IAN BRUCE, Defence Correspondent
http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/71790.html

There are no good military options against North Korea for a US already dangerously overstretched by commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan against a regime which has had half a century to prepare for war.

Kim Jong-il's army is dug into mountains within 40 miles of the border, protected by layers of rock, steel, and concrete, which make a pre-emptive strike with anything less than nuclear warheads pointless.

His nuclear facilities are also dispersed, with the key installations far below ground in old mine workings or custom-built bunkers.

Any US raids, however comprehensive, would also trigger an immediate North Korean bombardment of Seoul, the South Korean capital, which lies less than 50 miles from the dividing frontier. Pyongyang has 10,000 artillery guns, battlefield rocket-launch systems, and Scud missiles capable of reducing the city to rubble and inflicting unimaginable losses on its 10 million inhabitants.

US intelligence claims that up to 25% of the munitions would have nerve or mustard-gas warheads, regarded by the north as conventional weapons.

The communist regime would then launch waves of commandos into the south to blow up key bridges, attack convoys and military bases, and assassinate commanders and government leaders.

An American contingency plan drawn up in 2004 foresaw the rapid deployment of 500,000 Marines and soldiers to reinforce South Korea's troops if Pyongyang's erratic regime launched an invasion.

When President George Bush was briefed, he was horrified to learn that the blueprint predicted 52,000 US casualties in the first 90 days, the devastation of Seoul, and up to a million civilian dead.

That plan has since been amended to substitute precision firepower in the shape of laser-guided bombs and missiles for American manpower. The new US strategy calls for round-the-clock bombardment by B1 Lancer bombers and F117 Stealth aircraft, augmented by strikes from US carrier battlegroups off the coasts.

But several hundred thousand US Marines and soldiers would still have to be committed to ground combat.
There are no good military options against North Korea for a US already dangerously overstretched by commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan against a regime which has had half a century to prepare for war.

Kim Jong-il's army is dug into mountains within 40 miles of the border, protected by layers of rock, steel, and concrete, which make a pre-emptive strike with anything less than nuclear warheads pointless.

His nuclear facilities are also dispersed, with the key installations far below ground in old mine workings or custom-built bunkers.

Any US raids, however comprehensive, would also trigger an immediate North Korean bombardment of Seoul, the South Korean capital, which lies less than 50 miles from the dividing frontier. Pyongyang has 10,000 artillery guns, battlefield rocket-launch systems, and Scud missiles capable of reducing the city to rubble and inflicting unimaginable losses on its 10 million inhabitants.

US intelligence claims that up to 25% of the munitions would have nerve or mustard-gas warheads, regarded by the north as conventional weapons.

The communist regime would then launch waves of commandos into the south to blow up key bridges, attack convoys and military bases, and assassinate commanders and government leaders.