Tuesday, July 15, 2003

Pentagon comes up with a provocative plan to face down North Korea: "Within the past two months, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has ordered U.S. military commanders to devise a new war plan for a possible conflict with North Korea. Elements of the draft, known as Operations Plan 5030, are so aggressive that they could provoke a war, some senior Bush administration officials tell U.S. News.... administration insiders, who are critical of the plan, say it blurs the line between war and peace. The plan would give commanders in the region authority to conduct maneuvers--before a war has started--to drain North Korea's limited resources, strain its military, and perhaps sow enough confusion that North Korean generals might turn against the country's leader, Kim Jong Il... Some officials believe the draft plan amounts to a strategy to topple Kim's regime by destabilizing its military forces... Some administration officials and military experts say they consider these tactics dangerously provocative."

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