Asia Expert: North Korean Nuclear Threat, Backed by China, Has Terrorist Ties
by Chad Groening
March 18, 2004
(AgapePress) - A veteran national security expert hopes his new book will convince Americans just how dangerous the rogue regime in North Korea has become, and how Communist China is actually the power behind it.Bill Triplett is the former chief counsel to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He has just published a book called Rogue State: How a Nuclear North Korea Threatens America (Regnery, 2004). The author believes the maniacal dictator Kim Jong Il already has nuclear weapons that can hit the United States.
"We do know that in 1998 he fired a missile and a piece of it landed in Alaska. That was almost six years ago, and we anticipate that they've been making progress ever since," Triplett says.
Assuming that is the case, the author believes the presence of long-range nuclear capability in North Korean hands is more than possible. "Given how much progress they're making, I would say it's probably pretty highly likely," he says.
The Asia expert, who has advised both the White House and Congress, says Kim is not only dedicated to developing nuclear weapons, but also to proliferating them. And another concern, Triplett says, is that the North Koreans have already established a link to terrorist Osama bin Laden, which could eventually mean nuclear weapons in terrorist hands.
"The North Koreans already have established a connection with bin Laden to fund one of these Islamic terrorist organizations," the author says, "so you've got the arms pipeline there. The question is what goes down the pipeline. So far it has only been conventional weapons."
However, Triplett says, if the North Koreans are able to offer enough money and terrorist leaders become strapped because funding from Libya or Iraq has dried up, the consequences could be serious.
Still, the national security expert says China is the real power behind the North Korean threat. "The Chinese right now are part of the problem and not a part of the solution. There is a history, exactly, of that kind of cooperation, all the way back to the Korean War. You have this tradition that North Koreans and the Chinese refer to their relationship as 'as close as lips and teeth,'" Triplett says.
