KELSEYVILLE >> As the discordant song of war sounds across the Korean Peninsula, one of Lake County’s two Congressional members is urging all sides to tone down the rhetoric and concentrate on a peaceful solution.
“I hope we will be able to step up the diplomatic efforts with North Korea, China, Japan and South Korea,” Congressman Mike Thompson (D-St. Helena) said Saturday while attending an event in Kelseyville.
Thompson just returned from South Korea where he attended a conference on economic issues. He is a member of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee.
He discussed the Korean situation in an exclusive interview with the Record-Bee only hours after North Korea launched a missile — it’s second in less than a week — that exploded after just a few minutes of flight.
The first missile launched last week exploded seconds after launch. The two failed launches have fueled speculation that the North Korean missile program is being targeted by hackers from the U.S. military’s cyber defense program.
The congressman said the only solution to the issue of North Korea’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missile development is diplomacy, which he said he believes is possible even with the country’s hard-line dictator, Kim Jong-un.
“We need to try to reach him,” Thompson said of Kim.
But Thompson also has a strong warning for Kim: If he attacks South Korea, Japan or U.S. forces in the area, “He will be wiped out. The American people should be very concerned about a world leader as dangerous as him.”
However, Thompson added he doesn’t think a new Korean War is inevitable.
Referring to Kim, Thompson said, “I don’t think he’s suicidal. I don’t think he will launch a (nuclear) first strike. But I am concerned that he may decide to take a couple of (conventional) missile shots at South Korea or Japan,” especially if Kim feels he and his regime are in danger of an imminent attack from the United States.
A North Korean conventional first-strike, even a limited one, could be a trigger point that causes the U.S. to launch a strong — even stunning — retaliatory strike on North Korea, based on several of President Donald Trump’s recent late night/early morning tweets.
“Diplomacy has to be number one,” Thompson said. “Working with our allies has to be number one.”
He added, “I hope we can persuade Kim Jong-un to turn down his efforts to build deliverable nuclear weapons.”
The key word, as the Congressman mentioned, is ‘deliverable.’ North Korea already has nuclear weapons but they’re relatively large and clunky — too large to fit on any of their existing missiles, say multiple experts on North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.
North Korea, according to many of these analysts, is anywhere from 18 months to four years from accomplishing two of its critical goals: miniaturizing its nuclear bombs and developing intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) capable of hitting the continental United States.
That combination could be a catalyst for nuclear war, many analysts warn.
President Trump has said he will not allow North Korea to develop ICBMs and has also said all military options — including nuclear — will be considered by the U.S. in dealing with North Korea.
Currently, “North Korea is capable of hitting South Korea and Japan with conventional weapons,” Thompson said.
This includes several thousand artillery pieces and hundreds of mobile rocket launchers that can unleash their conventional bombs on Seoul — the South Korean capital — within minutes after an attack, experts say, effectively leveling the modern city of 10.3 million people.
Full-scale conflict would likely be devastating to the entire region. One analyst estimated a full-scale conventional war with North Korea — involving the U.S., South Korea and Japan — could kill a million people and a nuclear war would likely kill at least three million.
Experts on North Korea’s nuclear weapons program can’t agree on how many atomic bombs it has, with most estimates ranging from 10 to 30.
But most analysts do agree that the Hermit Kingdom, as the North is called, is currently producing a new nuclear bomb every two months and has enough enriched uranium to continue at this pace for at least the next 10 years.
The North is also believed to have large stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons which are banned under international law.
Trump criticized
Thompson had harsh words for President Donald Trump, including his apparently lackadaisical approach to filling key positions in the State Department that remain vacant more than three months after Trump’s inauguration.
“Our own world leader is inexperienced and is not filling (vacant) positions in the State Department that could avoid war,” he said. “It’s appalling that the State Department is working with a skeleton crew.”
He pushed back on some reports that blamed Congressional Democrats for the vacancies, saying it’s the president’s responsibility to nominate people for the unfilled diplomatic posts. He said most House members are anxious to get the vacancies filled.
There are currently about 200 senior positions that are unfilled at the State Department, causing concern by many national security experts, according to media reports.
About one-third of the jobs are ambassadorships. Other vacant positions include nearly all undersecretary and assistant secretary positions, CNN reported last week.
Trump has blamed his Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, former CEO of ExxonMobile, for the slow pace of filling the vacancies.
Trump also has said he wants to cut the annual State Department budget by 30 percent. The State Department’s current budget is about $50 billion.
Thompson also said he wonders what Kim thinks when Trump “talks tough” and referenced the president’s notorious late night and early morning activity on Twitter.
“Trump’s tweets at night are foolish,” Thompson said.
What if war does break out on the Korean Peninsula?
“I believe we have the absolute ability to defend ourselves and our allies,” Thompson said.
Meanwhile in Seoul, the mood is a “mixed bag” of emotions regarding the likelihood of war, the Congressman said, with some of the Koreans he met expressing “tension” while others were more confident that peace will prevail.
Thompson said he asked one South Korean man if he was concerned about the war rhetoric and the man replied with a Korean adage, “Barking goats don’t bite.”
