Fox - White House Warns North Korea
Reported by Donna - May 18, 2005
Monday, on Studio B with Shepard Smith, it was announced that the White House was warning North Korea that they would be punished if they continued to test nukes. The White House said they were going to back up talk with action if the testing continued.
How the White House was going to back up that warning was a bit fuzzy, though.
Smith spoke to Michael O'Hanlon from the Brookings Institute, a frequent guest, about the North Korean situation.
O'Hanlon said that China and South Korea would not punish North Korea so it left it up to the United States and Japan. He stated that as far as sanctions go, their wasn't much that the U.S. could do. He thought that Japan could warn of sanctions but the only thing that the U.S. could do would be to stop humanitarian aid.
When asked what North Korea's response to this warning would be, O'Hanlon said that they would make sure they insulted Mr. Bush and that they were fundamentally afraid of Mr. Bush.
O'Hanlon ended the segment with (paraphrased)'I don't sleep too easily with North Korea having 6 - 8 nuclear weapons.'
Comment: Tough words, the White House saying they would back up their talk with action, but in essence, no action except for sanctioning humanitarian aid is available. Are we to assume that this action might be war? I think this was a case of some more 'fear factor' from Fox.
