N. Korea has nuclear missile capability to hit US territory

the study directors believe the estimate of 100,000 deaths may be conservative. (Fallujah, for example, was not counted due to the extreme level of violence in that city.)
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It has often been noted that the U.S. military and civilian authorities have refused to account for civilian deaths. The reason is now clear: While the financial costs of the war are calculable, and the diplomatic and political costs increasingly apparent, the human toll has been hidden.

Balanced against a million lives that could be lost if Hussein secretly continued to perfect and amass WMD, yes.

You almost act like someone who is brain damaged. As I pointed out, one can view a problem of this type as being decomposable into 3 factors:

1. What is the probability that the danger exists?
2. What are the consequences if the danger exists?
3. What is the cost of resolving the question definitely?

This is both simple and clear, yet you continue to act as though only factor 3 existed.

parados wrote:

Wow.. lets just pretend we didn't know then what we knew then. This is so much garbage Brandon.

The only valid way of assessing the correctness or incorrectness of the invasion of Iraq is to ask what the conditions were at the time the invasion occurred. Assessing it in terms of what was later discovered is an invalid criterion. Far from being garbage, this is the only valid way to judge the invasion.

parados wrote:

Inspectors were in Iraq. Inspectors were actively searching for any weapons. Inspectors said there was no real evidence of any such weapons. The inspectors were going to continue to search

Hussein had been shining us on for years and years. All he had to do was verifiably show that he had destroyed the WMD, but instead he did things like this:

"Nov 1996 - Iraq blocks UNSCOM from removing remnants of missile engines for in-depth analysis outside Iraq."

and this:

"Jun 1997 - Iraqi escorts on board an UNSCOM helicopter try to physically prevent the UNSCOM pilot from flying the helicopter in the direction of its intended destination. The Security Council issues a presidential statement, deploring the incident and demanding that Iraq permit UNSCOM to carry out its air operations anywhere in Iraq without interference of any kind."

Source

parados wrote:

To answer your 3 questions above.

1. the odds were only about 10%

Perhaps. Perhaps not. You certainly haven't shown this.

parados wrote:

2. The danger wasn't that great based on the possibilities of what he really could have had or even what was suspected at the time based on real undisputed intelligence. Inspectors were making it difficult to actually hide let alone make anything usable.

If he had still had his WMD and development programs, which is what factor 2 is defined to consist of - the consequences if the danger is real - if even one WMD had ever been used in a populated area, the consequence could be as high as perhaps a million dead. It is hard to know exactly without knowing the exact type of WMD, but numbers like a million would certainly be attainable with bioweapons or nukes if you count the people who die over the first few months as a result of the attack.

parados wrote:

3. The cost of letting the inspectors do their jobs? small. a few million.
The cost of doing it your way... $300 billion, thousands of lives and counting.

Still better than what might happen with WMD in Hussein's hands.

Kuvasz--

Our discussion became too awkward to continue posting as it was.

Does the introduction of our anti-ballistic defense technology in the Sea of Japan change any of this for you?

A dated article. I'll try to find something more recent.

I think it's HIGHLY likely that we've been working on this technology since Reagan.

OE-- Let's look around for something definitive. Over the next couple of days. I'd like to know the latest evaluation of the missile defense capabilities.

Brandon9000 wrote:

Balanced against a million lives that could be lost if Hussein secretly continued to perfect and amass WMD, yes.

You almost act like someone who is brain damaged. As I pointed out, one can view a problem of this type as being decomposable into 3 factors:

1. What is the probability that the danger exists?
2. What are the consequences if the danger exists?
3. What is the cost of resolving the question definitely?

This is both simple and clear, yet you continue to act as though only factor 3 existed.

What particular WMD was going to kill 1 million people? Of the suspected existing weapons that Saddam had not a one had this capability.

You just make stuff up Brandon. It seems rather silly to make it up when you can't support it in any fashion. Cite a single weapon providing evidence that he MIGHT have had it in 2003 and then find me a single credible situation in which one of his weapons could possibly kill 1 million people. (Keep in mind there was no one that thought that Saddam had functioning nuke.)

Saddam had no weapon in 2003 capable of killing people in the quantity you are claiming. THere was no suspicion he even had such a weapon. Inspections would have prevented him from building such a weapon.

North Korea now has the ability to arm an intercontinental ballistic missile with a nuclear warhead, the Pentagon's top intelligence agent disclosed Thursday.
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Vice Admiral Lowell E. Jacoby, head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, also told a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing that a North Korean two-stage missile armed with a nuclear warhead had enough range to hit Hawaii, Alaska and parts of the Northwest.But he did not say whether North Korea had tested its long-range missile capabilities.
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He said it was unlikely that North Korea would ever agree to end its nuclear weapons program in "six-party" diplomatic negotiations with the United States, South Korea, Japan, China and Russia.

"We find ourselves in a position now that strikes me as a failed policy with great consequences for the region and the world," she (Senator Clinton) told Jacoby. "We have been locked into this six-party talk idea for a number of years and all the while we have seen North Korea going about the business of acquiring nuclear weapons and the missile capability to deliver those to the shores of the United States."
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The Arms Control Association, a nonpartisan group, agreed with Clinton.
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"If North Koreans are capable of arming one of their ballistic missiles with a nuclear weapon, it makes it all the more important for the Bush administration to adjust its position to improve the chances of a diplomatic solution," said Daryl Kimball, the association's executive director.
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According to a report in Jane's Defence Weekly, North Korea is in the process of developing a new missile system for ships or submarines.

North Korea is in the process of developing a new missile system for ships or submarines, according to a report in Jane's Defence Weekly.

Such a system could "fundamentally alter the missile threat" posed by Pyongyang, as it would then be able to target the entire US, the report says.

A companion land-based missile is thought to have been developed already.

The systems are based on the now decommissioned Soviet R-27 submarine-launched ballistic missile.

The report, published in the authoritative Jane's Defence Weekly, says the land-based system has an estimated range of 2,500km to 4,000km (1,500 miles to 2,500 miles) while the sea-based system is thought to be capable of hitting a target more than 2,500km away

These new land and sea-based systems appreciably expand the ballistic missile threat presented by the DPRK [North Korea]," the report said.
But the most significant part of the new developments appears to be the sea-based missile, as it could be transported almost anywhere in the world by submarine or ship.

Such a system "could finally provide [the North Korean] leadership with something that it has long sought to obtain - the ability to directly threaten the continental US," the report warns.

Ian Kemp, the news editor of Jane's Defence Weekly, said only five other countries have this capability: the declared nuclear powers of the US, the UK, France, China and Russia.

He told BBC News Online that North Korea was "almost certainly" developing the missile with the intention of adding nuclear warheads.

Pyongyang could also be intending to sell its new missiles to another country, although according to Jane's, there is no evidence that any attempt has been made so far.

Iran would appear the ideal customer, the Jane's report says, "given its requirement for a system capable of striking Israel from the security of its own territory".

North Korea has already proved it owns short-range missiles such as the Taepodong 1, which is capable of reaching a target up to 2,000km away.

A Taepodong 1 was fired over Japanese territory in 1998, landing in the Pacific Ocean and causing much alarm in Tokyo.

Correspondents say there is mounting evidence that Pyongyang has also been working on a missile with a much longer range, the Taepodong 2, which is thought to be capable of reaching targets 8,000km away, such as Hawaii or Alaska.

According to Mr Kemp, there is no evidence that the advent of the new missiles will affect the completion of the Taepodong 2.

The two systems could be complementary, he said.

24 April 2004
US shield against North Korea missiles said unproven
By Jim Wolf
Reuters
http://www.cndyorks.gn.apc.org/yspace/articles/bmd/md_vs_nk_missile.htm
http://www.reuters.com/locales/newsArticle.jsp?type=worldNews&...
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?...

US ability to shoot down a North Korean ballistic missile will be "largely unproven" when a multibillion-dollar shield becomes operational in coming months, congressional investigators said on Friday. "As a result of testing shortfalls and the limited time available to test the (Ballistic Missile Defence System) being fielded, system effectiveness will be largely unproven when the initial capability goes on alert at the end of September 2004," the General Accounting Office said.[/b]

The Pentagon's Missile Defence Agency says the initial deployment will provide protection of all 50 US states against a limited strike from Northeast Asia.

"However, testing in 2003 did little to demonstrate the predicted effectiveness of the system's capability to defeat ballistic missiles as an integrated system," said the GAO, Congress' nonpartisan audit and investigative arm.

None of the components has been flight tested yet in the configurations in which they ultimately will be deployed, the study said. The system has "not been tested under unscripted, operationally realistic conditions," it added.

Richard Lehner, a spokesman for the Pentagon's Missile Defence Agency, noted the United States currently had no Defence at all against ballistic missiles, which could carry nuclear, chemical or biological warheads.

"We think that by the end of the year we'll have a capability against a limited threat," he said. How many incoming missiles could supposedly be shot down was classified and always will be to avoid guiding an enemy, Lehner said.