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KCNA Warns of Possible Nuclear War on Korean Peninsula

The large-scale joint military exercises conducted by the United States and South Korea have made the situation on the Korean Peninsula more tense and a nuclear war may break out at any moment, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA)said on Friday in a commentary.

Timed to coincide with the US military attack on Iraq, which began on Thursday, the military exercises prove that the United States is implementing its strategy of fighting two regional wars at the same time as part of its efforts to dominate the world, said KCNA, the official news agency of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).

With use of massive numbers of troops and modern military equipment, and the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson in a South Korean port, the March 4-April 2 Foal Eagle and the March 19-26 RSOI joint exercises by the United States and South Korea are the largest yet, and are intended to threaten and stifle the DPRK by force, the commentary said.

Now here's a region that is gagging for regime change. But like I said, there's no capital in it for the Bush administration because there's no oil in it... and the Koreans might actually use the nukes.

That aside, I am quietly amused and mildly repulsed by the clumsy way North Korea is trying to use the Iraq War to try to draw attention back to its attempts at nuclear blackmail. As far as I'm aware, there is no US failure to mobilize international pressure against North Korea because the US has never tried. Also, the exercises can't be an attempt to escalate a war that doesn't exist. I have to say I have much less sympathy for North Korea because they admittedly have WMDs and are deliberately posturing to exort money from the West.