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CNN Saturday Morning News

Insight & Input: Rising Tensions Over North Korea

Aired December 28, 2002 - 08:32   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 CORRESPONDENT: Now for the segment we used to call reporter's notebook. This is called...
CATHERINE CALLAWAY, CNN ANCHOR: "Insight & Input."

O'BRIEN: "Insight & Input," that's it.

CALLAWAY: A look at a top story of the day through the eyes and expertise of CNN reporters and analysts and guests.

O'BRIEN: Today, the rising tensions over North Korea's resumption of a nuclear program is on our plate.

CALLAWAY: Right.

O'BRIEN: And to handle your questions -- and, by the way, you continually stun me, folks, with your excellent insightful questions.

CALLAWAY: And a lot of them, too.

O'BRIEN: We'll try to get -- we'd love to get them all on, but time does not permit.

CNN's Rebecca MacKinnon joining us from Seoul, South Korea. That's our bureau, not a restaurant.

CALLAWAY: White House correspondent Suzanne Malveaux is at the president's ranch in Texas.

O'BRIEN: And CNN military analyst General Wesley Clark and security analyst Kelly McCann all there for us.

Let's get started. Larry Slattery in Williamsburg, Virginia has this for our panel. And let's see, gosh, who are we going to start with? "Why are we becoming so agitated about the nuclear capability of North Korea and not yet about Iran?"

Larry Slattery in Williamsburg.

Let's start with the general. I guess he outranks everybody.

GEN. WESLEY CLARK (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST, FORMER NATO SUPREME COMMANDER: Well, I think it's a good question. But, in fact, we've got to be concerned with all of them. We've got to keep all the balls in the air at the same time and we've had a policy for 50 years of trying to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. And now that policy is coming apart on us. We had been working against the North Korean nuclear program since the early '90s, since they gave it up, and the bargaining over North Korea collapsed at the beginning of this administration. The dialogue was ended. And so the North Koreans have moved to reassert their leverage, reestablish leverage. And if we don't head this off, it will probably, they'll probably spread the technology.

Meanwhile, Iran's working quietly on its own. They're both problems.

CALLAWAY: We want to remind everyone, we're also taking your phone calls, and it's a free one, 1-800-807-2620 is the phone call, 807-2620.

On the phone with us now is Joe from Georgia.

Good morning, Joe.

JOE: Yes, Cathy, you and Miles are great, do a great job. I'd like to ask General Clark a two part question. General Clark...

O'BRIEN: Thank you, Uncle Joe.

JOE: Yes, thank you, Miles. You're great.

General Clark?

CLARK: Yes?

JOE: Should we not bomb their nuclear reactor now and get it out, do it? But if we don't do that and decide on a ground invasion, how many ground troops will it take to win if we invade and how long will it take to win against North Korea?

CLARK: Well, if we try to take out their reactor right now, first of all, they may have some capabilities elsewhere that we're not sure where they are. And so it's more than just the reactor site. But if we do that, it will be an act of war and it will lead, in all probability, we believe it would lead to general war on the Korean Peninsula. At least we'd have to be prepared for that.

So that means deploying several hundred thousand American troops, about half our air assets, mobilizing South Korea and expecting to fight a war that's a chemical, biological and possibly a nuclear exchange on the Korea. There's no doubt who's going to win that, we are, maybe 90, maybe 120 days. Casualty figures are uncertain, but they'd be probably in the tens if not the hundreds of thousands.

So we'd like to avoid that possibility if we can. That's why we go diplomacy first. But we know we have to back our diplomacy with credible force.

O'BRIEN: All right, let's check in with Seoul. Rebecca, a question for you. Sheila King in Cincinnati has this: "I was wondering if North Korea was basically in compliance with the Korean War armistice before the president, Bush, lumped them into the axis of evil in that comment. Did the comment make them try a new policy to 'call the U.S. bluff'?"

REBECCA MACKINNON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, certainly North Korea is reacting over the past year to what it feels is a policy of the Bush administration to isolate North Korea. And a lot of leaders in North Korea, based on statements of the, that have come out of there, do believe that the Bush administration ultimately is seeking the demise of the North Korean regime, which is why in their more recent statements coming out of North Korea, they've been calling for talks with the United States and they want a non-aggression pact. They want the United States to guarantee that it will not attack North Korea and also to legitimize North Korea's existence.

So there is this fear among the North Korean leadership that the U.S. really does want to eliminate that regime. And the feeling is is that this, the recent brinkmanship that we've been seeing, North Korea admitting to having a uranium nuclear power, nuclear weapons program and now kicking out inspectors, reviving its plutonium nuclear weapons program, potentially, that this is seen as a way to bring the United States to the table and to really force the United States to promise, basically, not to attack North Korea.

CALLAWAY: Back to the telephone lines now...

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Can I add to that, Miles?

O'BRIEN: Yes. Who is that?

CALLAWAY: Who is that?

O'BRIEN: Suzanne.

MALVEAUX: Suzanne.

CALLAWAY: Go ahead, Suzanne, Suzanne in Crawford.

MALVEAUX: One thing that the administration wants to make sure, and it's a good point that my colleague brought up, but one thing the administration wants to make sure is that it's not seen as some sort of battle between the West and North Korea. That's why the administration is now really pushing the work to the U.N. Security Council. What they want to do is have the International Atomic Energy Agency go before the United Nations Security Council and impose sanctions. They really want to be separate from this whole thing.

They don't want it to seem as if it's something that is between this administration and North Korea, that they feel that would be somewhat of a trap. They don't want to fall into that trap. That's why we're seeing somewhat of an evolving strategy from the White House, before the White House saying that it was not going to get into direct talks with North Korea, but at the same time really trying to influence Japan, South Korea and now the United Nations Security Council to get more actively involved.

CALLAWAY: Let's jump back on the phone line now and talk to Bruce from Colorado.

Good morning, Bruce.

What's your question?

BRUCE: Good morning.

I want to ask the general, what I don't understand is I know we want to stick our nose in all these other countries. But how, wouldn't it make sense to protect this country first, the borders? We've got all these illegals plus all the terrorists in this country that, if we go to war over there, you don't know what they're going to do over here. And it's just common sense see -- it seems like we ought to clean house here. And that's why the two parties, I don't know why we're going to war over there yet. And we are not protecting American people. You've got homeland security. So what do you do? You go to FEMA and they have martial law? They go to my home and take my gun?

CALLAWAY: Yes, let's let the general weigh in on this.

O'BRIEN: Wait, wait, I'll tell you what, can I interrupt you? Because we're about to lose the satellite feed to Rebecca MacKinnon.

General, let's put that question on the back burner.

CLARK: OK.

O'BRIEN: I'm going to take a quick e-mail that I think would be more applicable to Rebecca and then we'll go back to that question. I apologize to the viewer and to you, general, but we're going to lose the bird and then we'll lose Rebecca, and that would be a shame.

Mr. Finlayson, Al Finlayson of Bowmanville, Ontario, Canada has this: "Why doesn't the U.S., China, Russia just go in and bomb that plant in question? What could North Korea really do about it?"

And I pose this question to you, Rebecca, because of that unlikely alliance that he suggests there, the U.S., China and Russia. And China is the big question here.

MACKINNON: Absolutely.

O'BRIEN: Where is China? What is China doing?

MACKINNON: Well, you cannot forget that China was on the North Korean side during the Korean War. And there are a lot of generals who are not in the top leadership anymore. They're still around. But China's legitimacy of its regime is very much connected with its fight against the United States in the Korean War. And so China remains an ally of North Korea. It gives it assistance. And to turn around, ally with the United States and attack North Korea, that's not considered really a possibility.

O'BRIEN: All right, Rebecca, we appreciate your insights and we're sorry we don't have more time with you today.

Rebecca reporting to us live from the Seoul bureau. CALLAWAY: We're going to take a break.

O'BRIEN: But we're not done.

CALLAWAY: No, we're not.

O'BRIEN: We're going to continue on with the remaining three experts, and Rebecca can phone something in if she wants to add in, I guess.

CALLAWAY: She can e-mail it in, right?

O'BRIEN: Or something to that effect.

Stay with us, Suzanne, General and Kelly.

CALLAWAY: We're back with more in a moment.

O'BRIEN: We'll be back with you in just a moment.

COMMERCIAL

CALLAWAY: We're going to return now to Insight & Input and the expertise of CNN reporters and guests.

We've been discussing all the tensions over North Korea's resumption of a nuclear program. We had CNN's Rebecca MacKinnon from Seoul, South Korea, but she had to run because the bird went out. But White House correspondent Suzanne Malveaux is joining us from the president's ranch in Texas and we're also joined by CNN military analyst General Wesley Clark and CNN security analyst Kelly McCann in Washington.

General, let's get back to you.

We had a question earlier about the president's decision to focus on more foreign policy than domestic at this point. Do you want to answer that question?

CLARK: Well, it was a policy decision made early on by the administration. Secretary Rumsfeld announced it, as I recall, early on last year and the president did. The decision was basically a good offense is more important than a good defense. Let's go on offense first and let's go after the terrorists' base area in Afghanistan and then we'll put the defense together.

The problem is that the defense is a lot harder to put together. It involves lots of different agencies and elements of the United States federal government out in the states. It involves the state government. It involves local fire department and police. It involves health workers. It's very complicated and very difficult.

But that's clearly a priority that the United States and our government leaders have to pay attention to.

O'BRIEN: All right, let's get one in for Kelly McCann, who hasn't had a, it's seldom that Mr. McCann has a hard time getting a word in edgewise, but we, he has met his match here, I believe, today.

Joe Wooldridge in Clarksville, Tennessee has this one for you: "How can the U.S. deal with North Korea through diplomacy without the appearance of being blackmailed by the North Korean nuclear threat and thus having other nations copy the same tactic?" Which really is right at the heart and the soul and center of this issue, isn't it?

J. KELLY MCCANN, CNN SECURITY ANALYST: It is. And I mean if you look at North Korea kind of as a dysfunctional element, in other words, they've got a dysfunction in diplomacy, their ties were not normalized with just about anybody. They've got their own telemic thing going on there where they see themselves as kind of the center of the universe, embattled, scull deflate, as we joke in the military. So when a little bit of language is thrown their way, which was basically a peripheral comment that we could sustain two combat fronts, I think they internalize it a little bit and we're seeing a little bit of a knee jerk here.

We can't let them blackmail us, nor would we. To what level that means that we go to the next step in diplomacy and what kind of leverage that we can bring to bear, that's the question. But certainly no one's looking for, you know, the knee jerk go right to the use of force. I don't think that that's appropriate.

CALLAWAY: On the phone with us now from Tampa is Dean.

Good morning.

Do you have a question?

DEAN: Yes, good morning folks.

My question is for General Clark.

When the United States and North Korea signed a pact in 1994, part of the concessions was the United States giving North Korea two cold water reactors. What role did those two reactors play in actually establishing North Korea's nuclear program?

CLARK: Well, none, because they haven't been built yet. There was a proposal to do this. There was funding. There was a step by step process for surveying the sites, designing it, letting the design meet there. But these light water reactors were designed so that you could not use them to produce plutonium fuel. But they're not operational in any case.

O'BRIEN: All right, let's get an e-mail in, this one for Suzanne from Justin in Durham, North Carolina. "Why are we about to go to war with Iraq and not Korea? The whole world would understand if we went to war with Korea, while all hell" -- his word -- "is going to break loose if we attack Iraq?" And I bring that to you just because it does put two things on significantly heated burners for the White House.

How are they juggling this? MALVEAUX: Absolutely. It's a very good question. That's something that a lot of people are wondering. The administration would answer it a number of ways. But I do want to mention that contrary to some reports, U.S. intelligence officials tell CNN at least that North Korea is not in the position, it doesn't have the capability of actually producing a new nuclear weapon within the year. So they believe, the administration believes that it does have time for diplomacy to work.

The Bush administration also points out a number of other things, saying that you have to look at the record here, you have to look at the fact that Iraq has already used weapons of mass destruction against its own people, that it has provoked its neighbors and that it has not complied with some, you know, 16 U.N. Security Council resolutions. There's generally a sense that the dialogue and discussions with Iraq really just have not been very fruitful at all, that they, it has left the administration with very little other choices or options in dealing with it in that way.

They believe, on the other hand, North Korea desperately needs the aid. They need the oil. They also are going to be dealing with a very harsh winter, perhaps even starvation among a lot of its people, that North Korea is going to be in dire straits. And they think that that, that the leadership of North Korea is going to see the light and perhaps at least bend to some of the pressure from South Korea and some of the other U.S. allies to actually change its behavior.

So that's, those are the primary reasons why the administration is focusing on these two countries in very different ways.

CALLAWAY: Let's toss our next question to Kelly McCann.

If North Korea were to move south over our tripwire forces, how long are they expected to hold?

MCCANN: Well, anyone who's been deployed over there -- I'm sure the general's made his way through there several times -- can tell you that it's a strange place in that all the side roads, all the mountain passes, all the highway systems are designed in order to shut down mobility to Seoul. Great slabs of concrete that can be dropped into the highways, mountain passes that have huge boulders that will take a small kicker charge to drop the boulders into the passageway. This country has been prepared for kind of incursions for, you know, over 40 years. So I mean it's an amazing kind of structure.

How long it would take and if you introduce a dirty environment, a contaminated environment, a nuclear, biological, chemical environment, is hard to predict.

The general, who I'd err on the side of his comment there, 120 days, is likely, as well as his casualty estimate. You know, war today is going to have significant ramifications no matter where it's played out.

O'BRIEN: All right, let's get a quick -- we'll end with the general. One final question. This is kind of an interesting historical parallel that Billy Woodson, who's retired from the Air Force in Abilene, Texas offers us: "Now that North Korea has nuclear weapons, would the U.S. consider placing nukes in Japan?" That's a provocative question right there. "Or does Japan have nuclear weapons? Also, do you think this could turn into another Bay of Pigs situation?"

Good question, Billy.

CLARK: Well, I don't think we would consider placing nuclear weapons in Japan. They don't have them now. They don't want them. They don't even like nuclear powered vessels around their island. And so -- but we don't need to do that. What we need to do is we need to work diplomacy here behind-the-scenes to reestablish a dialogue. The North Koreans have to make the first moves here. They have to stop reactivating their plant. They have to come into compliance with their international obligations. And then a dialogue could begin and relief could begin flowing in there and so forth.

But China, Russia, Japan, South Korea, other nations are going to have to help the United States and move into this so that we're not engaged in a situation where we're giving in to this overt pressure from the North Koreans. This is their ham handed diplomacy, where they don't understand the way the world really works.

So they're going to have to be talked to and they're going to have to back off from this. That's the right solution for it. When we go to the United Nations that can help us. What we don't want to get into is escalating threats and counter-threats back and forth across the demilitarized zone, which, with the very volatile North Korean temperament, could accidentally lead to some kind of an incident or even, god forbid, to a war over there.

O'BRIEN: Let's leave it at that point.

CALLAWAY: Yes, we've got to end it there. We're out of time.

General Wesley Clark, thank you for being with us this morning. Kelly McCann, the CNN security analyst, and White House correspondent Suzanne Malveaux in Texas. Also, we want to thank Rebecca MacKinnon, who was us from Seoul, South Korea.

A great panel and lots of good questions this morning.

O'BRIEN: We'll have to phone in her, a thanks to her, since we lost her on the satellite.

And thank you for some great questions. As always, you made it an excellent segment. We appreciate your input.

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Aired December 28, 2002 - 08:32   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Now for the segment we used to call reporter's notebook. This is called...
CATHERINE CALLAWAY, CNN ANCHOR: "Insight & Input."

O'BRIEN: "Insight & Input," that's it.

CALLAWAY: A look at a top story of the day through the eyes and expertise of CNN reporters and analysts and guests.

O'BRIEN: Today, the rising tensions over North Korea's resumption of a nuclear program is on our plate.

CALLAWAY: Right.

O'BRIEN: And to handle your questions -- and, by the way, you continually stun me, folks, with your excellent insightful questions.

CALLAWAY: And a lot of them, too.

O'BRIEN: We'll try to get -- we'd love to get them all on, but time does not permit.

CNN's Rebecca MacKinnon joining us from Seoul, South Korea. That's our bureau, not a restaurant.

CALLAWAY: White House correspondent Suzanne Malveaux is at the president's ranch in Texas.

O'BRIEN: And CNN military analyst General Wesley Clark and security analyst Kelly McCann all there for us.

Let's get started. Larry Slattery in Williamsburg, Virginia has this for our panel. And let's see, gosh, who are we going to start with? "Why are we becoming so agitated about the nuclear capability of North Korea and not yet about Iran?"

Larry Slattery in Williamsburg.

Let's start with the general. I guess he outranks everybody.

GEN. WESLEY CLARK (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST, FORMER NATO SUPREME COMMANDER: Well, I think it's a good question. But, in fact, we've got to be concerned with all of them. We've got to keep all the balls in the air at the same time and we've had a policy for 50 years of trying to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. And now that policy is coming apart on us. We had been working against the North Korean nuclear program since the early '90s, since they gave it up, and the bargaining over North Korea collapsed at the beginning of this administration. The dialogue was ended. And so the North Koreans have moved to reassert their leverage, reestablish leverage. And if we don't head this off, it will probably, they'll probably spread the technology.

Meanwhile, Iran's working quietly on its own. They're both problems.

CALLAWAY: We want to remind everyone, we're also taking your phone calls, and it's a free one, 1-800-807-2620 is the phone call, 807-2620.

On the phone with us now is Joe from Georgia.

Good morning, Joe.

JOE: Yes, Cathy, you and Miles are great, do a great job. I'd like to ask General Clark a two part question. General Clark...

O'BRIEN: Thank you, Uncle Joe.

JOE: Yes, thank you, Miles. You're great.

General Clark?

CLARK: Yes?

JOE: Should we not bomb their nuclear reactor now and get it out, do it? But if we don't do that and decide on a ground invasion, how many ground troops will it take to win if we invade and how long will it take to win against North Korea?

CLARK: Well, if we try to take out their reactor right now, first of all, they may have some capabilities elsewhere that we're not sure where they are. And so it's more than just the reactor site. But if we do that, it will be an act of war and it will lead, in all probability, we believe it would lead to general war on the Korean Peninsula. At least we'd have to be prepared for that.

So that means deploying several hundred thousand American troops, about half our air assets, mobilizing South Korea and expecting to fight a war that's a chemical, biological and possibly a nuclear exchange on the Korea. There's no doubt who's going to win that, we are, maybe 90, maybe 120 days. Casualty figures are uncertain, but they'd be probably in the tens if not the hundreds of thousands.

So we'd like to avoid that possibility if we can. That's why we go diplomacy first. But we know we have to back our diplomacy with credible force.

O'BRIEN: All right, let's check in with Seoul. Rebecca, a question for you. Sheila King in Cincinnati has this: "I was wondering if North Korea was basically in compliance with the Korean War armistice before the president, Bush, lumped them into the axis of evil in that comment. Did the comment make them try a new policy to 'call the U.S. bluff'?"

REBECCA MACKINNON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, certainly North Korea is reacting over the past year to what it feels is a policy of the Bush administration to isolate North Korea. And a lot of leaders in North Korea, based on statements of the, that have come out of there, do believe that the Bush administration ultimately is seeking the demise of the North Korean regime, which is why in their more recent statements coming out of North Korea, they've been calling for talks with the United States and they want a non-aggression pact. They want the United States to guarantee that it will not attack North Korea and also to legitimize North Korea's existence.

So there is this fear among the North Korean leadership that the U.S. really does want to eliminate that regime. And the feeling is is that this, the recent brinkmanship that we've been seeing, North Korea admitting to having a uranium nuclear power, nuclear weapons program and now kicking out inspectors, reviving its plutonium nuclear weapons program, potentially, that this is seen as a way to bring the United States to the table and to really force the United States to promise, basically, not to attack North Korea.

CALLAWAY: Back to the telephone lines now...

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Can I add to that, Miles?

O'BRIEN: Yes. Who is that?

CALLAWAY: Who is that?

O'BRIEN: Suzanne.

MALVEAUX: Suzanne.

CALLAWAY: Go ahead, Suzanne, Suzanne in Crawford.

MALVEAUX: One thing that the administration wants to make sure, and it's a good point that my colleague brought up, but one thing the administration wants to make sure is that it's not seen as some sort of battle between the West and North Korea. That's why the administration is now really pushing the work to the U.N. Security Council. What they want to do is have the International Atomic Energy Agency go before the United Nations Security Council and impose sanctions. They really want to be separate from this whole thing.

They don't want it to seem as if it's something that is between this administration and North Korea, that they feel that would be somewhat of a trap. They don't want to fall into that trap. That's why we're seeing somewhat of an evolving strategy from the White House, before the White House saying that it was not going to get into direct talks with North Korea, but at the same time really trying to influence Japan, South Korea and now the United Nations Security Council to get more actively involved.

CALLAWAY: Let's jump back on the phone line now and talk to Bruce from Colorado.

Good morning, Bruce.

What's your question?

BRUCE: Good morning.

I want to ask the general, what I don't understand is I know we want to stick our nose in all these other countries. But how, wouldn't it make sense to protect this country first, the borders? We've got all these illegals plus all the terrorists in this country that, if we go to war over there, you don't know what they're going to do over here. And it's just common sense see -- it seems like we ought to clean house here. And that's why the two parties, I don't know why we're going to war over there yet. And we are not protecting American people. You've got homeland security. So what do you do? You go to FEMA and they have martial law? They go to my home and take my gun?

CALLAWAY: Yes, let's let the general weigh in on this.

O'BRIEN: Wait, wait, I'll tell you what, can I interrupt you? Because we're about to lose the satellite feed to Rebecca MacKinnon.

General, let's put that question on the back burner.

CLARK: OK.

O'BRIEN: I'm going to take a quick e-mail that I think would be more applicable to Rebecca and then we'll go back to that question. I apologize to the viewer and to you, general, but we're going to lose the bird and then we'll lose Rebecca, and that would be a shame.

Mr. Finlayson, Al Finlayson of Bowmanville, Ontario, Canada has this: "Why doesn't the U.S., China, Russia just go in and bomb that plant in question? What could North Korea really do about it?"

And I pose this question to you, Rebecca, because of that unlikely alliance that he suggests there, the U.S., China and Russia. And China is the big question here.

MACKINNON: Absolutely.

O'BRIEN: Where is China? What is China doing?

MACKINNON: Well, you cannot forget that China was on the North Korean side during the Korean War. And there are a lot of generals who are not in the top leadership anymore. They're still around. But China's legitimacy of its regime is very much connected with its fight against the United States in the Korean War. And so China remains an ally of North Korea. It gives it assistance. And to turn around, ally with the United States and attack North Korea, that's not considered really a possibility.

O'BRIEN: All right, Rebecca, we appreciate your insights and we're sorry we don't have more time with you today.

Rebecca reporting to us live from the Seoul bureau. CALLAWAY: We're going to take a break.

O'BRIEN: But we're not done.

CALLAWAY: No, we're not.

O'BRIEN: We're going to continue on with the remaining three experts, and Rebecca can phone something in if she wants to add in, I guess.

CALLAWAY: She can e-mail it in, right?

O'BRIEN: Or something to that effect.

Stay with us, Suzanne, General and Kelly.

CALLAWAY: We're back with more in a moment.

O'BRIEN: We'll be back with you in just a moment.

COMMERCIAL

CALLAWAY: We're going to return now to Insight & Input and the expertise of CNN reporters and guests.

We've been discussing all the tensions over North Korea's resumption of a nuclear program. We had CNN's Rebecca MacKinnon from Seoul, South Korea, but she had to run because the bird went out. But White House correspondent Suzanne Malveaux is joining us from the president's ranch in Texas and we're also joined by CNN military analyst General Wesley Clark and CNN security analyst Kelly McCann in Washington.

General, let's get back to you.

We had a question earlier about the president's decision to focus on more foreign policy than domestic at this point. Do you want to answer that question?

CLARK: Well, it was a policy decision made early on by the administration. Secretary Rumsfeld announced it, as I recall, early on last year and the president did. The decision was basically a good offense is more important than a good defense. Let's go on offense first and let's go after the terrorists' base area in Afghanistan and then we'll put the defense together.

The problem is that the defense is a lot harder to put together. It involves lots of different agencies and elements of the United States federal government out in the states. It involves the state government. It involves local fire department and police. It involves health workers. It's very complicated and very difficult.

But that's clearly a priority that the United States and our government leaders have to pay attention to.

O'BRIEN: All right, let's get one in for Kelly McCann, who hasn't had a, it's seldom that Mr. McCann has a hard time getting a word in edgewise, but we, he has met his match here, I believe, today.

Joe Wooldridge in Clarksville, Tennessee has this one for you: "How can the U.S. deal with North Korea through diplomacy without the appearance of being blackmailed by the North Korean nuclear threat and thus having other nations copy the same tactic?" Which really is right at the heart and the soul and center of this issue, isn't it?

J. KELLY MCCANN, CNN SECURITY ANALYST: It is. And I mean if you look at North Korea kind of as a dysfunctional element, in other words, they've got a dysfunction in diplomacy, their ties were not normalized with just about anybody. They've got their own telemic thing going on there where they see themselves as kind of the center of the universe, embattled, scull deflate, as we joke in the military. So when a little bit of language is thrown their way, which was basically a peripheral comment that we could sustain two combat fronts, I think they internalize it a little bit and we're seeing a little bit of a knee jerk here.

We can't let them blackmail us, nor would we. To what level that means that we go to the next step in diplomacy and what kind of leverage that we can bring to bear, that's the question. But certainly no one's looking for, you know, the knee jerk go right to the use of force. I don't think that that's appropriate.

CALLAWAY: On the phone with us now from Tampa is Dean.

Good morning.

Do you have a question?

DEAN: Yes, good morning folks.

My question is for General Clark.

When the United States and North Korea signed a pact in 1994, part of the concessions was the United States giving North Korea two cold water reactors. What role did those two reactors play in actually establishing North Korea's nuclear program?

CLARK: Well, none, because they haven't been built yet. There was a proposal to do this. There was funding. There was a step by step process for surveying the sites, designing it, letting the design meet there. But these light water reactors were designed so that you could not use them to produce plutonium fuel. But they're not operational in any case.

O'BRIEN: All right, let's get an e-mail in, this one for Suzanne from Justin in Durham, North Carolina. "Why are we about to go to war with Iraq and not Korea? The whole world would understand if we went to war with Korea, while all hell" -- his word -- "is going to break loose if we attack Iraq?" And I bring that to you just because it does put two things on significantly heated burners for the White House.

How are they juggling this? MALVEAUX: Absolutely. It's a very good question. That's something that a lot of people are wondering. The administration would answer it a number of ways. But I do want to mention that contrary to some reports, U.S. intelligence officials tell CNN at least that North Korea is not in the position, it doesn't have the capability of actually producing a new nuclear weapon within the year. So they believe, the administration believes that it does have time for diplomacy to work.

The Bush administration also points out a number of other things, saying that you have to look at the record here, you have to look at the fact that Iraq has already used weapons of mass destruction against its own people, that it has provoked its neighbors and that it has not complied with some, you know, 16 U.N. Security Council resolutions. There's generally a sense that the dialogue and discussions with Iraq really just have not been very fruitful at all, that they, it has left the administration with very little other choices or options in dealing with it in that way.

They believe, on the other hand, North Korea desperately needs the aid. They need the oil. They also are going to be dealing with a very harsh winter, perhaps even starvation among a lot of its people, that North Korea is going to be in dire straits. And they think that that, that the leadership of North Korea is going to see the light and perhaps at least bend to some of the pressure from South Korea and some of the other U.S. allies to actually change its behavior.

So that's, those are the primary reasons why the administration is focusing on these two countries in very different ways.

CALLAWAY: Let's toss our next question to Kelly McCann.

If North Korea were to move south over our tripwire forces, how long are they expected to hold?

MCCANN: Well, anyone who's been deployed over there -- I'm sure the general's made his way through there several times -- can tell you that it's a strange place in that all the side roads, all the mountain passes, all the highway systems are designed in order to shut down mobility to Seoul. Great slabs of concrete that can be dropped into the highways, mountain passes that have huge boulders that will take a small kicker charge to drop the boulders into the passageway. This country has been prepared for kind of incursions for, you know, over 40 years. So I mean it's an amazing kind of structure.

How long it would take and if you introduce a dirty environment, a contaminated environment, a nuclear, biological, chemical environment, is hard to predict.

The general, who I'd err on the side of his comment there, 120 days, is likely, as well as his casualty estimate. You know, war today is going to have significant ramifications no matter where it's played out.

O'BRIEN: All right, let's get a quick -- we'll end with the general. One final question. This is kind of an interesting historical parallel that Billy Woodson, who's retired from the Air Force in Abilene, Texas offers us: "Now that North Korea has nuclear weapons, would the U.S. consider placing nukes in Japan?" That's a provocative question right there. "Or does Japan have nuclear weapons? Also, do you think this could turn into another Bay of Pigs situation?"

Good question, Billy.

CLARK: Well, I don't think we would consider placing nuclear weapons in Japan. They don't have them now. They don't want them. They don't even like nuclear powered vessels around their island. And so -- but we don't need to do that. What we need to do is we need to work diplomacy here behind-the-scenes to reestablish a dialogue. The North Koreans have to make the first moves here. They have to stop reactivating their plant. They have to come into compliance with their international obligations. And then a dialogue could begin and relief could begin flowing in there and so forth.

But China, Russia, Japan, South Korea, other nations are going to have to help the United States and move into this so that we're not engaged in a situation where we're giving in to this overt pressure from the North Koreans. This is their ham handed diplomacy, where they don't understand the way the world really works.

So they're going to have to be talked to and they're going to have to back off from this. That's the right solution for it. When we go to the United Nations that can help us. What we don't want to get into is escalating threats and counter-threats back and forth across the demilitarized zone, which, with the very volatile North Korean temperament, could accidentally lead to some kind of an incident or even, god forbid, to a war over there.

O'BRIEN: Let's leave it at that point.

CALLAWAY: Yes, we've got to end it there. We're out of time.

General Wesley Clark, thank you for being with us this morning. Kelly McCann, the CNN security analyst, and White House correspondent Suzanne Malveaux in Texas. Also, we want to thank Rebecca MacKinnon, who was us from Seoul, South Korea.

A great panel and lots of good questions this morning.

O'BRIEN: We'll have to phone in her, a thanks to her, since we lost her on the satellite.

And thank you for some great questions. As always, you made it an excellent segment. We appreciate your input.

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