Hagel: 'Clear Danger' in Korean Threat

• 

• • 

    How dangerous is North Korea?

  • 

    Bias Bash: Media serious enough on N. Korea threat coverage?

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Wednesday that North Korea's rising threats pose a "real and clear danger," as the Pentagon continued to take precautions with a plan to deploy a missile-defense system to Guam. 

A senior U.S. official confirmed to Fox News that the military will deploy an Army system shown as a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense battery to Guam. The system is capable of shooting down short-, medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles. 

This follows the positioning of two U.S. destroyer ships in the region, along with plans to have two sea-based radar systems in the western Pacific. 

Hagel, speaking Wednesday at the National Defense University, said the cascade of threats out of North Korea must be taken "seriously," given the country's nuclear and missile-delivery capacity -- though analysts say the country still could not fire a nuclear-tipped missile all the way to the continental United States. 

"As they have ratcheted up (their) bellicose, dangerous rhetoric -- and some of the actions they've taken over the last few weeks present a real and clear danger and threat to the interests, certainly of our allies, starting with South Korea and Japan," Hagel said. He also cited the "threats that the North Koreans have leveled directly at the United States regarding our base in Guam, threatened Hawaii, threatened to the West Coast of the United States." 

The Kim Jong Un regime has toggled in recent weeks between threatening the U.S. and threatening South Korea. 

The latest development was North Korea reportedly announcing it had "ratified" a strike plan against the United States. Also Wednesday, it decided to bar South Korean managers and trucks delivering supplies from crossing the border to enter a jointly run factory park called Kaesong. 

The Kaesong industrial park started producing goods in 2004 and has been an unusual point of cooperation in an otherwise hostile relationship between the Koreas, whose three-year war ended in 1953 with an armistice, not a peace treaty. 

The Kaesong move came a day after the North said it would restart its long-shuttered plutonium reactor and a uranium enrichment plant. Both could produce fuel for nuclear weapons that North Korea is developing and has threatened to hurl at the U.S., something experts don't think it will be able to accomplish for years. 

The North's rising rhetoric has been met by a display of U.S. military strength, including flights of nuclear-capable bombers and stealth jets at annual South Korean-U.S. military drills that the allies call routine and North Korea says are invasion preparations. 

In a telephone call Tuesday evening to Chinese Defense Minister Chang Wanquan, Hagel cited North Korea's pursuit of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles and said Washington and Beijing should continue to cooperate on those problems. 

"The secretary emphasized the growing threat to the U.S. and our allies posed by North Korea's aggressive pursuit of nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs and expressed to General Chang the importance of sustained U.S.-China dialogue and cooperation on these issues," Pentagon spokesman George Little said in a statement describing the phone call. 

Little also disclosed that Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will visit China later this month. It would be Dempsey's first trip to China as head of the Joint Chiefs. 

Hagel also invited the Chinese defense minister to visit the United States this year. 

Fox News' Justin Fishel and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

View the original article here

Senate confirms Hagel as Defense secretary- OPINION: 7 things at the top of Hagel's 'to do' list

The Senate approved Chuck Hagel's nomination for Defense secretary Tuesday, ending a contentious battle that exposed deep divisions over the president's Pentagon pick. 

After Republicans blocked the nomination earlier this month, they ultimately allowed for an up-or-down vote on Tuesday. The margin was historically close, with 58 senators supporting him and 41 opposing in the end. 

Though Hagel is himself a former Republican senator, the resistance to his nomination showed an unusual level of distrust among many senators toward the man chosen to lead the Defense Department -- at a time when the country is trying to wind down the Afghanistan war, while assessing emerging threats from Iran, Syria and elsewhere in the turbulent Middle East and North Africa. 

Republicans had earlier held up the nomination largely over demands for more information from the Obama administration on the Sept. 11 Libya attacks. 

But they also raised serious and recurring concerns about Hagel's record of past statements and votes on everything from Israel to Iran to nuclear weapons. 

Sen. John McCain, a leading Republican, clashed with his onetime friend over his opposition to President George W. Bush's decision to send an extra 30,000 troops to Iraq in 2007 at a point when the war seemed in danger of being lost. Hagel, who voted to authorize military force in Iraq, later opposed the conflict, comparing it to Vietnam and arguing that it shifted the focus from Afghanistan. 

McCain called Hagel unqualified for the Pentagon job even though he once described him as fit for a Cabinet post. 

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid asked what the delaying tactics had done for "my Republican colleagues." 

"Twelve days later, nothing. Nothing has changed," the Democrat said on the Senate floor. "Sen. Hagel's exemplary record of service to his country remains untarnished." 

Reid blamed partisanship over Obama's second-term national security team for the delay. Both Reid and Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, a Democrat, warned that it was imperative to act just days before automatic, across-the-board budget cuts hit the Pentagon. 

Hagel will succeed Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and join Obama's retooled national security team. Hagel's nomination bitterly split the Senate, with Republicans turning on their former party colleague and Democrats standing by Obama's nominee. 

Republicans also challenged Hagel about a May 2012 study that he co-authored for the advocacy group Global Zero, which called for an 80 percent reduction of U.S. nuclear weapons and the eventual elimination of all the world's nuclear arms. 

The group argued that with the Cold War over, the United States can reduce its total nuclear arsenal to 900 without sacrificing security. Currently, the U.S. and Russia have about 5,000 warheads each, either deployed or in reserve. Both countries are on track to reduce their deployed strategic warheads to 1,550 by 2018, the number set in the New START treaty that the Senate ratified in December 2010. 

In an echo of the 2012 presidential campaign, Hagel faced an onslaught of criticism by well-funded, Republican-leaning outside groups that labeled the former senator "anti-Israel" and pressured senators to oppose the nomination. The groups ran television and print ads criticizing Hagel. 

Opponents were particularly incensed by Hagel's use of the term "Jewish lobby" to refer to pro-Israel groups. He apologized, saying he should have used another term and should not have said those groups have intimidated members of the Senate into favoring actions contrary to U.S. interests. 

The nominee spent weeks reaching out to members of the Senate, meeting individually with lawmakers to address their concerns and seeking to reassure them about his policies. 

Hagel's halting and inconsistent performance during some eight hours of testimony at this confirmation hearing last month undercut his cause, but it wasn't a fatal blow. 

There was no erosion in Democratic support for the president's choice and Hagel had the backing of three Republicans -- Sens. Thad Cochran, Mike Johanns and Richard Shelby. Other Republicans were reluctant to block a president's Cabinet choice from getting a yes or no vote, fearing the precedent. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

View the original article here