PRESS RELEASE
National Security Advisor McMaster Says War Threat from North Korea Is Increasing
Dec. 3, 2017 (EIRNS)—U.S. National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster said yesterday that the threat of war from North Korea is "increasing every day." He was responding to a question at the annual Reagan Defense Forum in Simi Valley, California, about the threat "emerging" from the North Korean government.
Referring to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, McMaster said:
"Every time he conducts a missile launch and nuclear test, he gets better. And whether it’s a success or a failure isn’t as important as understanding that over the years he’s been learning from failures, improving and thereby increasing his threat to all of us."
McMaster stated that there are still ways to address the problem short of war, but "he’s getting closer and closer and there’s not much time left." Though the South Korean Defense Ministry and experts consulted by the news media concluded that the missile that North Korea tested on Nov. 28 could have a range of 8,000 miles, long enough to reach any point in the United States, an unnamed U.S. official told CNN yesterday that technical assessments of the launch are still ongoing. But, he said, "the North Koreans had problems with re-entry," implying that the dummy warhead broke up during the atmospheric re-entry phase of the flight.
Meanwhile, U.S.-South Korean military exercises are going ahead, full bore. The Korea Herald reported yesterday that six U.S. F-22 stealth fighters had arrived in South Korea for next week’s giant air exercise, which will also involve U.S. F-35’s, F-16C’s, B-1B bombers and other aircraft, and F-15K, KF-16 and F-5 fighter jets from the South Korean side. The exercise will involve some 230 aircraft flying from eight airbases. A North Korea Foreign Ministry spokesman stated in response, according to Xinhua, that "The Trump team is begging for a nuclear war by staging an extremely dangerous nuclear gamble on the Korean Peninsula."
