To: LindyBill who wrote (1407 ) 10/30/2002 8:11:45 PM From: Hawkmoon Read Replies (1) | Respond to By that afternoon some of his State Department sources had written back, warning him darkly about threats to the "national interest" if he went with the story. He reluctantly decided not to publish The Nelson Report that evening. But that's misleading. Kelly had his confrontational encounter with the North Koreans on October 4. The House passed its resolution on the afternoon of October 10, and the Senate did the same just after midnight. So, how many congressional briefings did the CIA and the State Department hold between the fourth and the tenth, according to their own data? Zero. They fear that a crisis at this moment with North Korea could jeopardize their goal of overthrowing Saddam. In the past, Pyongyang has said that even sanctions, which the administration seems to be considering, would be an act of war. That kind of confrontation could halt the momentum for dealing with Iraq. "The hard-liners think there is a sequential approach," says an administration official. "You deal with one problem at a time." Adds another, "This kind of overloads the system." "Despite all the tough guys, the fact is there are eleven thousand long-range artillery pieces right across the DMZ [demilitarized zone] line from Seoul," one administration official points out. "If you are looking for moral clarity you are in trouble." The Chinese have many reasons to cooperate. They fear a nuclear North Korea will eventually mean a nuclear Japan, and they worry about which direction the peninsula's nuclear weapons would be pointed if the Koreas are one day unified. The Chinese also fear two other developments that would accompany a nuclear North Korea: They know it will hasten American plans for missile defense and that it will lead to a buildup of U.S. forces in the region.
