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that doesn't take into account their air force, navy, submarines, or
long-range ballistic missiles, all of which we are seeing on a heightened
state of readiness as well."
"What kind of firepower are we talking about?"
"If they don't go nuclear?"
"Right."
"Using just the artillery pieces already on the front lines, they could hit
Seoul and our frontline forces with half a million rounds an hour."
5:22 A.M. MST-NORAD OPERATIONS CENTER
The news hit Caulfield hard.
He hadn't eaten all day. He was surviving if you could call it that on coffee
and cocaine. Darkness seemed to be closing in around him, hour by hour. And
now this. The
North Koreans had just shot down an unarmed U.S. plane. Without provocation.
In cold blood. Caulfield didn't need to be in the briefings to see what was
coming next. He could read the handwriting on the wall.
The president was going to hit back. He had to hard. And there was Derek, his
older brother the brother who had practically been a father to him since his r
;al father had left home when he was five sitting on the DMZ. Directly in the
line of fire.
Sweat began pouring down his face. His skin felt like it was crawling. He had
to get out of here. He needed fresh air and time to think. But none of that
was going to happen.
Not today. Maybe not for weeks.
* * *
The president felt every muscle in his body tense.
He had no illusions about what was coming. It was going to be a bloodbath, and
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the
South wouldn't be the only ones to suffer. North Korean
No-dong and
Taep'o-dong missiles could reach Tokyo, U.S. bases in Okinawa and Guam, even
Beijing. The whole region could be engulfed in war within days. Where would it
stop? How would it end?
The president's father had been a young staff assistant in army intelligence
in
Washington during the Korean War. Oaks still remembered the phone call
ordering his father into the Pentagon that Saturday night, June 24, 1950. He
remembered gathering around the radio with his mother and younger brothers. He
remembered listening to reports of more than 135,000 North Korean infantry
troops and hundreds of Soviet-built tanks racing across the 38th parallel in
an audacious predawn, Sunday morning raid, local time, backed by unrelenting
artillery fire.
Three days later, they had seized Seoul, backed by Communist China and aided
by a phalanx of Soviet advisors.
By the time the cease-fire was signed on July 27, 1953, 2.5 to 3 million had
been killed, including 36,940 Americans. Millions more were wounded and
maimed. The damage up and down the peninsula was incalculable. But this, Oaks
suddenly realized, would be much worse.
The very notion of a capital city being hit by half a million artillery rounds
per hour was absolutely staggering. He couldn't let it happen.
Then again, he wondered, how was he supposed to stop it?
"How long would it take for the North Korean army to roll across the border,
defeat the ROK's forward deployed forces, and take Seoul?" the president
finally asked.
"It depends on their strategy, sir."
"What do you mean?"
"It all depends on whether they want Seoul intact or not," Garrett explained.
"Assume they do."
"Assuming all we have is the current twenty-five thousand American boots on
the ground, along with the ROK and U.N. forces?"
"Right."
"They could have Seoul in a week, maybe less probably less. It's only
thirty-five miles south of the DMZ, after all."
"Less than a week?" the president asked. "Even with the ROK reserves in
place?"
"The reservists won't be fully up and running for another two weeks, at
best if the
North moves in the next few days, they'll have the advantage, and they know
it."
"And if Pyongyang doesn't want Seoul?"
"Then they use WMDs," Garrett said.
"What do they have, and how much?"
"Mr. President, we estimate the DPRK is producing about three thousand tons of
chemical weapons a year. Best we can tell, they've weaponized mustard gas,
sarin you name it, they've got it. As far as biological weapons, we believe
they've weaponized anthrax, cholera, smallpox, and typhoid as well, sir. The
last time I was at the DMZ which was maybe six months ago a top South Korean
general told me their intelligence shows that the DPRK has between forty and
seventy-five missiles armed with chemical and biological weapons, all deployed
on the front lines. They can launch without warning and would kill upward of
40 percent of the population of Seoul in less than an hour."
"And if the North goes nuclear?" Oaks asked.
Garrett was silent.
"General Garrett, I'm asking you a direct question," the president insisted.
"How many could the North Koreans kill if they choose to go nuclear?"
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"Mr. President, everyone in and around Seoul could be dead in less than four
hours."
"How many people is that, General?"
"Twelve million," Garrett said, "including a hundred thousand Americans, sir."
Oaks winced.
"What's more, Mr. President," Garrett continued, "almost half of South Korea's
population lives within an hour of the capital. The casualties, sir, would be
apocalyptic."
The word jarred Oaks, though he took pains not to show it. Was that what they
were seeing the dawn of the apocalypse?
"How much warning would we have before they attacked?" he asked.
"I suspect they're ready now, Mr. President," Garrett said. "Jack's plane was
sent out
2
to confirm that. And based on the North's reaction, and all the other data
we're seeing, I
believe they could launch at any minute.
That's why the South Koreans and Japanese were asking the SecDef to move so
quickly, even before today's attack and the nuclear attacks back home."
Oaks could see it clearly now. Seoul and Tokyo were desperate that he not
repeat the mistakes Truman and Acheson had made back in 1950. On January 12 of
that year, U.S.
Secretary of State Dean Acheson had delivered a major address at the National
Press Club in which he had actually excluded South Korea from the "defensive
perimeter" of U.S.
military strategy in Asia. Five months later, apparently convinced the U.S.
would not intervene, the North made their move.
Oaks remembered how infuriated his father had been, believing that
Truman and Acheson had effectively invited the war. He remembered General
Dwight
Eisenhower's famous Cincinnati speech excoriating Acheson, stating, "In
January of 1950, our secretary of state declared that America's so-called
'defensive perimeter' excluded areas on the Asiatic mainland such as Korea. He
said in part: 'No person can guarantee such areas against military attack. It
must be clear that such a guarantee is hardly sensible or necessary. . . . It
is a mistake . . . in considering Pacific and Far Eastern problems to become
obsessed with military considerations.'"
Compounding matters, Acheson's top Asia expert at the time, Dean Rusk then
U.S.
assistant secretary of state for the Far East had actually briefed Congress on
June 20, stating that despite rising tensions, he did not believe an invasion
of the South was likely. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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