North Korea Test-Fires Two Missiles

[Sean Osborne]

If the nut-case commie North Koreans are feeling froggy, then let them jump.

Mid-air or space interception a vitual certainty.

They will have no recieved telemetry data of any value whatsoever.

Tango Sierra.

[falcon]

CBS/AP) North Korea lashed out at the United States over its plans to build a missile defense shield Tuesday but didn't directly address concerns that it is preparing to test-fire a missile capable of reaching the United States.

Just a few things DC needs to tell these nut-case commies, that we don't need to check in with you everytime we address these issues.

Also you nut cases in DC need to just keep you mouth shout about turning on the Missile Defense Shield, when NK launches just shoot it down, then tell the world our program works guys stop the PC BS

[samizdat]

Choe Thae Bok, a ranking Workers Party official, said Washington is 'hell-bent on provocations of war of aggression' in the report to mark the 42nd anniversary of Kim's start at the party, KCNA said.

'If the enemies ignite a war eventually, the Korean army and people will mercilessly wipe out the aggressors and give vent to the deep-rooted grudge of the nation,' Choe was quoted as telling the meeting.

Kim is old and has been ill. There were squabbles about succesion. Is Choe looking for the limelight?

[Sean Osborne]

All options open if North Korea tests missile: US envoy

Wed Jun 21, 2006 2:59am ET


TOKYO (Reuters) - U.S. ambassador to Japan Thomas Schieffer said on Wednesday that if North Korea launched a long-range ballistic missile it would be a "clear violation" of agreements it has made in the past.


The United States has activated its ground-based interceptor missile-defense system amid concerns over an expected North Korean missile launch, a U.S. defense official said on Tuesday.
Asked if the United States would try to shoot down a North Korean missile, Schieffer said: "I think what we have said is that we have greater technical measures of tracking than in the past and we have options that we have not had in the past, and all these options are on the table."

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsar...src=rss&rpc=22

[American Patriot]

[June 20, 2006]

LEAD: U.S. activates missile defense, may intercept N. Korea missile+

(Japan Economic Newswire Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) WASHINGTON, June 20_(Kyodo) _ (EDS: ADDING INFO)

The United States has moved its ground-based missile defense system from test to operational mode and is considering the option of intercepting North Korea's long-range missile if launched, the Washington Times reported Tuesday.

Quoting U.S. officials speaking on condition of anonymity, the newspaper said the system was activated within the past two weeks in the wake of North Korea stepping up preparations for launching a Taepodong-2 long-range ballistic missile.

Reuters and other media reported U.S. officials as confirming the Washington Times report.

The missile shield includes 11 long-range interceptor missiles, including nine deployed at Fort Greeley, Alaska, and two at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, the Washington Times said.

Two U.S. Navy Aegis warships are patrolling near North Korea as part of the global missile defense system and would be among the first sensors that would trigger the use of interceptors, the newspapers said.

One senior administration official was quoted as telling the Washington Times that the U.S. government is considering the option of shooting down the Taepodong missile with responding interceptors.

The officials said an immediate launch is unlikely because of poor weather conditions above North Korea's missile site located by U.S. intelligence satellites, according to the newspaper.

But it also quoted U.S. intelligence officials as saying preparations have advanced to the point where a launch could take place within "several days to a month."

U.S. Northern Command spokesman Michael Kucharek was reported as saying that the command "continues to monitor the situation, and we are prepared to defend the country in any way necessary."

[American Patriot]

Heads up. US navy just moved a bunch of ships off the coast of North Korea

[Ryan Ruck]

If anyone had ANY doubts…

Chinese, N. Korean Military Confirm Ties Amid Missile Question

Chinese and North Korean military officials agreed Wednesday to boost bilateral cooperation, China's state-run media reported in a dispatch that gave no hint as to whether a possible test-firing of a missile by North Korea was mentioned in their Beijing talks.

The talks were held in the Chinese capital between a visiting North Korean delegation headed by Ri Yong Hwan, an army commander of the Korean People's Army, and Liang Guanglie, chief of the general staff of the People's Liberation Army, Xinhua News Agency reported.

Liang was quoted by Xinhua as saying that China will work with North Korea to expand cooperation between the two armed forces and the two nations.

Ri said the North hopes to "learn from China's successful experience in building the country and the army," Xinhua reported.

Launch preparations for the Taepodong-2 missile have been observed in North Korea in recent days, prompting warnings from Japan and the United States that Pyongyang refrain from going ahead with any missile test plans.

No mention was made in the Xinhua report of the missile question.

If launched, it would be the North's first launch of a medium- or long-range missile since 1998, when it fired the Taepodong-1 missile, part of which flew over Japan into the Pacific.

Pyongyang maintains the 1998 launch was a multistage rocket to send a satellite into orbit.

[wallis]

Based on news reports, I am lowering my assessment of a launch to 25% probability. The North Koreans are getting closer to getting some of the demands they want.

[American Patriot]

Associated Press
Russia Summons North Korea's Ambassador
By BURT HERMAN , 06.22.2006, 12:46 PM

Russia summoned North Korea's ambassador Thursday to express alarm that Pyongyang could launch a long-range missile, and the isolated nation's other major ally, China, issued its strongest statement of concern to date over the standoff.

South Korea played down the growing tensions, saying a missile firing was not imminent, although the U.S. national security adviser said launch preparations were "very far along."

In an unusual step, Russia's Foreign Ministry called in North Korean Ambassador Pak Ui Chun to say it was alarmed by reports of the planned launch and warn him of Moscow's opposition to any steps that would destabilize the region.

"In particular, the undesirability was stressed of any actions which could negatively affect regional stability and complicate the search for a settlement to the Korean peninsula's nuclear problem," a ministry statement said.

At a regular briefing in Beijing, Jiang Yu, a Chinese Foreign Ministry official, said, "We are very concerned about the current situation. ... We hope all parties can do more in the interest of regional peace and stability."

Worries over a possible North Korean launch have grown in recent weeks after reports of activity at the country's launch site on its northeastern coast where U.S. officials say a Taepodong-2 missile - believed capable of reaching parts of the United States - is possibly being fueled.

Japan and the United States have issued strong statements of concern and have sent ships and planes to monitor the communist nation.

South Korean Defense Minister Yoon Kwang-ung said that, "It is our judgment that a launch is not imminent."

But if the North fires a missile toward South Korean territories, combined U.S. and South Korean forces will be "ready to intercept it immediately," Yoon told a parliamentary meeting.

Seoul has sat for years in the cross hairs of hundreds of North Korean missiles and artillery, and it fears that increased tension could roil its economy.

When asked about South Korea's assessment, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley said, "We're watching it very carefully and preparations are very far along."

"So you could, from a capability standpoint, have a launch," Hadley said. "Now what they intend to do - which is what a lot of people are trying to read - of course we don't know. What we hope they will do is give it up and not launch."

A top Pentagon official said that a launch would be "a provocation and a dangerous action" that would lead to the United States imposing "some cost" on North Korea.

Peter Rodman, assistant secretary of defense for international security policy, told a House Armed Services Committee hearing that he did not know if such a launch would happen. If it did, Rodman said the Bush administration would take some, unspecified action.

Washington is weighing responses to a potential test that could include trying to shoot down the missile, U.S. officials have said.

The U.S. has urged China, which sends an unknown amount of food aid to the North and is its No. 1 trade partner, to press the North to back down on its potential missile test. President Bush has praised Beijing for "taking responsibility in dealing with North Korea."

Jiang said China would "continue to make constructive efforts."

The North's test of a long-range missile in 1998 shocked Japan and prompted it to accelerate work with Washington on a joint missile defense system.

The communist nation has been under a self-imposed moratorium on long-range missile tests since 1999, when its relations with the United States were relatively friendly. However, it has since test-fired short-range missiles many times, including two in March.

There are diverging expert opinions on whether fueling would mean a launch was imminent - due to the highly corrosive nature of the fuel - or whether the North could wait a month or more.

A North Korean diplomat said in reported comments Wednesday that the country wanted to engage in talks with Washington over its concerns of a possible missile test. The Bush administration rejected the overture, saying threats aren't the way to seek dialogue.

The U.S. instead called on North Korea to return to six-nation talks on its nuclear program.

U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton said he was talking with Security Council members on possible action.

The North agreed at talks in September to abandon its nuclear program in exchange for security guarantees and aid, but no progress has been made on implementing the accord.

North Korea has complained repeatedly in recent weeks about alleged U.S. spy flights, including off the coast where the missile test facility is located.

"The ceaseless illegal intrusion of the planes has created a grave danger of military conflict in the air above the region," the official Korean Central News Agency said.

The U.S. has sent ships off the Korean coast capable of detecting and tracking a missile launch, a Pentagon official said. South Korean aircraft have also been flying reconnaissance over the waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan, said the military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the subject.

Japan said it, too, had sent naval ships and patrol planes to monitor the developments.

The North has claimed to have a nuclear weapon, but isn't thought to have an advanced design that could be placed on a warhead.

Japanese police were preparing for a "worst-case scenario," including the possibility that parts of a missile could fall on Japan, said Iwao Uruma, commissioner general of the National Police Agency.

About 1,000 people, including army veterans and activists, staged an anti-North Korea rally in Seoul, condemning the missile threat.

The two Koreas remain technically at war since the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a cease-fire, not a peace treaty.



Associated Press reporters Gillian Wong in Beijing and Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo contributed to this report.

[American Patriot]

Bush Warns North Korea Against Missile Tests
By Leta Hong Fincher
Washington, DC
22 June 2006

President Bush has warned North Korea against testing a long-range missile as tension continues to mount over Pyongyang's intentions. U.S. officials are considering activating an unproven missile defense system. Leta Hong Fincher has more on whether a U.S. missile interception would work.

President Bush said Wednesday he expects North Korea to abide by international agreements it has made on missile tests. "We think it'd be in the world's interest to know what they're testing, what they intend to do on their test. It should make people nervous when non-transparent regimes, that have announced that they've got nuclear warheads, fire missiles."

Mr. Bush told a news conference at the U.S.-European Union summit in Vienna that North Korea faces further international isolation if it test fires a long-range missile.

Satellite images show that North Korea may be planning a missile launch.

If Pyongyang actually test fires a missile, U.S. officials are said to be considering shooting it down. The United States has 11 ground-based missile interceptors in Alaska and California.

But the missile defense system is not fully operational and officials say it is difficult to destroy a small missile traveling at high speed.

Critics say the $90-billion U.S. missile defense program is ineffective. John Isaacs is head of the Council for a Livable World, an arms control advocacy group in Washington. "With all the money spent and all the testing and all the tries, we have no idea if the system will work."

Even if the Pentagon could shoot down a North Korean missile, some nonproliferation experts argue that such a response might provoke a strong international reaction.

Robert Einhorn is an international security expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. He says the international community may not see this as a positive step.

"I think world public opinion would tend to be more, or as hostile, toward the U.S. interception as toward the North Korean launch. And if we tried to intercept it and failed, I think that would be a major embarrassment."

The U.S. Missile Defense Agency had planned a test in the Pacific Wednesday, but officials say it is unrelated to tensions with North Korea.

[American Patriot]

Associated Press
S. Korea: North Missile Test Not Imminent
By BURT HERMAN , 06.22.2006, 09:19 AM

South Korea's defense minister said Thursday that Seoul believes North Korea's missile launch is not imminent despite concern in the region that the communist nation would test-fire a long-range missile.

"It is our judgment that a launch is not imminent," Defense Minister Yoon Kwang-ung told a parliamentary meeting in comments confirmed by his ministry.

Worries over a possible North Korean launch have grown in recent weeks after reports of activity at the country's launch site on its northeastern coast where U.S. officials say a Taepodong-2 missile - believed capable of reaching parts of the United States - is possibly being fueled.

Yoon said if the North fires a missile toward South Korean territory, combined U.S. and South Korean forces will be ready to intercept it.

Japan and the United States have issued strong statements of concern and have sent ships and planes to monitor the communist nation.

China on Thursday issued its strongest statement of concern over a possible launch, while Pyongyang warned of clashes in the skies as it accused U.S. spy planes of repeated illegal intrusions.

Beijing is the North's last major ally and key benefactor, and Washington has urged China to press the North to back down on its potential missile test.

"We are very concerned about the current situation," Jiang Yu, a Chinese Foreign Ministry official, said at a regular briefing in Beijing. "We hope all parties can do more in the interest of regional peace and stability."

Jiang said China would "continue to make constructive efforts."

President Bush praised China on Wednesday for "taking responsibility in dealing with North Korea."

The North's test of a long-range missile in 1998 shocked Japan and prompted it to accelerate work with Washington on a joint missile defense system.

The communist nation has been under a self-imposed moratorium on long-range missile tests since 1999, when its relations with the United States were relatively friendly. However, it has since test-fired short-range missiles many times, including two in March.

There are diverging expert opinions on whether fueling would mean a launch was imminent - due to the highly corrosive nature of the fuel - or whether the North could wait a month or more.

A North Korean diplomat said in reported comments Wednesday that the country wanted to engage in talks with Washington over its concerns of a possible missile test. The Bush administration rejected the overture, saying threats aren't the way to seek dialogue.

"You don't normally engage in conversations by threatening to launch intercontinental ballistic missiles," U.N. Ambassador John Bolton said.

The U.S. instead called on North Korea to return to six-nation talks on its nuclear program.

Bolton said he was continuing discussions with U.N. Security Council members on possible action, and had met with Russia's U.N. ambassador. Washington is weighing responses to a potential test that could include trying to shoot down the missile, U.S. officials have said.

China said all parties should focus on finding a peaceful solution and also urged the North to return to the nuclear talks.

The sides should "be determined to realize a nuclear-free Korean peninsula," Jiang said. "China stands ready to work with relevant parties in the international community to press ahead with the process."

The North agreed at the those talks in September to abandon its nuclear program in exchange for security guarantees and aid, but no progress has been made on implementing the accord.

North Korea has issued repeated complaints in recent weeks about alleged U.S. spy flights, including off the coast where the missile test facility is located.

"The U.S. imperialist warmongers have been intensifying military provocations" against the North, the country's official Korean Central News Agency said. "The ceaseless illegal intrusion of the planes has created a grave danger of military conflict in the air above the region."

The U.S. has sent ships off the Korean coast capable of detecting and tracking a missile launch, a Pentagon official said. South Korean aircraft have also been flying reconnaissance over the waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan, said the military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the subject.

Japan said it, too, had sent naval ships and patrol planes to monitor the developments in North Korea, while playing down Pyongyang's capacity to load a nuclear warhead on its rockets.

The North has claimed to have a nuclear weapon, but isn't thought to have an advanced design that could be placed on a warhead. Japanese Senior Vice Foreign Minister Yasuhisa Shiozaki backed that belief at the parliamentary hearing.

"At this point, we have encountered no information that indicates North Korea has the technology," he said.

Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso vowed to continue efforts to persuade North Korea not to launch the missile.

"It's crucial to get North Korea to restrain itself from a missile launch," Aso said. "We should gather efforts before it happens, not afterward."

Japanese police were preparing for a "worst-case scenario," including the possibility that parts of a missile could fall on Japan, said Iwao Uruma, commissioner general of the National Police Agency.

About 1,000 people, including army veterans and activists, staged an anti-North Korea rally in Seoul, condemning the missile threat.

The two Koreas remain technically at war since the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a cease-fire, not a peace treaty.



Associated Press reporters Kelly Olsen in Kaesong, North Korea, Gillian Wong in Beijing and Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo contributed to this report.

[American Patriot]

Posted on Fri, Jun. 23, 2006
Cheney rejects calls for preemptive strike against North Korea
BY THOMAS M. DEFRANK
New York Daily News

WASHINGTON - Vice President Dick Cheney Thursday rejected calls for a U.S. preemptive strike on a North Korean ballistic missile, suggesting that might trigger war on the volatile Korean peninsula.

"If you're going to launch strikes at another nation," Cheney told CNN in an interview, "you'd better be prepared to not just fire one shot."

Although the administration has expressed grave concerns about North Korea's apparent intent to go ahead with a test launch of its Taepodong-2 intercontinental ballistic missile, Cheney also defended President Bush's preference for a diplomatic solution.

"I think the issue is being addressed appropriately," he said.

In a Washington Post opinion article Thursday, Clinton Defense Secretary William Perry urged the U.S. to destroy the missile, which is being fueled on its launch pad.

"Diplomacy has failed, and we cannot sit by and let this deadly threat mature," Perry and co-author Ashton Carter argued.

The authors added that a submarine-launched cruise missile strike could easily destroy the weapon, which might be able to reach the U.S. mainland.

Cheney called North Korea's missile capabilities "fairly rudimentary" and said, "Their test flights in the past haven't been notably successful. But we are watching it with interest and following it very closely."

Russia and China weighed in on the side of diplomacy Thursday. Moscow summoned the North Korean ambassador to discuss the launch and deplored as "undesirable" anything "that could negatively affect regional stability." China urged both North Korea and the U.S. to cool their rhetoric.

[American Patriot]

North Korea keeps neighbours guessing

P. S. Suryanarayana

SINGAPORE: The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) is keeping its neighbours guessing about whether or not it would test-fire a long-range ballistic missile.

Speculation over Pyongyang's moves was heightened by the diplomatic signals that it might be willing to call off any planned missile test if the U.S. were prepared to enter into bilateral talks over the issue.

Pyongyang was understood to have informally conveyed these signals to South Korea, according to regional diplomats and analysts.

Han Song-ryol, DPRK's Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.N. Headquarters, was quoted by South Korea's national news agency as saying the international community had no right to tell Pyongyang what it should do with its "sovereign right."

He said the DPRK's sovereign right covered not only the development and test-firing of missiles but also their deployment and export.

[American Patriot]

Friday, June 23, 2006 · Last updated 11:58 a.m. PT

Developments on North Korea missile issue

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Developments Friday in the global reaction to a possible long-range missile launch by North Korea:

- Japan and the United States agree to expand cooperation on a ballistic missile defense shield. Japan's Foreign Ministry says the agreement commits the countries to jointly produce interceptor missiles.

- Japanese officials say a high-resolution radar that can detect incoming missiles has been deployed at a base in northern Japan.

- South Korea says its foreign minister wants to visit China next week to discuss concerns about the possible missile launch.

- The head of the Pentagon's missile defense program says he is confident interceptor rockets would hit and destroy a long-range North Korean missile if President Bush gave the order to attack one headed for U.S. territory.

- South Korea says it is pushing for a summit in September between President Bush and President Roh Moo-hyun.

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- Former U.N. chief weapons inspector Hans Blix warns that North Korea represents the most urgent threat to global nuclear security.

- U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Alexander Vershbow says a missile launch would further isolate North Korea.

- U.S. forces wrap up their largest military exercise in the Pacific since the Vietnam War, which they say shows their ability to muster massive force in the region.

[American Patriot]

Japan makes moves to monitor North Korea

TOKYO Japan has dispatched ships and planes to monitor North Korea amid regional jitters about a possible long-range missile launch, but played down the communist nation's capacity to possibly load a nuclear warhead atop its rockets.

"At this point, we have encountered no information that indicates North Korea has the technology," said Senior Vice Foreign Minister Yasuhisa Shiozaki. "It requires tremendous technology to miniaturize an atomic weapon in order to load into a missile warhead."

Also speaking at a parliamentary committee meeting on terrorism, the Defense Agency chief, Fukushiro Nukaga, confirmed that his agency had deployed naval ships and patrol planes to monitor developments in North Korea, as the country apparently prepares to test a long-range missile believed capable of reaching the United States.

Nukaga did not elaborate on the monitoring effort, but Japanese media said his agency has sent a destroyer with advanced reconnaissance equipment and an attack aircraft loaded with radar-jamming electronics.

"We have deployed naval ships and patrol planes to maximize our information gathering effort," Nukaga said. "But we do not have accurate information, including details of its technology."

Intelligence reports have said the North is possibly fueling a Taepodong-2 missile with a range experts estimate could be up to 15,000 kilometers - making it capable of reaching parts of the United States.

[American Patriot]

Korea
Jun 24, 2006


North Korea means business over missiles
By Donald Kirk

SEOUL - The prospect of North Korea firing off a long-range missile conjures images of the first skirmishes in a Star Wars scenario in which countries battle one another with projectiles shot into space from bases thousands of kilometers from their targets.

If that image seems far in the future, military specialists in South Korea say North Korean technology may reach the stage in the next few years of firing missiles as far as 200 kilometers above the earth's surface. From there they could launch nuclear-tipped weapons capable of knocking out satellites orbiting the earth.

At the same time, say Korean intelligence analysts, North Korea is developing the technology needed to orbit a satellite equipped to jam the complex gear on those spy satellites on which the US relies for relaying minutely detailed images of military facilities, including the pad on which North Korea's most advanced long-range missile stands poised for launch.

Analysts have no doubt of North Korea's prowess in developing missiles far more sophisticated than Taepodong 2, the missile that North Korea is ready to fire on a test run, in view of the North's focus on missile engineering and production in recent years. If the North postpones firing Taepodong 2 in deference to international pressure, they warn, research and development will remain a priority for a regime that earns about $1.5 billion a year from the export of missile components and technology.

"I hope nothing will happen," says Kim Tae-woo, senior researcher at the Institute for Defense Analyses, affiliated with the Defense Ministry in Seoul, "but I have no doubt they are technically capable of advancing in this field for many years."

Right now, Kim believes "they are capable of putting nuclear weapons on their missiles". That is, tipping them with nuclear warheads that could theoretically reach the outlying American states of Hawaii and Alaska as well as the North American West Coast.

That assessment of North Korean capability pays tribute to its success in building thousands of scud and Rodong missiles and selling them mainly to Middle Eastern clients, including Iran, Syria, Libya and Yemen.

While North Korea's economy has fallen into serious disrepair, its leaders have encouraged the country's best engineering minds to focus on developing weapons of mass destruction - and missiles to carry them to targets - with the same zeal that South Koreans dedicate to such fields as motor vehicles, shipbuilding and high-tech electronics.

The latest North Korean missile, the Taepodong 2, is probably at a rudimentary stage, unable to get anywhere near a specific target thousands or hundreds of kilometers away, not likely to have the gear needed for carrying or firing a nuclear warhead and probably not able to go 6,700 kilometers, the range it's said to be able to fly.

The speed with which North Korea has developed Taepodong 2, however, alarms both Japan and the United States. Its precursor, Taepodong I, fired on August 31, 1998, from the same site now occupied by Taepodong 2, had a range of about 3,200 kilometers. Zooming over the main Japanese island of Honshu, it landed in the northern Pacific south of Vladivostok after failing in its avowed mission of putting into orbit a communications satellite broadcasting patriotic music honoring Kim Il-sung.

Regardless of whether Taepodong 2 gets off the pad, the fact is North Korean engineers in less than eight years have managed to build a far more advanced version of the Taepodong without benefit of testing.

Experts believe neither the US nor Japan has the network of anti-missile defenses that could guard against any kind of Taepodong once engineers had managed to make it reasonably accurate - and capable of carrying a warhead tipped with nuclear, chemical or biological weapons.

"The US has a huge system," says Kim Tae-woo, but few options. "It would be unthinkable" for interceptor missiles, fired from California and Alaska, and possibly Hawaii, to find it or hit it when it reached the booster or terminal stages and had fired off its payload - in this case a communications satellite.

The US interceptor network has had a notoriously high rate of failure in recent years - so terrible, in the view of specialists both in South Korea and in the US, that there's no chance of firing off an interceptor missile unless the US were under direct attack. And then, the missiles would be highly unlikely to find and targets before undergoing a long and perilous period of trial and error.

More realistically, the US has to rely on Aegis-class destroyers plying the waters between the Korean peninsula and Japan and also the northern Pacific. They carry SM3 missiles that are designed to counter short and medium-range missiles, not the high-flying Taepodong 2. Perhaps most significantly, the US and Japan are co-developing versions of the SM3 for deployment on Japanese Aegis-class destroyers.

"They have test-fired them a few times," says Kim. "We believe they're on destroyers in the East Sea" - that is, the Sea of Japan.

Optimistically, some South Korean officials believe North Korea might be dissuaded from a launch for fear that failure - or interception - could set back Pyongyang's missile export program. North Korean leaders "would be burdened by the possibility that a launched missile would be intercepted by a US Aegis ship", says Colonel Shin Sung-taek at the Defense Ministry.

The systems on the Aegis-class destroyers, however, would not be likely to respond quickly or accurately enough to a single missile flying kilometers away, just as the US anti-missile system would be unable to home in on a missile from the American mainland.

While defense against any of these missiles remains shaky at best, analysts are confident of the technology needed to find out when they take off and where they are going. A US infrared satellite could detect the launch of a North Korean Taepodong 2 missile almost from the moment it lifted off the pad, and tracking devices could determine within two or three minutes where it was going and where it was likely to land.

Japan's concerns
While the US worries about the implications of the Taepodong 2, Japan has much more to fear than the US in view of its proximity to the Korean peninsula.

North Korea, besides exporting hundreds of scuds, surface-to-surface missiles with a range of 320 kilometers, is believed to have about 600 of them ready to fire.

Known for their inaccuracy, they still could rain hell on South Korea if the South abandoned its reconciliation policy and were persuaded to fight alongside Americans and Japanese in some future conflagration. As it is, they pose one more reason why South Korea has no desire to join its putative American "ally" in a war to strip North Korea of its missile bases.

Still more fearsome, North Korean Rodong missiles have a range of at least 960 kilometers - far enough to hit targets in Japan even though they, too, are inaccurate. North Korea has exported a number of these missiles as well as the technology with which Iran and Pakistan are testing their own versions of the Rodong.

At the same time, North Korea is holding on to about 200 Rodongs, ready for firing from mobile launchers as well as submarines.

The US, however, has another response lurking quietly in the region - that posed by three aircraft carrier groups operating in an exercise called "Valiant Shield" in waters around Guam.

The carrier groups - carrying nearly 300 planes aboard the Ronald Reagan, Abraham Lincoln and Kitty Hawk, centerpieces of a flotilla of 30 ships - constitute the single-biggest US force at sea in the western Pacific since the 1994 nuclear crisis. From that crisis emerged the 1994 Geneva framework agreement, under which the North promised to give up its nuclear program in exchange for facilities for producing nuclear power to help fulfill its energy needs.

Two of the major Pentagon figures from that era, William Perry, then secretary of defense, and Ashton Carter, who served as assistant secretary under Perry, in a commentary in the Washington Post called for a preemptive strike to "destroy the North Korean Taepodong missile before it can be launched".

The White House promptly discounted any such plan, but the carrier group could move north in a few days if the US were to consider a strike in retaliation for launching the Taepodong 2.

South Koreans fervently hope the whole crisis will blow over in a war of words, not missiles. "No nation is doing this kind of missile test," says Kim Tae-woo. "If they launch the missile, it is a great challenge to non-proliferation. They will lose friends in the international arena. They will lose friends in South Korea. I believe and I hope they will cancel."

Journalist Donald Kirk has been in and out of Korea since 1972.

[American Patriot]

South Korea warns North Korea about Japan-US joint defence plan
Front page / World
06/23/2006 14:41
Source: Japan's Defense Agency said Friday that a high-resolution radar that can detect a ballistic missile has been deployed at a base in northern Japan.





In Tokyo, Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso and U.S. Ambassador Thomas Schieffer signed documents about cooperation on ballistic missile defense development, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

In Seoul, Unification Minister Lee Jong-seok told a parliamentary committee, "It seems clear that even if North Korea fires a missile, the United States would not make a compromise."

Washington, however, has refused, and insists it will only meet the North amid six-nation talks aimed at ridding Pyongyang of its nuclear weapons program.

U.S. officials also have warned North Korea that a missile launch could have serious repercussions, the AP reports.

A top Pentagon official said Thursday in Washington that a missile launch would be "a provocation and a dangerous action" that would spur the United States to take an unspecified response.

The concerns have prompted China and Russia also to warn the North against a missile launch.

[American Patriot]

Jun. 22, 2006 23:59 | Updated Jun. 23, 2006 4:32
Column One: North Korea and Israel
By CAROLINE GLICK

As is its habit, the Israeli media missed this week's big story. While our television channels, mass circulation dailies and publicly funded radio stations were scope-locked on the tragedy of children in Gaza killed and injured because they were being used as human shields by the terrorists pummeling Sderot and the Western Negev with rockets and mortars, the world took a step toward nuclear confrontation.

This week the crisis was fomented not by Iran but by its ally North Korea, as Pyongyang made loud preparations ahead of the test launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile. Unlike previous missiles tested, the Taepodong-2 has a 15,000 km range capable of hitting the West Coast of the United States.

North Korea's latest strategic gambit is highly significant for Israel. Its import stems from its relevance for Israeli strategists tasked with crafting a policy to contend with Iran's nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles programs. If Israel draws the proper lessons from the current crisis with North Korea, it will take the necessary steps to better position itself against Iran's developing threat. By so repositioning itself, while enhancing its national security, Israel would strengthen the forces in the US and Europe calling for the jihadist, genocidal Iranian regime to be confronted rather than appeased.

An international storm broke out as soon as North Korea's preparations to launch its Taepodong-2 missile and thus directly threaten America became known. For the first time, the US activated its ground based missile defense shield. The US Navy conducted the largest naval carrier group exercise since the Vietnam War, off the coast of Guam. Three carrier groups participated.

US Ambassador to Japan Thomas Scheiffer said that from America's perspective, "All options are on the table" if North Korea launches the missile. On Thursday, two former senior defense officials from the Clinton administration published an op-ed in The Washington Post urging the Bush administration to launch a cruise missile attack against the missile on its launch pad.

On Wednesday, Japan - which has been operating under the threat of North Korean missiles since Pyongyang tested a Taepodong-1 missile over Japan in 1998 - deployed ships and planes toward North Korea to closely monitor developments. For their part, the South Koreans - who have lived under the threat of destruction at the hands of North Korean artillery pointed at Seoul for the past several decades - announced the cancellation of former president Kim Dae Jung's planned visit to the North. Unification Minister Lee Jong Seok said that a missile launch would force Seoul to curtail food aid to North Korea.

North Korea Wednesday demanded that the US agree to conduct direct negotiations with it to defuse the crisis it had fomented. As Han Song Ryol, North Korea's UN deputy chief of mission, put it to a South Korean reporter, "We know that the US is concerned about our missile test launch. So our position is, why don't we try to resolve this problem through negotiations?"

US President George W. Bush rejected North Korea's demand for direct talks. The US position is that if Pyongyang wishes to speak with the US it should return to the six-party talks with the US, China, Russia, Japan and South Korea that it abandoned last November.

By Thursday afternoon it appeared the North Koreans had softened their stand and their manufactured crisis was ending with a whisper. Yet even if this is the case, when the events of the week are analyzed, it is not clear that North Korea lost this round.

TO APPRECIATE why it is difficult to know who is emerging as the winner of the latest confrontation, the uniqueness of the current crisis must be fully grasped. Until this week, North Korea's threat to the US was indirect. It threatened America by threatening its allies, forces and interests in Asia. Now it is directly threatening the US mainland. Whereas until now the US focused on defending its allies and interests, now it must also defend its own territory, which from what now on should be considered to be under direct threat from Pyongyang.

There are three clear and complimentary goals that North Korea seeks to achieve by directly threatening the US. First, it seeks to capitalize on Bush's political weakness. One can almost hear the conversation in Kim Jong Il's bunker: "Why should the Iranians be the only ones to cash in on Bush's decision to make the Europeans love him?" If Bush now seeks to be relevant by appeasing axis of evil members, the thinking goes, then far be it for North Korea to let Teheran be the only beneficiary of the policy shift.

Second, Pyongyang is trying to exploit the weaknesses in the US alliance with South Korea. For the past several years, Seoul has adopted anti-US positions in the hopes of appeasing Pyongyang and strengthening its ties with China. This week the US placed great pressure on Seoul to cancel Kim Dae Jung's visit to Pyongyang. It is not unreasonable to assume that Pyongyang took his visit into account when it timed the launch of its latest provocation. If Seoul had not bowed to US pressure and canceled the visit, North Korea could have exploited it to announce in Kim Dae Jung's presence that it was canceling its planned launch. By doing so it would have weakened the position of US officials who insist on refusing North Korea's demand for direct talks.

Lastly, by directly threatening the US North Korea is maneuvering to improve its international position. Specifically, Pyongyang wishes to force the Americans to accept its status as a nuclear power. While the stalwart positions taken this week by Japan and South Korea indicate that for the time being Pyongyang has been failed to achieve its first two goals, it may well have made progress toward achieving this latter aim.

In his statement in Vienna on Wednesday, Bush said, "It should make people nervous when non-transparent regimes who have announced they have nuclear warheads, fire missiles."

Although he took a clear stand against the planned missile launch, Bush did not threaten North Korea's nuclear arsenal, indeed he may have given it de facto recognition. If the US does agree to discuss the ICBM issue with North Korea in the six-party talks rather than limit those talks to Pyongyang's nuclear arsenal, Pyongyang could use this development to foment a breach in the US alliance with Japan and South Korea. The two Asian allies could perceive the US move as tantamount to abandoning them to their fates.

THERE ARE many notable similarities between the ways North Korea and Iran engage the world. Both manufacture international crises to squeeze concessions out of the US and its allies in exchange for neutralizing their manufactured crises. Both seek to exploit all differences of opinion between Western nations to strengthen the voices of appeasement at the expense of the voices calling for them to be brought to account for their behavior.

Iran and North Korea both wage war against near and distant foes. Pyongyang threatens South Korea, Japan and the US. If it manages to unravel their alliance, it will be able to threaten each far more effectively.



Iran campaigns against Israel, the US and the EU. From Teheran's perspective, if it can place the world's undivided attention on its war against Israel, it will be able to deter the US and Europe from contending with the fact that it is also working to undermine their security. Teheran has to this end worked assiduously to hide the fact that its Shihab ballistic missile program is directed mainly against Europe and the US, and not against Israel.

Iran does not need guided or ballistic missile systems to attack Israel. Today Iranian forces directly control Hizbullah's arsenal of missiles, mortars and rockets along Israel's border with Lebanon. Last December when Iran took command of the Palestinian campaign against Israel in Gaza, it gained a significant presence along Israel's southern border.

If Israel does nothing to prevent it, in all likelihood we will soon see Iranian forces deployed along Israel's eastern border with Syria. The defense pact signed this week between Syria and Iran paves the way for the introduction of Iranian forces in Syria, across from the Golan Heights. MK Yuval Steinitz, a former chairman of the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, explains that such an Iranian deployment "goes along with the trends we are now seeing regarding the beefing up of the Iranian presence along our border with Lebanon."

Moreover, if Prime Minister Ehud Olmert implements his plan to give Judea and Samaria to Hamas and Fatah, Iranian forces will be deployed on the outskirts of the Dan Region, the Sharon Plain, the lower Galilee and Jerusalem. All in all, today Iran has no need for sophisticated ballistic missiles to attack Israel.

THIS WEEK the Northern Command brought reporters to the border with Lebanon to show them that Iranian forces now command Hizbullah outposts located 20 meters from the border. The commanders stipulated that Israel will not be the first side to open fire along the border. It is quite possible that such restraint is misguided.

Israel would do well to follow the example set this week by Japan and South Korea. While both countries let the US lead the international response towards North Korea, they both also took reasonable, unilateral steps aimed at ensuring their own security from the unique threats North Korea poses toward each of them. Israel must also take steps to secure itself from the unique threats Iran poses toward it, while leaving the US in charge of managing the international community's confrontation with Teheran.

If Israel were to seize the initiative against Iran and its terrorist proxies in Gaza and Lebanon while preventing their deployment across from the Golan Heights and in Judea and Samaria, it would be accomplishing two goals at once. First, it would be diminishing the most immediate Iranian threat it faces today while enhancing US options for dealing with Teheran's ballistic missile arsenal and nuclear program. Second, by dealing with the Iranian threat that endangers Israel alone, Israel would be increasing international awareness of the fact that the Shihab missile program is not first and foremost a threat to Israel, in spite of Iran's attempts to portray it as such.

A poll published at the beginning of the month revealed that 63 percent of Dutch citizens believe that Islam is incompatible with modern European life. More than anything else, this poll demonstrates that as the threat of global jihad becomes more tangible, citizens of the Free World will have less of a tendency to try to appease jihadist forces. By weakening the immediate threat Iran now poses to Israel, Jerusalem will force Europe and the US to understand more clearly just how real Iran's threat towards them actually is.

[American Patriot]

China's military has no information on North Korea's missile plans
Jun 28, 2006, 11:11 GMT

Beijing/Tokyo - China's military does not have information about North Korea's plans to launch a long-range missile, a senior military official said Wednesday.

'We do not know when or under what situation it will be fired,' vice-chairman chairman of the Chinese Communist Party's Central Military Commission, Xu Caihou, was quoted as saying by Japanese news agency Kyodo on Wednesday after a meeting with a Japanese delegation in Beijing.

'We are trying to collect information,' said Xu according to a participant at the meeting.

Xu had met with Japanese participants in an exchange programme of defence officials, reported Kyodo.

On Tuesday, China's and South Korea's foreign ministers agreed to co-operate on the North Korea issue and that the missile issue and the international standoff over North Korea's nuclear weapons programme should be resolved through dialogue.

South Korea urged China to use its influence on North Korea to persuade to halt its apparent preparations to launch a long-range missile.

According to South Korean, Japanese and US reports, North Korea has been fuelling a Taepodong-2 missile, with an estimated range of more than 6,000 kilometres and capable of carrying a nuclear warhead to parts of the United States.

© 2006 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur

[American Patriot]

Wednesday, June 28, 2006 - Page updated at 12:00 AM
Provocative missile launch could backfire on North Korea

Will North Korea test-launch its Taepodong 2 missile? And if North Korea were to do so, what should be the U.S. response?

Although earlier reports from Japan and South Korea discounted the possibility, a provocation of this magnitude is not out of step with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il's regime. In 1998, it test-fired an earlier-generation missile, supposedly in an attempt to launch a satellite. The missile flew over Japan, prompting shock and outrage from the Japanese government. In addition, North Korea has engaged periodically in acts of sabotage, assassination and terrorism in the past.

North Korea has learned that international extortion pays. In light of the incentives — or concessions — the U.S. and its Western allies offered to Iran recently, Kim's regime may have calculated that fomenting a "crisis" may indeed garner the attention and aid it craves.

While the prospect of North Korea's missile launch has increased tension in the region, it presents the United States with a unique opportunity. Should North Korea foolishly overplay its hand and test-launch Taepodong 2, the attention it receives will not be the kind it has sought.

Such an action would further demoralize the appeasement-friendly administration of South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun, whose political party is imploding due to a crushing defeat in local elections. A provocative North Korean missile test will further strengthen the pro-American, anti-appeasement conservative party in South Korea, and boost its candidate in next year's South Korean presidential election.

Similarly, Japanese politicians advocating a tougher stance against North Korea and an increased Japanese military role in the security structure of East Asia will gain favor. Since the Japanese public is already deeply disturbed by past kidnappings of its citizens by North Korean intelligence agents and the violation of its territory by the last missile test, the Japanese government is unlikely to tolerate a further provocation.

In contrast, China has been utterly unhelpful to the U.S. regarding North Korea, despite the fact that North Korean nuclear and ballistic missile developments could not have occurred without Chinese acquiescence and "willful neglect." A missile launch would be an ideal occasion to put pointed diplomatic pressure on China to cooperate with the U.S. to curb the North Korean menace.

Given these conditions, the American message to North Korea should be a diplomatic equivalent of, "Go ahead, launch it and see what happens."

What is vital, however, is that should North Korea launch the missile, the U.S. must not overplay the advantages thusly derived from the situation. The recommendations to launch a preemptive strike against North Korea or destroy the missile on the ground in North Korean territory would be psychologically gratifying, no doubt, but is not advisable. Such a move would forfeit all the diplomatic leverages; the U.S., not North Korea, would now be seen as overreacting and being belligerent, while North Korea would play the victim card of having been attacked by the U.S.

Instead, what the U.S. ought to do is declare a North Korean missile test a grave provocation and an unacceptable threat to both the U.S. and East Asian regional security, and establish a quarantine of all transport in and out of North Korea. Tokyo will likely join the U.S. and even contribute naval and air elements for the effort. Seoul may not participate actively, but will acquiesce in the end.

Crucially, the U.S. should use the occasion to present Beijing with an ultimatum — as "Nuclear Showdown" author Gordon Chang has suggested — to make the continued Sino-American economic and trade relationship contingent upon China's cooperation to disarm North Korea.

Once a quarantine is in place, the U.S. should convey a simple message to Pyongyang that the quarantine will not end until North Korea backs down first. For once, it will be North Korea's turn to give something in return for reverting to the status quo.

But won't the North Koreans escalate? They previously declared that a quarantine would be an act of war. Would they not initiate a military conflict?

They will not, because such a conflict would be the death of Kim's regime and the end of North Korea as a state. Pyongyang has far more to lose.

For too long, North Korea has played chicken with the U.S. and has won. A North Korean missile launch would be, finally, the right moment for the U.S. to play chicken with North Korea — and win.

James J. Na, senior foreign policy fellow at Discovery Institute (discovery.org), co-authors "The Korea Liberator" (korealiberator.org) and "Guns and Butter Blog" (gunsandbutter.blogspot.com).

Copyright © 2006 The Seattle Times Company