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North Korea: A Weapons Powerhouse?

Aired May 01, 2003 - 13:45   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.


MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: The communist nation warned the U.S. yesterday not to internationalize the issue and get the United Nations involved. Pyongyang says if that happens it will take self-defensive measures. It's this threat of aggression that worries the U.S., but does Pyongyang have the conventional weaponry to back up its claim, or is this perhaps just a sinister shakedown?
Our guest is retired General Paul Funk. He is on the army and Defense Department science advisory boards, joining us live from Austin, Texas with some insights.

General, Funk, good to have you with us.

All right, let's run through some numbers quickly. The North Korean army -- well, I guess it's safe to say, the top priority in the North Korean economy is the army, right?

LT. GEN. PAUL FUNK, (RET.) U.S. ARMY: Absolutely. They get fed, by the way, which is a big deal in North Korea these days.

O'BRIEN: Not to understate the point there.

FUNK: Right.

O'BRIEN: Let's run through some numbers here, if we could. North Korean troop strength: has an army of nearly a million, air force, 85,000, 46,000, navy. The army itself, as we move to the next slide, has 4,000 medium and light tanks, 2,300 armored personnel carriers, 10,000 artillery systems, 2,300 multiple rocket launchers, and then we can go down to the navy quickly. I want to run through this quickly -- 26 submarines, 48 mini-subs, guided missile patrol boats, torpedo boats, amphibious landing craft. Finally, the air force, 849 jet aircraft, 300 transport, 300 helicopters. That's a significant force we've just laid out. What really strikes me, too, is those artillery pieces. Tell me a little bit about that.

FUNK: Yes, in fact, I think you could call, despite the number of battle tanks and personnel carriers, you could call this an artillery army, Miles. They pride themselves on their ability to deliver massive fires, and they have the terrain in which that works very, very well. If you talk about fighting in Korea, you have to talk about mountains and valleys, and you have to talk about infantry swarming the sides of the mountains and artillery smashing forces down in the valleys. In addition...

O'BRIEN: It sounds treacherous, is what it sounds like. FUNK: It's very treacherous and it's very tough. In addition, the artillery is kept underground in most cases. There artillery, you mentioned the multiple-launch rocket systems, and there are some guns called the Cosium (ph) guns. All of this stuff can reach Seoul probably from where they are now, and Seoul is not that far away.

O'BRIEN: I'm going to interrupt quickly. Can we bring up that map, just to show people quickly, the distance between the DMZ, the line of demarcation, 38th parallel, and Seoul is well within artillery range, is it not?

FUNK: Yes, it is, for those kinds of systems that I just mentioned. Further, their plan would be to continue to move those forward, using their armor and mechanized forces to drive wedges and move some of the artillery. But the long-range stuff, they won't have to move.

O'BRIEN: What's interesting about this is that so much can happen so quickly there without much warning.

FUNK: You bet.

O'BRIEN: I'd like to show an animation which will give you a sense -- the U.S., of course, Has a tremendous number of troops on the ground there. As we look at this animation, we'll give you a sense of sort of the eyes in the sky here. We're depicting here the radar swathe of the capabilities there from the ground, which would give them a sense of anything happening awry. Of course this doesn't necessarily help you when you're worried about an artillery strike. This might detect a missile, for example.

But here we go, this is an AWAC system, which would tell if they launch fighters, for example. That has plenty of capability. And we're about to see the joint stars, which kind of looks down. What are the holes in this capability, though, General Funk?

FUNK: I think the first thing is all that stuff they have underground. They practice. They know how to move it out, move it back in. They understand our weapons systems. They understand our radar capability. And they probably understand, better than I do, the holes in all of that.

But the speed with which they can move those guns and rocket systems in and out is pretty doggone good. This is a well-drilled force. They're tough. They're tenacious. They're not the Iraqis that we just faced. But the way, they're better than the Iraqis we faced in 1991. So I mean, this is a tough army.

O'BRIEN: Let's keep that animation up, if we could, please, please. What we're showing there, that shows the range of their known missile inventory, which we know can go as far as Japan.

FUNK: Sure.

O'BRIEN: And we focus so much on missiles. But I guess the point I was trying to make, with all the capabilities they have that are kind of low tech, there can be a lot of havoc raised quickly, and even with all those eyes in the sky that we depicted, including that Global Hawk we saw a moment ago, it could catch the U.S. off guard, could it not?

FUNK: Yes, they can attack very, very quickly, and, in fact, as you said, if they strike Seoul, it will be devastating. Furthermore, if they strike Seoul, they'll really restrict movement throughout the rest of the country. Our mobility would be channelized and limited there. And don't forget, attacking them from the air, with the cover of trees and mountains and everything else will not be like it was in the Iraqi desert, as an example.

O'BRIEN: All right. Lots of words of caution and words to ponder, as this crisis continues to unfold.

General Paul Funk from Austin, Texas, as always, a pleasure having you with us. We appreciate your insights.

FUNK: Absolutely, thank you, Miles. Take care.

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 May 1, 2003 - 13:45   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: The communist nation warned the U.S. yesterday not to internationalize the issue and get the United Nations involved. Pyongyang says if that happens it will take self-defensive measures. It's this threat of aggression that worries the U.S., but does Pyongyang have the conventional weaponry to back up its claim, or is this perhaps just a sinister shakedown?
Our guest is retired General Paul Funk. He is on the army and Defense Department science advisory boards, joining us live from Austin, Texas with some insights.

General, Funk, good to have you with us.

All right, let's run through some numbers quickly. The North Korean army -- well, I guess it's safe to say, the top priority in the North Korean economy is the army, right?

LT. GEN. PAUL FUNK, (RET.) U.S. ARMY: Absolutely. They get fed, by the way, which is a big deal in North Korea these days.

O'BRIEN: Not to understate the point there.

FUNK: Right.

O'BRIEN: Let's run through some numbers here, if we could. North Korean troop strength: has an army of nearly a million, air force, 85,000, 46,000, navy. The army itself, as we move to the next slide, has 4,000 medium and light tanks, 2,300 armored personnel carriers, 10,000 artillery systems, 2,300 multiple rocket launchers, and then we can go down to the navy quickly. I want to run through this quickly -- 26 submarines, 48 mini-subs, guided missile patrol boats, torpedo boats, amphibious landing craft. Finally, the air force, 849 jet aircraft, 300 transport, 300 helicopters. That's a significant force we've just laid out. What really strikes me, too, is those artillery pieces. Tell me a little bit about that.

FUNK: Yes, in fact, I think you could call, despite the number of battle tanks and personnel carriers, you could call this an artillery army, Miles. They pride themselves on their ability to deliver massive fires, and they have the terrain in which that works very, very well. If you talk about fighting in Korea, you have to talk about mountains and valleys, and you have to talk about infantry swarming the sides of the mountains and artillery smashing forces down in the valleys. In addition...

O'BRIEN: It sounds treacherous, is what it sounds like. FUNK: It's very treacherous and it's very tough. In addition, the artillery is kept underground in most cases. There artillery, you mentioned the multiple-launch rocket systems, and there are some guns called the Cosium (ph) guns. All of this stuff can reach Seoul probably from where they are now, and Seoul is not that far away.

O'BRIEN: I'm going to interrupt quickly. Can we bring up that map, just to show people quickly, the distance between the DMZ, the line of demarcation, 38th parallel, and Seoul is well within artillery range, is it not?

FUNK: Yes, it is, for those kinds of systems that I just mentioned. Further, their plan would be to continue to move those forward, using their armor and mechanized forces to drive wedges and move some of the artillery. But the long-range stuff, they won't have to move.

O'BRIEN: What's interesting about this is that so much can happen so quickly there without much warning.

FUNK: You bet.

O'BRIEN: I'd like to show an animation which will give you a sense -- the U.S., of course, Has a tremendous number of troops on the ground there. As we look at this animation, we'll give you a sense of sort of the eyes in the sky here. We're depicting here the radar swathe of the capabilities there from the ground, which would give them a sense of anything happening awry. Of course this doesn't necessarily help you when you're worried about an artillery strike. This might detect a missile, for example.

But here we go, this is an AWAC system, which would tell if they launch fighters, for example. That has plenty of capability. And we're about to see the joint stars, which kind of looks down. What are the holes in this capability, though, General Funk?

FUNK: I think the first thing is all that stuff they have underground. They practice. They know how to move it out, move it back in. They understand our weapons systems. They understand our radar capability. And they probably understand, better than I do, the holes in all of that.

But the speed with which they can move those guns and rocket systems in and out is pretty doggone good. This is a well-drilled force. They're tough. They're tenacious. They're not the Iraqis that we just faced. But the way, they're better than the Iraqis we faced in 1991. So I mean, this is a tough army.

O'BRIEN: Let's keep that animation up, if we could, please, please. What we're showing there, that shows the range of their known missile inventory, which we know can go as far as Japan.

FUNK: Sure.

O'BRIEN: And we focus so much on missiles. But I guess the point I was trying to make, with all the capabilities they have that are kind of low tech, there can be a lot of havoc raised quickly, and even with all those eyes in the sky that we depicted, including that Global Hawk we saw a moment ago, it could catch the U.S. off guard, could it not?

FUNK: Yes, they can attack very, very quickly, and, in fact, as you said, if they strike Seoul, it will be devastating. Furthermore, if they strike Seoul, they'll really restrict movement throughout the rest of the country. Our mobility would be channelized and limited there. And don't forget, attacking them from the air, with the cover of trees and mountains and everything else will not be like it was in the Iraqi desert, as an example.

O'BRIEN: All right. Lots of words of caution and words to ponder, as this crisis continues to unfold.

General Paul Funk from Austin, Texas, as always, a pleasure having you with us. We appreciate your insights.

FUNK: Absolutely, thank you, Miles. Take care.

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