Secretary of State John Kerry on Sunday compared North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to deceased Iraqi dictator Saddan Hussein when discussing the execution of Kim Jong Un’s uncle.
“I mean it really reminded me of — of a video that we saw of Saddam Hussein doing the same thing, having people plucked out of an audience and people sitting there sweating and nobody daring to move or do anything,” Kerry said on ABC’s “This Week,” according to a early transcript. “This is the nature of this ruthless, horrendous dictatorship and of his insecurities.”
Kerry said that Kim Jong Un is incredibly dangerous, and emphasized the need to end North Korea’s nuclear program.
“The insights that we have tell us that he is a, you know, spontaneous, erratic … still worried about his place in the power structure and maneuvering to eliminate any potential kind of a adversary or competitor and does so, obviously, ruthlessly,” Kerry said. “To have a nuclear weapon, potentially, in the hands of somebody like Kim Jong In — Jun — just becomes even more unacceptable.”
