuclear warheads North Korea has
assembled, with estimates ranging from 20 to as many as 60 and most experts
leaning toward the lower end of that range.
North Korea's ICBM tests last month suggested it was making technical
progress, Japan's annual Defence White Paper warned.
WAR OF WORDS
On Monday, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson held the door open for
dialog, saying Washington was willing to talk to Pyongyang if it halted its
missile test launches.
Still, he maintained the pressure, urging Thailand on Tuesday for more action
against Pyongyang.
Former U.S. diplomat Douglas Paal, now with the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace think tank in Washington, said Trump should not get into a
war of words with Pyongyang.
“It strikes me as an amateurish reflection of a belief that we should give as
we get rhetorically. That might be satisfying at one level, but it takes us down
into the mud that we should let Pyongyang enjoy alone,” said Paal, who served as
a White House official under previous Republican administrations.
Lockheed Martin Corp, the Pentagon's No. 1 weapons supplier, said on Tuesday
its customers are increasingly asking about missile defense systems.
Source: Reuters
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