Part 6 - LA36 KB articles 1988 98 and cuttings 127 006

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would occupy north Korea and "Washington and Seoul will then abolish north Korea as a state and 'reorganise' it under south Korean control". Earlier, in a November 23rd piece in the 'Seattle Times', the same journalist quoted an unnamed Clinton administration official as saying: "When we're done, they will not be able to mount any military activity of any kind. We will kill them all." The authorities in the DPRK have made clear that they take this new threat seriously, but they are not intimidated by it. Whilst the Korean people do not want war, but love peace, they are taking all necessary steps to meet the heightened threat of war, based on their convictions and strategic calculations that, if war is imposed upon them, they will not only survive, but emerge victorious. In its statement of December 2nd last year, the General Staff of the Korean People's Army commented on the Pentagon's 'Operation Plan 5027' and analysed its five stages. According to the KPA statement: "The first stage is a 'control' stage. Under the pretext of 'controlling' the actions of the DPRK, the US is to amass its aggression forces in and around Korea and impose full-scale sanctions upon the DPRK by blocking its sky, seas and border." This, the KPA notes, is already largely the case. In the next stage, the US would launch long-range artillery and air strikes, using B-1 and B-52 bombers, against the DPRK, and including the widespread use of cruise guided missiles, many of which are already placed aboard US submarines that patrol constantly off the north Korean coastline. Indeed, the KPA notes that the US has been stealthily deploying naval and air forces around the area. The third stage would be a 'comprehensive ground offensive operation', in which the US would land troops and marines on both coasts of the DPRK, along with airplane and helicopter borne paratroops and special commandos, aiming to cut the country in two, and encircle the capital, Pyongyang. "The entire resources of the US Marine Corps would flow here", a US official said, referring to the Marine division on the Japanese island of Okinawa, another in California, and the third in North Carolina. Next would be an expansion of the occupation to the whole of north Korea. The final stage would be to forcibly dismantle all the institutions of the DPRK, placing the country under the control of south Korea, and restoring the capitalist system. This, incidentally, would not only render the whole of Korea a US puppet, but also bring US ground forces right to the land border of the People's Republic of China. According to the KPA: "The plan has three elements to provoke all out war; the first to mount a strike at the DPRK while imposing sanctions over the nuclear issue and so-called human rights problems; the second a 'surgical strike' at suspected nuclear facilities in the DPRK; and the third a pre-emptive strike at the DPRK under the pretext of provocation while cynically provoking the north." In tandem with the war preparations on the ground, the US is also ratcheting up its propaganda offensive. In testimony before the US Senate Armed Service Committee on February 2nd, George Tenet, the Director of the CIA, claimed that the DPRK, and specifically its development of missile technology, was now the greatest threat to the national security interests of the United States. The US has also attempted to use the underground tunnel constructed by the Koreans in the Kumchangri area as another pretext to cancel the 1994 agreement and for military aggression.

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