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CNN Live At Daybreak

International Wrap: Eye on World

Aired December 24, 2002 - 06:36   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


CATHERINE CALLAWAY, CNN ANCHOR: North Korea is the hot topic again this morning. Senior international editor David Clinch is back with us to tell us more about this story.
And we just talked to Suzanne Malveaux...

DAVID CLINCH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL EDITOR: Right.

CALLAWAY: ... about possibly the president having to address this.

CLINCH: He is going to have to address it. I teased earlier the segment here talking about why we are going to look at the comments that Donald Rumsfeld had yesterday that the U.S. could fight two wars on two fronts if it had to, and why that's not necessarily going to have happen.

That's not necessarily good news, though. It's not going to happen most likely, because either the U.S. has to deal with this right now before North Korea becomes a nuclear power basically, even a small-scale one, or conventional forces really become irrelevant. When you're dealing with a nuclear power, it doesn't matter how many tens of thousands of troops you have, or whatever else you can do or can't do, you have to deal with the nuclear power in a different way, because the threat is that they might use the weapon.

The other real threat -- and this is something that we really need to think about here and that the U.S. is going to have to think about -- is the threat of proliferation, not North Korea necessarily threatening its neighbors. That's not really what this is about. But we know they sell missiles all over the world. We know that they sold nuclear equipment to Pakistan and others, and that's changed the world already by making Pakistan and India nuclear powers up against each other. If they were to become a meaningful nuclear power and had those weapons, they may not use them themselves, but they might sell them to others, or the means to make them to others, and that is of primary concern to the United States right now.

CALLAWAY: David, you have to wonder, should attention not be focusing more now on North Korea than indeed Iraq.

CLINCH: Well, I think it is perhaps in some ways right now. The Iraq process is there, and everybody is clear, even the United States, that this will take a period of time to work itself out. North Korea, as I said, has to sort of, in one way, be addressed immediately, or otherwise by the time Iraq is finished with, North Korea will be a nuclear power, and the whole thing will have to be dealt with in a much, much different environment.

If they have the weapons, or the United States believes they have the weapons, conventional forces and diplomacy to a certain degree become irrelevant. If they have them, what will they do with them, not just now, but in the future? And who might they sell them to?

CALLAWAY: Right.

CLINCH: Or who might get their hands on them? Or if something goes wrong in North Korea, an accident or something else, the fallout for Seoul, which is right next door, for Tokyo, they again, they have the missiles to deliver these weapons as well.

CALLAWAY: And again, as you mentioned yesterday as your job, which is a difficult one...

CLINCH: Well, we...

CALLAWAY: ... (UNINTELLIGIBLE) the ramifications of these moves...

(CROSSTALK)

CLINCH: Right. And again, we cannot at the moment get into North Korea, but we hope to do that. We've been there before, more than any other network. We hope to get in there again. We hope to use all our analysts and all our reporters on the story to make sure that we understand what is going on here.

If you do what I have to do every night, which is to read the North Korean news agency wires and try and understand what Kim Jong Il is trying to do, anyone who says they know what he's trying to do is a liar. But we have to do our best to try and understand what's going on here.

The goal seems to be, from the North Korean point of view, getting the U.S. to pay attention, getting the U.S. to sign a unilateral, one-on-one deal with North Korea, recognizing their existence, officially ending the Korean War, taking them seriously -- all of those things. But who knows? I mean, there are so many unpredictibles here. The fact is, it has to be dealt with very quickly by the United States, or by the time it is dealt with, North Korea will a nuclear power.

CALLAWAY: Well, we're already seeing the rhetoric step up.

CLINCH: Absolutely.

CALLAWAY: All right, thank you, David.

CLINCH: You're welcome.

CALLAWAY: A busy day for you.

CLINCH: Yes.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.






Aired December 24, 2002 - 06:36   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CATHERINE CALLAWAY, CNN ANCHOR: North Korea is the hot topic again this morning. Senior international editor David Clinch is back with us to tell us more about this story.
And we just talked to Suzanne Malveaux...

DAVID CLINCH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL EDITOR: Right.

CALLAWAY: ... about possibly the president having to address this.

CLINCH: He is going to have to address it. I teased earlier the segment here talking about why we are going to look at the comments that Donald Rumsfeld had yesterday that the U.S. could fight two wars on two fronts if it had to, and why that's not necessarily going to have happen.

That's not necessarily good news, though. It's not going to happen most likely, because either the U.S. has to deal with this right now before North Korea becomes a nuclear power basically, even a small-scale one, or conventional forces really become irrelevant. When you're dealing with a nuclear power, it doesn't matter how many tens of thousands of troops you have, or whatever else you can do or can't do, you have to deal with the nuclear power in a different way, because the threat is that they might use the weapon.

The other real threat -- and this is something that we really need to think about here and that the U.S. is going to have to think about -- is the threat of proliferation, not North Korea necessarily threatening its neighbors. That's not really what this is about. But we know they sell missiles all over the world. We know that they sold nuclear equipment to Pakistan and others, and that's changed the world already by making Pakistan and India nuclear powers up against each other. If they were to become a meaningful nuclear power and had those weapons, they may not use them themselves, but they might sell them to others, or the means to make them to others, and that is of primary concern to the United States right now.

CALLAWAY: David, you have to wonder, should attention not be focusing more now on North Korea than indeed Iraq.

CLINCH: Well, I think it is perhaps in some ways right now. The Iraq process is there, and everybody is clear, even the United States, that this will take a period of time to work itself out. North Korea, as I said, has to sort of, in one way, be addressed immediately, or otherwise by the time Iraq is finished with, North Korea will be a nuclear power, and the whole thing will have to be dealt with in a much, much different environment.

If they have the weapons, or the United States believes they have the weapons, conventional forces and diplomacy to a certain degree become irrelevant. If they have them, what will they do with them, not just now, but in the future? And who might they sell them to?

CALLAWAY: Right.

CLINCH: Or who might get their hands on them? Or if something goes wrong in North Korea, an accident or something else, the fallout for Seoul, which is right next door, for Tokyo, they again, they have the missiles to deliver these weapons as well.

CALLAWAY: And again, as you mentioned yesterday as your job, which is a difficult one...

CLINCH: Well, we...

CALLAWAY: ... (UNINTELLIGIBLE) the ramifications of these moves...

(CROSSTALK)

CLINCH: Right. And again, we cannot at the moment get into North Korea, but we hope to do that. We've been there before, more than any other network. We hope to get in there again. We hope to use all our analysts and all our reporters on the story to make sure that we understand what is going on here.

If you do what I have to do every night, which is to read the North Korean news agency wires and try and understand what Kim Jong Il is trying to do, anyone who says they know what he's trying to do is a liar. But we have to do our best to try and understand what's going on here.

The goal seems to be, from the North Korean point of view, getting the U.S. to pay attention, getting the U.S. to sign a unilateral, one-on-one deal with North Korea, recognizing their existence, officially ending the Korean War, taking them seriously -- all of those things. But who knows? I mean, there are so many unpredictibles here. The fact is, it has to be dealt with very quickly by the United States, or by the time it is dealt with, North Korea will a nuclear power.

CALLAWAY: Well, we're already seeing the rhetoric step up.

CLINCH: Absolutely.

CALLAWAY: All right, thank you, David.

CLINCH: You're welcome.

CALLAWAY: A busy day for you.

CLINCH: Yes.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.