Sites Holmquist trys, and often fails, to go no more than a couple of days without visiting (some of which Holmquist regularly swipes links from without attribution)
"Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has put 24 long-range bombers on alert for possible deployment within range of North Korea, both to deter 'opportunism' at a moment when Washington is focused on Iraq and to give President Bush military options if diplomacy fails to halt North Korea's effort to produce nuclear weapons, officials said today," David E. Sanger and Thom Shanker write in a New York Times story dated February 3.
Minor note: Sanger and Shanker include the following paragraph:
The White House insisted today that Mr. Bush was still committed to a diplomatic solution to the crisis. Any decision to bolster the considerable American military presence near North Korea was simply what Ari Fleischer, the president's spokesman, called making "certain our contingencies are viable." [Italics added]
...what the President has said to you is ongoing and valid, that the President continues to believe that the matter with North Korea can be resolved through diplomatic means, but that does not mean that the United States will always have contingencies and make certain that the contingencies are viable. [Italics added}
Either could be right. Fleischer did not want to get pinned down on whether or not President George W. Bush considered invading North Korea to be an option, FWIW. posted by micah holmquist at 2/04/2003 11:58:00 AM
