NORTH KOREA UPDATE….William Perry, Secretary of Defense in the Clinton administration and Wes Clark’s choice for best SecDef ever, has an op-ed in the Washington Post today saying that he favors a preemptive strike on North Korea:
Should the United States allow a country openly hostile to it and armed with nuclear weapons to perfect an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of delivering nuclear weapons to U.S. soil? We believe not.
….Therefore, if North Korea persists in its launch preparations, the United States should immediately make clear its intention to strike and destroy the North Korean Taepodong missile before it can be launched. This could be accomplished, for example, by a cruise missile launched from a submarine carrying a high-explosive warhead.
….In addition to warning our allies and partners of our determination to take out the Taepodong before it can be launched, we should warn the North Koreans. There is nothing they could do with such warning to defend the bulky, vulnerable missile on its launch pad, but they could evacuate personnel who might otherwise be harmed.
Perry believes that South Korea would oppose an attack, Japan would (privately) welcome it, and that Russia and China would basically stay neutral.
Perry co-wrote the op-ed with his former deputy, Ashton Carter. Laura Rozen has more about Carter here.
