Rumsfeld: North No Threat to South

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Monday North Korea is not a military threat to South Korea and that the proliferation of weapons of mass destructions (WMD) is a greater threat. Rumsfeld made the remark during his visit to Fort Greely, a U.S. missile defense base in Alaska.

He stressed that North Korea’s conventional military strength has been eroding due to its crumbling economy. In addition, he said that its air force pilots fly fewer than 50 training hours a year because of a lack of resources and that compares with more than 200 training hours in the air each year by U.S. military pilots.

"I don`t see them, frankly, as an immediate military threat to South Korea," Rumsfeld said.

“The statement shows the logic of working-level officials at the Pentagon who have been urging to advance the date for the transfer of the wartime command control, arguing South Korea has sufficient defense capabilities,” a source in Washington said.

“His statement seems to imply that the U.S. will concentrate on deterring the spread of WMDs, while South Korea plays a leading role in deterring invasion by North Korea.”

Rumsfeld also had a meeting with his Russian counterpart Sergei Ivanov at Fairbanks, Alaska to discuss his plan to convert some long-range missiles loaded in submarines from a nuclear to a conventional role. However, Ivanov opposed it, saying it could create a situation in which a conventional missile would be mistaken for a nuclear launch, thus risking the possibility of a retaliatory nuclear strike.

sechepa@donga.com