Pentagon Says Securing North Korean Nuclear Sites Would Require “Ground Invasion”
With President Donald Trump arriving in Japan today to kick off a 10-day Asia tour, the Washington Post is reporting that the only way to locate and secure all of North Korea’s nuclear weapons sites “with complete certainty” would be a ground invasion, and in the event of conflict, Pyongyang could use biological and chemical weapons, the Pentagon told lawmakers in a newly released assessment of what war on the Korean Peninsula might look like.
The Pentagon, in a letter to lawmakers, said that a full discussion of U.S. capabilities to “counter North Korea’s ability to respond with a nuclear weapon and to eliminate North Korea’s nuclear weapons located in deeply buried, underground facilities” is best suited for a classified briefing.
The letter also said that Pentagon leaders “assess that North Korea may consider the use of biological weapons” and that the country “has a long-standing chemical weapons program with the capability to produce nerve, blister, blood and choking agents.”
The Pentagon repeated that a detailed discussion of how the United States would respond to the threat could not be discussed in public.
The letter noted that Seoul, the South Korean capital, is a densely populated area with 25 million residents.
The Pentagon’s candid assessment appears to validate claims made by former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon, who famously said in an interview with the American Prospect before he was forced out of his White House job that there are no “good” military options for toppling the Kim regime. A ground invasion, he said, would lead to millions of casualties in the South Korean capital of Seoul from conventional weapons fire.
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