http://www.huffingtonpost.com/suzanne-noss...html?view=print



Suzanne Nossel


06.18.2006
North Korea: Straight Talk on Direct Talks

The latest is that North Korea appears to be preparing a test launch a long-range missile capable of reaching the US. If it happens, it will be a huge setback in our dealings with N Korea, will likely escalate momentum for a missile defense system, and could complicate US relations throughout Asia.

No matter how this plays out, pundits will focus on the question of whether the Bush Administration has made a mistake in refusing to talk directly with Pyongyang. Since coming into office, President Bush has refused repeated overtures by Kim Jong Il to open direct talks, insisting that all negotiations with the North occur within a 6-party framework. The latest rebuff came just two weeks ago, right after the White House laid down conditions under which it said it would talk directly to Iran.
All this has got me thinking about the subject of "direct talks" with dangerous and uncontrollable regimes. (Note that - at least for tonight - I am not opining on how to solve the crisis on the Peninsula, nor to comment on what is right or wrong about the Administration's policies beyond the question of direct talks).

I understand the notion that by engaging directly in talks with countries that make threats and flout international norms, the US risks dignifying and publicizing these nations' illegitimate positions and causes. I also recognize that amid bitter and longstanding policy conflicts, the chances that direct talks between diplomats with vastly different objectives and value-systems will help bridge differences may be slim indeed. I don't think that pushing for direct talks with either North Korea or Iran comes close to proffering a "solution" to either crisis. It merely advocates a change in the process by which the conflicts are currently dealt with.

With that said, I wonder whether the US might not be better off with a blanket policy of unconditional willingness to talk directly to North Korea, Iran, and any nation that asks to meet with us face-to-face. We would not be offering to change our positions, concede any of our arguments, or give credence to any of theirs, but rather simply to meet with no strings attached and no promises implied. The case for such a policy shift is this:

- Right now, the refusal to talk directly to the likes of North Korea and Iran gives the state in question and, often the rest of the world, grounds to criticize the US and blame us for failure to solve the standoffs. We can ill-afford this;

- A blanket policy of willingness to talk to any nation on any subject of mutual concern without conditions would blunt the idea that, in any particular situation (see, e.g., Iran), willingness to engage in direct talks amounts to the US being backed into a corner or reflects a weakening of the US position. We would talk not because we thought talks would be fruitful, nor because we necessarily credit what the other party would say, but rather because we made it a blanket policy to always be open to talks;

- Amid a climate of skepticism, hostility and - in some quarters - demonization of the US, willingness to engage in direct talks would help counter the perception of US arrogance, intransigence, and refusal to listen to the views of others;

- Agreeing to talk does not mean agreeing to talk endlessly - if talks prove unproductive, having done its part and made a genuine attempt at fruitful discussions, the US can feel justified in walking away;

- There's no contradiction between bilateral talks and multilateral diplomacy. That's a cynical argument that misunderstands multilateral diplomacy. Multilateral negotiation processes are filled with bilateral sidebars, which are where much of the hard work happens. UN representatives spend much of their time in one-on-one discussions with other delegations, and those sessions are an indispensable part of getting anything done.

- Contrary to what one might think, opening the floodgates for direct talks would not overburden the diplomatic apparatus. An offer of direct talks need not, at least not in the first-instance, necessarily imply particularly high-level talks. We have thousands of diplomats in embassies around the world who are trained to engage with their host countries on all manner of issues. On sensitive matters of national security, such as Iran or North Korea, teams of the most talented diplomats are working the issues around the clock. Being able to talk directly to counterparts could help them get answers more quickly, deepen their analysis, and better guide American policy. High-stakes talks do require the formulation and approval of policies at the highest levels within the State Department and White House, a process that does take time. But by agreeing to face-to-face talks with anyone who sees them, we're not promising to meet on their timetable. If we need extra time to formulate positions, we can and should take it. Diplomatic processes are notoriously slow, so this will not come as a big surprise.

Note that my arguments do not include a contention that direct talks will necessarily help solve crises. They may or may not, but there are other important reasons why a blanket policy to permit one-on-one negotiations may help advance US policy interests.

Suzanne Nossel is a Senior Fellow at the Security and Peace Initiative, a joint project of Center for American Progress and the Century Foundation and blogs regularly at www.democracyarsenal.org

http://www.wpherald.com/storyview.php?Stor...18-081939-8827r
North Korea poised for missile launch
By UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
Published June 18, 2006


SEOUL -- North Korea was poised Sunday to test-fire a missile after satellite imagery showed fueling had been completed, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported.

The launch site is on the country's remote east coast and images show the missile is larger and more sophisticated than the one Pyongyang test-fired over Japan in 1998. U.S. experts said it likely has an estimated range of 2,400 miles, the New York Times reported.


Japan's Sankei Shimbun newspaper reported the government had ordered citizens to raise the national flag and watch television in anticipation of a "message to the people."

The Times said experts suspect the missile would probably carry a satellite, which would enable North Korea to say it was a civilian endeavor and not a military move.

Saturday, the United States, Japan and South Korea called for North Korea to cancel the test and return to six-nation talks aimed at dismantling its nuclear program.

http://www.voanews.com/english/2006-06-19-voa52.cfm

US: If N. Korea Launches Missile Without Notice, Can't Assume it is Test
By Al Pessin
Washington
19 June 2006

Pessin report - Download 245k
Listen to Pessin report



S. Koreans use binoculars to look at the North side from Imjingak near the border village of the Panmunjom, north of Seoul, June 18, 2006
The Defense Department says in the absence of any statement by the North Korean government it will not be possible to know whether a widely expected missile launch is a test or an attack.

Spokesman Bryan Whitman would not confirm reports that North Korea is preparing to launch a long-range missile, saying he could not discuss intelligence matters. But he says if there is a launch without any advance notice from the government in Pyongyang, there will be no basis on which to assume it is only a test.

"'Test' would, to me, indicate that you are doing something like an exercise," he said. "You are testing a missile. 'Test' has intent behind it, as opposed to launching a missile. When you are launching a missile, to me, you [others] do not know what the intent of the launch is, you [others] do not know if the launch is intended to be a test or something else."

The Pentagon spokesman hinted to reporters that if North Korea launches a missile the United States might use its new missile defense system.

"The United States does have a limited missile defense system. I will not get into or discuss any specific alert status or capabilities," added Whitman.

The U.S. Missile Defense system relies on radars and other systems on the ground and on satellites to detect missile launches and deploy interceptors to shoot them down. The system has had some successful tests, and some failures, and is not yet fully operational.

The Pentagon spokesman and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice again referred to any North Korean launch as 'a provocative act.' And Secretary Rice says she has been coordinating possible responses with allies.

"It would once again show North Korea determined to deepen its isolation, determined not to take a path that is a path of compromise and a path of peace," said Rice.

Secretary Rice says a launch would violate North Korea's own moratorium, and she says maintaining the moratorium is part of the agreement North Korea signed last September to pursue a diplomatic solution to the dispute over its nuclear program.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/HF21Dg01.html
NORTH KOREA'S DANGEROUS GAME
There's method in the missile madness
By Bruce Klingner

North Korea appears to be in the final stages of preparations for the test of an intercontinental ballistic missile, although Pyongyang could still stop short of an actual launch. Media leaks of increasingly detailed intelligence information and warnings by senior US, South Korean and Japanese government officials since mid-June have indicated far greater concern than previous false warnings of missile and nuclear test preparations.

Washington and Tokyo are expected to respond firmly to a launch but will be constrained in available options. South Korea will likely postpone short-term economic benefits to Pyongyang but retain its engagement policy.

Intelligence leaks indicate increasing activity at the Musudan-ri launch facility, including conflicting reports of fueling operations. The loading of highly corrosive liquid fuel, which is difficult to remove, is perceived as an irreversible last step prior to a missile launch. North Korean official media alerted the populace for a significant announcement this past Sunday, but the time passed without event.

Pyongyang has denied it will conduct a missile test, but official media emphasized over the weekend how the 1998 launch of a Taepodong I had "powerfully" demonstrated North Korean military might and the "wise guidance" of leader Kim Jong-il.

Pyongyang has also augmented its propaganda offensives against South Korea and the United States in the past week, threatening military action against naval intrusions and aerial reconnaissance, respectively. Although the tone is consistent with previous rhetoric, a North Korean decision to shadow allied military ships or planes raises the potential for miscalculation and inadvertent tactical confrontation.

A missile launch appears more likely than initial indications earlier this month and could occur this week after dissipation of severe weather in the area. North Korea could, however, still decide not to launch, having determined it has accomplished its political objectives of regaining international attention to increase its bargaining leverage. Pyongyang would be unlikely to initiate Pyongyang's
global reach additional escalatory steps except in response to US action.

Aware of Washington's recent overture to Iran, Kim Jong-il may believe that provocative actions will induce the US to offer better negotiating terms to North Korea. Regardless of whether a test occurs, Pyongyang has accomplished its objective of regaining international attention.

The test preparation has compelled the participants in the six-party talks to address the North Korean nuclear issue, which has languished since the joint statement last September. The activity at the Musudan-ri launch facility - whether preparatory to a launch or not - and more forceful North Korean diplomatic tactics in the past month are likely part of an effort to wrest additional concessions from South Korea and gain advantage in the six-party talks, whose participants are the two Koreas, Japan, China, Russia and the US.

Pyongyang may be heightening concerns over its missile capabilities to resurrect the potential for a deal with the US by highlighting the viability of North Korean sales of long-range missiles. Last year Kim told Chung Dong-young, who was then the South's minister of unification, "We are willing to forgo missile options if we form diplomatic ties and alliance with the United States."

North Korea's September 1, 1999, unilateral missile moratorium was followed several days later by a US pledge to remove some economic sanctions. The two countries were discussing a larger potential deal in 2000 when time ran out on the administration of US president Bill Clinton. North Korea had demanded annual recompense of US$1 billion to forgo missile exports.

But North Korea will be careful not to overplay its hand. The current US administration would see a launch of a Taepodong 2 missile as vindication of its hardline policy and press Beijing and Seoul for stronger measures against Pyongyang. Washington has already reduced Pyongyang's legal and illicit economic transactions by targeting North Korean firms and foreign banks, but could seek to freeze Kim's personal assets in overseas accounts.

Although the US will increase reconnaissance activity and may deploy additional military assets to the region, a military response is off the table. Washington could use increased fears of missile proliferation to press China and South Korea to join the Proliferation Security Initiative.

Japan would respond to a missile over-flight by imposing additional economic restrictions on North Korea. The Japanese parliament has approved legislation that gives the cabinet unilateral authority to levy economic measures against North Korea. The North Korean Human Rights Act will provide additional means for Tokyo to impose sanctions, including for lack of progress in resolving the abductee issue.

Tokyo will likely take its cue from Washington as to which economic restrictions to impose. These measures could include prohibiting North Korean ships from entering Japanese ports or blocking economic remittances from Japanese citizens to North Korea; at an extreme, there could be interdiction of North Korean ships to prevent any bilateral trade.

Kim Jong-il likely understands the irreversible consequences of conducting a test. Although less inflammatory than a nuclear test, a missile launch would undermine Pyongyang's strategy of blaming the US for the impasse in the nuclear negotiations. More important, a launch would endanger South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun's ability to continue Seoul's engagement policy, which has been a major source of economic assistance to the North.

The North recently obtained South Korean agreement for $80 million in new aid and stands to gain additional benefits if it agrees to a summit with Roh. Although Seoul would play down a missile launch, as it did North Korea's February 2005 admission of possessing nuclear weapons, recent polls show a growing demand by the Southern populace for reciprocal concessions from Pyongyang.

A launch would also provide additional leverage for the US to gain Chinese agreement to increasing pressure on North Korea to abandon its nuclear-weapons programs. Although Pyongyang has exhibited little interest in continuing negotiations, its recent invitation for US assistant secretary of state Chris Hill to travel to Pyongyang suggests it has not yet fully rejected the six-party talks.

Seoul has risked its relationship with Washington by providing North Korea with significant economic benefits with few accompanying preconditions. Roh is increasingly desperate for tangible signs of success for his engagement policy, but his flexibility to offer inducements has been curtailed by Pyongyang's abrupt cancellation of plans for resuming inter-Korean rail links and heavy-handed demands for redrawing the maritime border.

Roh's engagement strategy even faces growing criticism from the ruling party, which is distancing itself from the beleaguered president after disastrous local elections on May 31. A missile launch would cause the National Assembly to reduce funding for inter-Korean initiatives during upcoming budget deliberations.

Seoul would feel forced to curtail additional shipments of food and fertilizer during the next few months, postpone discussion of additional programs and cancel former president Kim Dae-jung's scheduled visit next Tuesday to Pyongyang. The Roh administration would, however, not cease its involvement in the Gaesong industrial zone in North Korea.

In the long run, Seoul will continue to push the United States to moderate its hardline policy toward North Korea and will serve as an intermediary with Pyongyang. A missile launch would roil already jittery South Korean markets but, in the absence of subsequent escalatory action by North Korea or the US, this would likely be of short duration.

Bruce Klingner is the Korea analyst for Eurasia Group, the world's largest political-risk consultancy. The views expressed herein are his own. His areas of expertise are national security, political, military and economic affairs in Korea, China and Japan. He can be reached at klingner@eurasiagroup.net.

(Copyright 2006 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/HF21Dg02.html
The long reach of North Korea's missiles
By Bertil Lintner

BANGKOK - North Korea may be a poor country, but it has some of the most developed missile systems in the world. Not even years of near-economic collapse, famine and hunger have hampered the country's missile-development programs, which are meant both as a preemptive defense - to scare off potential attackers - and for export.

Over the years, North Korea has earned substantial revenue from the sale of missiles, and missile components and technology. It is widely believed that the sale of missiles is the financial source for the country's nuclear program, which is the reason United States and other Western countries are eager to stop North Korean missile exports.

According to US-based North Korea expert Joseph Bermudez, countries that have bought missile parts and technology from North Korea include Iran, Egypt, Pakistan, Libya, Syria, the United Arab Emirates and Vietnam. In recent years, however, North Korea has lost two important customers: Pakistan, which has become a US ally, and Libya, whose Muammar Gaddafi has pledged to give up his country's weapons-of-mass-destruction program.

Assisted by Soviet experts and technicians, North Korea began producing surface-to-air missiles more than 40 years ago. But the first ones were quite rudimentary, and it was not until North Korea signed a military agreement with China in 1971 that the industry took off. Gradually, however, the North Koreans themselves became capable of developing and fine-tuning their growing arsenal of missiles - together with some rather unexpected, non-communist partners.

The first was Egypt. North Korea helped that country in the war with Israel in October 1973 by providing some pilots. In return for that assistance, Egypt transferred a small number of its Soviet-supplied FROG-7B and rockets and launchers to North Korea, which had already started a ballistic-missile program. As early as 1965 - and with the Korean War still in fresh memory - the Great Leader Kim Il-sung established the Hamhung Military Academy to conduct research into missile technology. In an inaugural speech before the academy, he stated:
If war breaks out, the US and Japan will also be involved. In order to prevent their involvement, we have to be able to produce rockets which fly as far as Japan. Therefore it is the mandate of the Military Academy to develop mid- and long-range missiles.
In the early 1980s, Egypt provided North Korea with Soviet-made Scud B missiles, which can carry a 200-kilogram warhead 290 kilometers or more. None of these missiles was test-fired, but they were used as models for reverse-engineering in a string of new factories that were built near the Chinese border in the north, far away from the Demilitarized Zone and prying South Korean and US eyes. The first North Korean-made replica was finished in 1984 and called the Hwasong 5.

Throughout the Hwasong program, North Korea cooperated closely with Egypt, and part of the deal was that the North Koreans would set up a production capability for Scud-type missiles in Egypt. North Korea also realized that there was money to be made from its new invention.

At an early stage, Iran expressed an interest in buying missiles, which it needed for its long and bloody war with Iraq, from North Korea. In June 1987, the two countries concluded a US$500 million arms agreement, which included about 100 Hwasong 5s. In Iran, the missile was given a new name: the Shehab 1.

There is nothing to indicate that the Soviet Union and other communist states at this stage were involved to any significant extent in North Korea's missile development, although China provided technical training to North Korean engineers as well as high-quality machine tools.

As skills and techniques improved, North Korea began to develop more advanced missiles. The Hwasong 5 was followed by the Hwasong 6, which could be armed with chemical and cluster warheads. It was also sold to Iran as the Shehab 2.

In March 1993, North Korea test-fired a new missile called Rodong, which could carry either a 1,200kg warhead 1,300km, or a 1,000kg warhead as far as 1,500km - or enough to be able to reach major cities and US bases in Japan. A 21-member delegation headed by Brigadier-General Hossein Mantequei, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard commander in charge of Tehran's missile force, had arrived in Pyongyang to observe the test. The Iranians were satisfied, and as many as 150 Rodongs were sold to Iran, where the missile was renamed the Shehab 3.

New customers were also found in the Middle East. Not only were Syria and Libya among them, but even the conservative United Arab Emirates bought 25 Hwasong 5 missiles as well as artillery pieces and multiple rocket launchers in 1989. The UAE, however, was not pleased with the quality of the Hwasongs, and they were left to rust in a warehouse.

Outside the Middle East, Pakistan emerged as North Korea's foremost trading partner for military hardware. Pakistan initially approached North Korea to buy conventional weaponry in the early 1970s, when tension was escalating with India over East Pakistan's attempts to break away.

On September 18, 1971, the first shipment of North Korean weapons arrived in Karachi, but East Pakistan managed to break away anyway - with help from India - and form independent Bangladesh that December. The following year, North Korea and Pakistan established diplomatic relations, and North Korea sold artillery, multiple rocket launchers, ammunition, and a variety of spare parts to Pakistan. The modified Pakistani version of the North Korea's Nodong, or Rodong, missile was called the Ghauri and was first tested on April 6, 1998.

Pakistan's cooperation with North Korea came to a halt when, in late 2001, the former became an ally of the United States in the "war on terror". Now Iran has become North Korea's main partner in missile, and most likely also nuclear, development.

Apart from being a major source of hard currency, North Korea's missile-development program serves another, equally important purpose. Pyongyang has repeatedly asked Japan to pay compensation for its brutal colonial rule of Korea, from 1910 to 1945 - and Japan is extremely sensitive to North Korea's missile and nuclear capabilities. In 1999, Hwang Won-tak, adviser to then South Korean president Kim Dae-jung, indicated that the North might demand food and hard currency from Japan in return for not test-firing missiles.

In 1998, a new generation of North Korean missiles was born with the three-stage Taepodong 1, which it test-fired over Japan on August 31 from the Musudan-ni launch facility on the coast of North Hamgyong province. The Japanese were outraged and saw it as a grave provocation, but the North Koreans stated that the purpose was only to place their first satellite - the Kwangmyongsong 1 - into orbit to beam down hymns in praise of Kim Il-sung.

Whatever the case, the missile flew 1,090km from the launch site in North Korea into the Pacific Ocean east of the main Japanese island of Honshu. Since then, a Taepodong 2 with a range of 6,700km has been developed, which has brought US bases in Okinawa, Guam, Alaska and Hawaii within the potential range of North Korean missiles. The North Koreans are working on a third Taepodong, which will be capable of delivering a 500-1,000kg warhead at a distance of 10,000-12,000km - anywhere in the United States.

It is believed that it is the Taepodong 2 that North Korea now is planning to test-fire. Whether is will scare Japan, and perhaps also South Korea, into offering more aid remains to be seen. But the United States appears to be in no mood to offer North Korea anything, focusing as it is on finding ways to choke off North Korea's lethal exports - and to eliminate any threat that those missiles pose to US interests and security.

NORTH KOREA'S MISSILE SYSTEMS



Short-range ballistic missiles (SRBM)

SA-2/HQ-2 SSM
Range: 60-160km
Warhead: 190kg
Year developed: 1976

DF-61
Range: 600km
Warhead: 1,000kg
Year developed: na

Scud B (R-17E)
Range: 300km
Warhead: 1,000kg
Year developed: 1981

Hwasong 5 (Prototype Scud Model A)
Range: 300km
Warhead: 1,000kg
Year developed: 1984

Hwasong 5 (Scud Model
Range: 320-340km
Warhead: 1,000kg
Year developed: 1985
(Note: In Iran, the Hwasong 5 is known as the Shehab 1)

Hwasong 6 (Scud Model C; Scud PIP)
Range: 500km
Warhead: 770kg
Year developed: 1989

Medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBM)

Nodong (Nodong 1, Rodong 1, Scud Model D)
Range: 1,350-1,500km
Warhead: 1,200kg
Year developed: 1993
(Note: the Pakistani copy of the Nodong is called the Ghauri. The Nodong has a range of 1,350km with a 1,200kg warhead; the Ghauri has a range of 1,500km with a 700kg warhead. The Nodong 1 is known as the Shehab 3 in Iran)

Taepodong 1 (Daepodong 1, Nodong 2, Scud X, Scud Model E, Rodong 2)
Range: 2,500km
Warhead: 700-1,000kg
Year developed: 1998
(Note: This is the kind of missile that the North Koreans test-fired over Japan in August 1998. Range according to the latest estimate by the South Korean Ministry of Defense. Earlier estimates were 1,500-2,000km)

Intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBM)

Taepodong 1 SLV
Range: 4,000km
Warhead: 50-100kg
Year developed: 1998

Intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM)

Taepodong 2 (Daepodong 2, Nodong 3)
Range: 6,700km
Warhead: 700-1,000kg
Year developed: 2000
(Latest estimate by the South Korean Ministry of Defense. Earlier estimates were 4,000-6,000km)

Three-stage Taepodong 2 (Taepodong 3)
Range: 10,000-12,000km
Warhead: 500-1,000kg
Year developed: Being developed

Range requirements
The entire South Korea - 500km
US bases in Japan and major Japanese cities: 1,000-1,500km
US bases in Alaska and Hawaii: 4,000-6,000km
Continental US: 6,000+km
(Source: Joseph S Bermudez Jr, Shield of the Great Leader: The Armed Forces of North Korea, Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2001.



Bertil Lintner is a former correspondent with the Far Eastern Economic Review and the author of Great Leader, Dear Leader: Demystifying North Korea under the Kim Clan. He is currently a writer with Asia-Pacific Media Services.

(Copyright 2006 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)

US makes missile defense system operational:

Amid concerns over an expected North Korean missile launch, the United States has moved its ground-based interceptor missile defense system from test mode to operational, a U.S. defense official said on Tuesday.
http://tinyurl.com/gfd7u


US: If N. Korea Launches Missile Without Notice, Can't Assume it is Test :

Spokesman Bryan Whitman, says if there is a launch without any advance notice from the government in Pyongyang, there will be no basis on which to assume it is only a test.
http://voanews.com/english/2006-06-19-voa52.cfm


U.S. Keeps Mum on Warships in East Sea :

The U.S. has declined to tell the South Korean military if one of its Aegis destroyers is plowing the East Sea with a view to intercepting a long-range ballistic missile North Korea is allegedly planning to launch
http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/new...0606190031.html


US 3-Carrier Drill Aimed at N.Korea?

Between June 19 and 23, the U.S. will conduct a massive military drill that includes three aircraft carriers, 28 naval vessels, and 22,000 troops on the ocean nearby Guam. - The Japanese prime minister, announced in a press meeting yesterday that “if North Korea launches the missile, we can’t help taking strong measures to respond in cooperation with the U.S.”
http://english.donga.com/srv/service.php3?...d=2006062046408


In case you missed it:

Rumsfeld was on ABB board during deal with North Korea :

Donald Rumsfeld, the US secretary of defence, was on the board of technology giant ABB when it won a deal to supply North Korea with two nuclear power plants.
http://www.swissinfo.org/eng/swissinfo.htm...105&sid=1648385


In case you missed it::

US grants N Korea nuclear funds:

In releasing the funding, President George W Bush waived the Framework's requirement that North Korea allow inspectors to ensure it has not hidden away any weapons-grade plutonium from the original reactors.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/1908571.stm


Nobel laureates urge US to lift sanctions on N Korea :

A GROUP of 15 Nobel Peace Prize winners called on the United States to lift financial restrictions on North Korea to help end the impasse over the communist nation's nuclear weapons program.
http://tinyurl.com/z43l3


Michael Carmichael: Bush's America opposes verifiable ban on fission

In a vote of the Disarmament Committee of the United Nations (UN), one and only one nation voted against El Baradei's proposal - George Bush's America.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13704.htm


Russia’s Putin, Bush Discuss North Korea Missile Program, Iran:

U.S. President George W. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke by telephone and agreed to close ranks on Iran and North Korea, a White House official said.
http://tinyurl.com/fu5eh

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/HF21Dg02.html
The long reach of North Korea's missiles
By Bertil Lintner

BANGKOK - North Korea may be a poor country, but it has some of the most developed missile systems in the world. Not even years of near-economic collapse, famine and hunger have hampered the country's missile-development programs, which are meant both as a preemptive defense - to scare off potential attackers - and for export.

Over the years, North Korea has earned substantial revenue from the sale of missiles, and missile components and technology. It is widely believed that the sale of missiles is the financial source for the country's nuclear program, which is the reason United States and other Western countries are eager to stop North Korean missile exports.

According to US-based North Korea expert Joseph Bermudez, countries that have bought missile parts and technology from North Korea include Iran, Egypt, Pakistan, Libya, Syria, the United Arab Emirates and Vietnam. In recent years, however, North Korea has lost two important customers: Pakistan, which has become a US ally, and Libya, whose Muammar Gaddafi has pledged to give up his country's weapons-of-mass-destruction program.

Assisted by Soviet experts and technicians, North Korea began producing surface-to-air missiles more than 40 years ago. But the first ones were quite rudimentary, and it was not until North Korea signed a military agreement with China in 1971 that the industry took off. Gradually, however, the North Koreans themselves became capable of developing and fine-tuning their growing arsenal of missiles - together with some rather unexpected, non-communist partners.

The first was Egypt. North Korea helped that country in the war with Israel in October 1973 by providing some pilots. In return for that assistance, Egypt transferred a small number of its Soviet-supplied FROG-7B and rockets and launchers to North Korea, which had already started a ballistic-missile program. As early as 1965 - and with the Korean War still in fresh memory - the Great Leader Kim Il-sung established the Hamhung Military Academy to conduct research into missile technology. In an inaugural speech before the academy, he stated:
If war breaks out, the US and Japan will also be involved. In order to prevent their involvement, we have to be able to produce rockets which fly as far as Japan. Therefore it is the mandate of the Military Academy to develop mid- and long-range missiles.
In the early 1980s, Egypt provided North Korea with Soviet-made Scud B missiles, which can carry a 200-kilogram warhead 290 kilometers or more. None of these missiles was test-fired, but they were used as models for reverse-engineering in a string of new factories that were built near the Chinese border in the north, far away from the Demilitarized Zone and prying South Korean and US eyes. The first North Korean-made replica was finished in 1984 and called the Hwasong 5.

Throughout the Hwasong program, North Korea cooperated closely with Egypt, and part of the deal was that the North Koreans would set up a production capability for Scud-type missiles in Egypt. North Korea also realized that there was money to be made from its new invention.

At an early stage, Iran expressed an interest in buying missiles, which it needed for its long and bloody war with Iraq, from North Korea. In June 1987, the two countries concluded a US$500 million arms agreement, which included about 100 Hwasong 5s. In Iran, the missile was given a new name: the Shehab 1.

There is nothing to indicate that the Soviet Union and other communist states at this stage were involved to any significant extent in North Korea's missile development, although China provided technical training to North Korean engineers as well as high-quality machine tools.

As skills and techniques improved, North Korea began to develop more advanced missiles. The Hwasong 5 was followed by the Hwasong 6, which could be armed with chemical and cluster warheads. It was also sold to Iran as the Shehab 2.

In March 1993, North Korea test-fired a new missile called Rodong, which could carry either a 1,200kg warhead 1,300km, or a 1,000kg warhead as far as 1,500km - or enough to be able to reach major cities and US bases in Japan. A 21-member delegation headed by Brigadier-General Hossein Mantequei, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard commander in charge of Tehran's missile force, had arrived in Pyongyang to observe the test. The Iranians were satisfied, and as many as 150 Rodongs were sold to Iran, where the missile was renamed the Shehab 3.

New customers were also found in the Middle East. Not only were Syria and Libya among them, but even the conservative United Arab Emirates bought 25 Hwasong 5 missiles as well as artillery pieces and multiple rocket launchers in 1989. The UAE, however, was not pleased with the quality of the Hwasongs, and they were left to rust in a warehouse.

Outside the Middle East, Pakistan emerged as North Korea's foremost trading partner for military hardware. Pakistan initially approached North Korea to buy conventional weaponry in the early 1970s, when tension was escalating with India over East Pakistan's attempts to break away.

On September 18, 1971, the first shipment of North Korean weapons arrived in Karachi, but East Pakistan managed to break away anyway - with help from India - and form independent Bangladesh that December. The following year, North Korea and Pakistan established diplomatic relations, and North Korea sold artillery, multiple rocket launchers, ammunition, and a variety of spare parts to Pakistan. The modified Pakistani version of the North Korea's Nodong, or Rodong, missile was called the Ghauri and was first tested on April 6, 1998.

Pakistan's cooperation with North Korea came to a halt when, in late 2001, the former became an ally of the United States in the "war on terror". Now Iran has become North Korea's main partner in missile, and most likely also nuclear, development.

Apart from being a major source of hard currency, North Korea's missile-development program serves another, equally important purpose. Pyongyang has repeatedly asked Japan to pay compensation for its brutal colonial rule of Korea, from 1910 to 1945 - and Japan is extremely sensitive to North Korea's missile and nuclear capabilities. In 1999, Hwang Won-tak, adviser to then South Korean president Kim Dae-jung, indicated that the North might demand food and hard currency from Japan in return for not test-firing missiles.

In 1998, a new generation of North Korean missiles was born with the three-stage Taepodong 1, which it test-fired over Japan on August 31 from the Musudan-ni launch facility on the coast of North Hamgyong province. The Japanese were outraged and saw it as a grave provocation, but the North Koreans stated that the purpose was only to place their first satellite - the Kwangmyongsong 1 - into orbit to beam down hymns in praise of Kim Il-sung.

Whatever the case, the missile flew 1,090km from the launch site in North Korea into the Pacific Ocean east of the main Japanese island of Honshu. Since then, a Taepodong 2 with a range of 6,700km has been developed, which has brought US bases in Okinawa, Guam, Alaska and Hawaii within the potential range of North Korean missiles. The North Koreans are working on a third Taepodong, which will be capable of delivering a 500-1,000kg warhead at a distance of 10,000-12,000km - anywhere in the United States.

It is believed that it is the Taepodong 2 that North Korea now is planning to test-fire. Whether is will scare Japan, and perhaps also South Korea, into offering more aid remains to be seen. But the United States appears to be in no mood to offer North Korea anything, focusing as it is on finding ways to choke off North Korea's lethal exports - and to eliminate any threat that those missiles pose to US interests and security.

NORTH KOREA'S MISSILE SYSTEMS



Short-range ballistic missiles (SRBM)

SA-2/HQ-2 SSM
Range: 60-160km
Warhead: 190kg
Year developed: 1976

DF-61
Range: 600km
Warhead: 1,000kg
Year developed: na

Scud B (R-17E)
Range: 300km
Warhead: 1,000kg
Year developed: 1981

Hwasong 5 (Prototype Scud Model A)
Range: 300km
Warhead: 1,000kg
Year developed: 1984

Hwasong 5 (Scud Model
Range: 320-340km
Warhead: 1,000kg
Year developed: 1985
(Note: In Iran, the Hwasong 5 is known as the Shehab 1)

Hwasong 6 (Scud Model C; Scud PIP)
Range: 500km
Warhead: 770kg
Year developed: 1989

Medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBM)

Nodong (Nodong 1, Rodong 1, Scud Model D)
Range: 1,350-1,500km
Warhead: 1,200kg
Year developed: 1993
(Note: the Pakistani copy of the Nodong is called the Ghauri. The Nodong has a range of 1,350km with a 1,200kg warhead; the Ghauri has a range of 1,500km with a 700kg warhead. The Nodong 1 is known as the Shehab 3 in Iran)

Taepodong 1 (Daepodong 1, Nodong 2, Scud X, Scud Model E, Rodong 2)
Range: 2,500km
Warhead: 700-1,000kg
Year developed: 1998
(Note: This is the kind of missile that the North Koreans test-fired over Japan in August 1998. Range according to the latest estimate by the South Korean Ministry of Defense. Earlier estimates were 1,500-2,000km)

Intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBM)

Taepodong 1 SLV
Range: 4,000km
Warhead: 50-100kg
Year developed: 1998

Intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM)

Taepodong 2 (Daepodong 2, Nodong 3)
Range: 6,700km
Warhead: 700-1,000kg
Year developed: 2000
(Latest estimate by the South Korean Ministry of Defense. Earlier estimates were 4,000-6,000km)

Three-stage Taepodong 2 (Taepodong 3)
Range: 10,000-12,000km
Warhead: 500-1,000kg
Year developed: Being developed

Range requirements
The entire South Korea - 500km
US bases in Japan and major Japanese cities: 1,000-1,500km
US bases in Alaska and Hawaii: 4,000-6,000km
Continental US: 6,000+km
(Source: Joseph S Bermudez Jr, Shield of the Great Leader: The Armed Forces of North Korea, Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2001.



Bertil Lintner is a former correspondent with the Far Eastern Economic Review and the author of Great Leader, Dear Leader: Demystifying North Korea under the Kim Clan. He is currently a writer with Asia-Pacific Media Services.

(Copyright 2006 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)

MISSILE DEFENSE TEST REVIEW & OUTLOOK (WALL STREET JOURNAL, JUNE 2): The emerging U.S. missile defense system and a North Korean test launch is an ideal time to demonstrate that we are willing and able to defend ourselves.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1150851163...ew_and_outlooks
PAID SUBSCRIPTION

NORTH KOREA'S INCREDIBLY BAD IDEA EDITORIAL (NEW YORK TIMES, JUNE 20): Washington has reacted sensibly, not wasting a lot of time on diplomatic rigmarole and delivering instead a clear and direct message to North Korea not to proceed with a missile test.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/20/opinion/20Tues2.html

THERE'S METHOD IN THE MISSILE MADNESS - BRUCE KLINGNER (ASIA TIMES, JUNE 21): North Korea's preparations to test-fire an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching the United States, despite warnings from the US, South Korea and Japan, is part of a propaganda offensive to regain international attention and increase its bargaining leverage to wrest concessions from Washington and Seoul.
http://atimes.com/atimes/Korea/HF21Dg01.html
TEXT ENTRY FROM
http://atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page.html

NORTH KOREA'S LOGIC EDITORIAL (BOSTON GLOBE, JUNE 21): Recently, when the regime invited chief US negotiator Chris Hill to Pyongyang for talks, US hardliners refused the invitation. If the North does launch a missile in coming days, it will not be the only irrational party responsible for the ensuing crisis in Asia.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial...h_koreas_logic/

TESTED BY NORTH KOREA EDITORIAL (LOS ANGELES TIMES, JUNE 21): By stubbornly insisting on its right to test a long-range ballistic missile, North Korea is reinforcing the importance of a unified approach to the crisis on the Korean peninsula.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editor...ment-editorials

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/fe...ml?id=110008544




Missile Defense Test
Time to shoot back at Kim Jong Il's latest provocation.

Wednesday, June 21, 2006 12:01 a.m.

As we went to press in the U.S. last night, morning was breaking at the Musudan-ri launch facility in the remote northeast of North Korea. It's possible we'll wake up to the news that Pyongyang has tested the long-range ballistic missile that is fully fueled and which U.S. satellites have monitored for more than a month.
If so, we hope we'll also learn that the U.S. responded by testing its newly operational missile defense system and blowing the Korean provocation out of the sky. What better way to discourage would-be nuclear proliferators than to demonstrate that the U.S. is able to destroy their missiles before they hit our allies, or the U.S. homeland. Even a miss would be a useful learning experience all around.

Consider what's at stake. We've known for years that North Korea has several nuclear weapons at the very least and is developing the missile technology to threaten America. Pyongyang's test missile is believed to be a Taepodong-2. A two-stage version could reach Alaska, Hawaii or the West Coast, according to a study in March by the Center for Nonproliferation at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, while a three-stage model could reach all of the continental U.S.

North Korea may not yet have the ability to miniaturize a nuclear warhead--but then again it may. In any event, it's small comfort that the Taepodong-2 is probably inaccurate. If it misses Seattle, that's not necessarily good news for Tacoma or Portland.





The last time North Korea launched a missile that caught the world's attention was in August 1998, when it shot a Taepodong-1 over Japan and into the Pacific. Pyongyang has since tested shorter-range missiles many times, including as recently as March. Its inventory of ballistic missiles totals about 800, including 100-200 Nodongs and Taepodong-1s capable of reaching Japan. North Korea is also developing a land-based mobile missile known as the Taepodong-X, with a range of 4,000 kilometers that could land anywhere in Japan.
Missile exports have also long been a major source of foreign exchange for Pyongyang, with customers in Pakistan (whose "Ghauri" missile is a renamed Nodong) and throughout the Middle East. Its longtime best customer is Iran, which last year was reported to have purchased technology that allowed it to extend the range of its Shahab-3 missile to 3,500 kilometers from 1,500. In the blunt words of the German daily Bild last December, "this means that the 'madmen of Iran' could reach targets in the whole of Germany."

All of which demonstrates once again the need for the missile defenses that the Bush Administration has steadily been developing. The objective of the integrated system--which U.S. officials stress is "limited" and still under development--is to provide a "layered" defense, with multiple opportunities to take shots at an incoming missile. The highly complex system depends on swift coordination among elements based on land, at sea, and in the air or space.

On the ground, a key element are the interceptor missiles newly deployed at Fort Greeley, Alaska, and Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. There are also interceptors aboard the Navy's Aegis cruisers, two of which are currently patrolling near North Korea. Sensors are located aboard ships, in space, and at several sophisticated radar stations world-wide.

North Korea clearly intends any launch as an act of intimidation, part of its long-held belief that nuclear threats give it political leverage. Knocking the missile out of the sky, or even trying to, would tell the North that it can't succeed with such tactics. It would also reassure Japan and other U.S. allies that we have the will to protect them from rogue madmen. The demonstration effect would be useful around the world, not least in Iran.





As North Korea weighs a launch, it's a useful moment to recall how we got to this pass: Amid the arms-control era of the Cold War, the U.S. chose to defend itself against attack by plane or ship or ground but not by missile. One reason North Korea--and Iran--decided to invest scarce resources into developing nuclear weapons and ballistic-missiles is simply this: The U.S. was vulnerable.
The emerging missile defense system is making that less true, and a North Korean test launch is an ideal time to demonstrate that we are willing and able to defend ourselves.


Copyright © 2006 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

http://www.nysun.com/pf.php?id=34932




Bush Rejects N. Korea Call For Talks
BY BURT HERMAN - Associated Press
June 22, 2006
URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/34932

SEOUL, South Korea - North Korea said yesterday that it wants direct talks with America over its apparent plans to test-fire a long-range missile, but a top American envoy rejected the request.

North Korea this week issued a bristling declaration of its right to carry out the launch and said American concerns should be resolved through negotiations. The American ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, said a missile threat wasn't the way to seek dialogue.

"You don't normally engage in conversations by threatening to launch intercontinental ballistic missiles, and it's not a way to produce a conversation because if you acquiesce in aberrant behavior, you simply encourage the repetition of it, which we're obviously not going to do," Mr. Bolton told reporters at U.N. headquarters in New York.

President Bush said North Korea faces further isolation from the international community if it test-fires the missile believed capable of reaching American soil.

"It should make people nervous when nontransparent regimes, who have announced they have nuclear warheads, fire missiles," Mr. Bush said at a meeting with European leaders in Vienna, Austria. "This is not the way you conduct business in the world."

A spokesman for a former South Korean president, Kim Dae-jung, cited the missile crisis as the reason for canceling a trip next week to the North that could have offered a rare chance for talks to soothe tensions.

South Korea also said its humanitarian aid to North Korea might be affected by such a test.

"If North Korea test-fires a missile, it might have an impact on aid of rice and fertilizer to North Korea," the South Korean unification minister, Lee Jongseok, told opposition lawmakers, according to his spokesman.

South Korea has shipped 150,000 tons of fertilizer this year and had planned to send another 200,000 tons. Pyongyang has asked for 500,000 tons of rice this year, but Seoul has yet to agree.

At the Vienna summit, the Austrian chancellor, Wolfgang Schuessel, said that if North Korea fires the missile, Europe would join America in condemning it.

June 22, 2006 Edition > Section: Foreign > Printer-Friendly Version

Former Defense Officials Urge U.S. Strike on North Korean Missile Site:

Former defense secretary William J. Perry has called on President Bush to launch a preemptive strike against the long-range ballistic missile that U.S. intelligence analysts say North Korea is preparing to launch.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article1722.htm

====
U.S. rejects N.Korea bid for missile talks:

"North Korea as a sovereign state has the right to develop, deploy, test fire and export a missile," he told South Korea's Yonhap news agency. "We are aware of the U.S. concerns about our missile test-launch. So our position is that we should resolve the issue through negotiations."
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13723.htm

===
U.S. begins rare war games off Guam:

As tensions with North Korea rise, three U.S. aircraft carriers filled the skies with fighters Tuesday for one of the largest U.S. military exercises in decades off this small island in the Pacific.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/274...tml?source=mypi

===
Tokyo official says N. Korean missile incapable of carrying nuclear warheads:

A Japanese Foreign Ministry official said on Thursday that North Korea does not seem to have a technology to load nuclear warheads onto its long-range missile now standing ready for a test launch.
http://tinyurl.com/nz2qc

US rejects launch of first-strike missile against North Korea Seattle Times
Senior Bush administration officials tried to ease tensions Thursday over a possible North Korean missile launch, playing down the idea of using the nascent missile-defense system and brushing aside a provocative proposal to launch a pre-emptive strike against the missile site. The officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney and national-security adviser Stephen Hadley, said they were pressing diplomatic options to persuade North Korea not to launch a long-range missile for the first time since 1998. "We think diplomacy is the right answer, and that is what we are pursuing," Hadley said. Writing in The Washington Post on Thursday, former Defense Secretary William Perry and former Assistant Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter contended that diplomacy has failed and that Bush should launch a pre-emptive strike against the facility on the northeastern coast of North Korea, where a missile may be preparing for a test launch. "I appreciate Bill's advice," Cheney told CNN. "I think, obviously, if you're going to launch strikes at another nation, you'd better be prepared to not just fire one shot. And, the fact of the matter is, I think the issue is being addressed appropriately." Cheney minimized the threat posed by North Korea to the United States, saying that its "missile capabilities are fairly rudimentary" and that "their test flights in the past haven't been notably successful."

Also
A Navy ship Thursday intercepted a medium-range missile warhead above the Earth's atmosphere off Hawaii in the latest test of the U.S. missile-defense program, the military said. The Missile Defense Agency said the test had been scheduled for months and was not prompted by concerns about a North Korean test launch.
By Glenn Kessler
Is Iran studying North Korea's nuclear moves? Christian Science Monitor
No, Don't Blow It Up Washington Post
Washington Times - CNN International - Bangkok Post - Toronto Sun - all 2,408 related »

http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2006/0...0845316221.html




With a little help from its friends - US calls on North Korea's neighbours
Date: June 23 2006


Peter Hartcher International Editor in Washington

WITH North Korea threatening to test a long-range missile, the US has said it cannot reform the nuclear rogue state on its own and has called on China and South Korea to step in with a "very strong effort".

The Deputy Secretary of State, Bob Zoellick, said that the US was prepared to consider offering North Korea a deal like the one on offer to Iran.

The deal would offer Pyongyang a choice between "two pathways", with responsible behaviour rewarded and recklessness punished.

But, in implicit acknowledgment of the limits to US influence, Mr Zoellick stressed that Washington could not act unless China and South Korea changed their approach.

"To make it work, you've got to get some very strong effort by China and South Korea," he told the Herald.

In 2003 North Korea withdrew from the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and then announced it had nuclear weapons.

It appears to be preparing to test a new-generation long-range missile, which would bring all of Asia, northern Australia and Hawaii within range.

China, South Korea, Japan, Russia and the US are joined in so-called six-party talks with North Korea to talk it out of its nuclear program. This is the only forum in which Washington has agreed to negotiate with Pyongyang, but the talks have been stalled for months.

North Korea yesterday suggested it would halt preparations to test new missiles if the US agreed to a direct one-on-one negotiation.

The US ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, rejected this, saying, "You don't normally engage in conversations by threatening to launch intercontinental ballistic missiles."

Mr Zoellick, who has general carriage of Asia policy until his departure for the private sector in a month or so, outlined what the US wants from China and South Korea.

"The South Koreans can't just see their role as offering concessions every time the North Koreans engage in bad behaviour.

"China is going to have to also recognise the risks of maintaining the current status quo. The Chinese, I don't think, want the North Koreans to cross a red line on nuclear weaponry because they're afraid of the effect on South Korea and Japan and regional security."

But Mr Zoellick suggested that Beijing had a countervailing pressure. "They're also afraid of a collapse in North Korea," he said, implying that China would not be prepared to withdraw its heavy economic support of the North Korean regime as a part of a negotiation with Pyongyang.

"And so it's that balance. And I think part of it is: Will the Chinese recognise that the status quo may not hold in North Korea in part because it is a state that lives off illegitimate activities? It lives off counterfeiting, it lives off money laundering, it lives off narcotics. For darn sure, it can't live off proliferation.

"We, and we hope others who feel a responsibility for the international system, believe that they should stop counterfeiting and smuggling and abducting people and things like that. Those strike us as not being normal behaviours.

"We've got to keep pressuring the Chinese to sort of see that a response to that from the North Korean position where it's gotta decide, 'Well, let's build a legitimate state.' "




This material is subject to copyright and any unauthorised use, copying or mirroring is prohibited.

http://apnews.excite.com/article/20060624/D8IEGFP80.html



North Korea Gives No Hint on Missile Test

Jun 24, 5:36 AM (ET)

By BURT HERMAN

(AP) This satellite image provided by IKONOS taken on Nov. 2, 2000 purports to show the Taepo Dong...
Full Image



SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North Korea gave no hint of whether it will fire a long-range missile as widely feared, a New Zealand diplomat who visited Pyongyang said Saturday. A top U.S. defense official expressed confidence the United States could intercept a missile from the North.

New Zealand's ambassador to both Koreas, Jane Coombs, said she conveyed her country's "grave concern" to North Korean officials during a four-day trip, but was given no clue about Pyongyang's plans for the launch.

"They did not confirm that such a test was imminent ... nor did they deny that such a test was imminent," Coombs said in Beijing.

Coombs, who visited Pyongyang to present her credentials for her new post, met with North Korea's No. 2 leader, Kim Yong Nam, and Vice Foreign Minister Kim Yong Il.

North Korea has made recent moves that would enable it to launch a long-range missile, U.S. and Asian officials have said. Intelligence reports say fuel tanks have been seen around a missile at the North's launch site on its northeastern coast, but officials say it's difficult to determine if the rocket is actually being fueled by looking at satellite photos.

In Washington, the Pentagon's missile defense chief said he has little doubt that U.S. interceptor rockets could hit and destroy a long-range North Korean missile if President Bush gave the order to attack it on a path to U.S. territory.

Air Force Lt. Gen. Henry A. Obering III, director of the Missile Defense Agency, refused to say whether the U.S. missile defense system is on alert for a possible intercept mission, but noted that it has been designed specifically to defend U.S. territory against known missile threats from North Korea.

"(From) what I have seen and what I know about the system and its capabilities, I am very confident," he said at a news conference.

However, U.S. National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley said earlier this week that the U.S. missile defense system had "limited operational capability" to intercept and destroy such a missile.

The North's reported plans to fire the missile have stoked widespread international concern, with its main allies China and Russia warning against it.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton said he was "very encouraged" by China and Russia's concern. He said the U.S. approached the North Koreans last weekend "and told them that we thought the idea of a launch was a very bad idea."

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan reiterated his concern, saying a missile launch "in a region like the Korean Peninsula, at a time when we have lots of difficult issues ... is not a wise thing to do and North Korea must listen to what the international community is telling it."

The North has said it is willing to talk to Washington about its missile concerns, repeating its long-held desire for direct meetings with the Americans. Washington insists it will only meet the North amid six-nation talks aimed at ridding Pyongyang of its nuclear weapons program.

On Friday, U.S. forces wrapped up massive Pacific war games in a show of military might. The five days of exercises - the largest in the Pacific since the Vietnam War - brought together three aircraft carriers along with 22,000 troops and 280 warplanes off the island of Guam in the western Pacific.

The U.S. will launch similar war games with seven other countries off Hawaii next week. The monthlong exercises, known as RIMPAC, will bring together forces from Australia, Canada, Chile, Peru, Japan, South Korea, Britain and the U.S.

North Korea called the biennial drills a rehearsal for invasion, saying Friday night that it would "react against the reckless provocations of the aggressors with strong measures for self-defense."

Japan and the United States, meanwhile, signed an agreement to expand cooperation on ballistic missile defense development. Japan's Defense Agency also said a high-resolution radar that can detect a ballistic missile had been deployed at a base in northern Japan.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060623/ap_on_...DMzBHNlYwM3MDM-

-- --

Mondale backs pre-emptive missile strike
Fri Jun 23, 1:01 PM ET

MINNEAPOLIS - Former Vice President Walter Mondale said Friday he supports a pre-emptive U.S. strike against a North Korean missile, saying the U.S. should tell North Korea to dismantle the missile or "we are going to take it out."

"I think it would end the nuclear long-range dreams of this dangerous country," said Mondale, who was the 1984 Democratic presidential nominee and a former U.S. ambassador to Japan.

The tensions are over North Korea's apparent preparations to test-fire a Taepodong-2 missile, which is believed to have a range of up to 9,300 miles. That would make it capable of hitting much of the U.S. mainland.

Mondale, 78, said North Korea already has nuclear weapons and its ambition to develop a long-range missile is "one of the most dangerous developments in recent history." It's so dangerous, he said, because of the nation's isolation from the international community and its unpredictable leader, Kim Jong Il.

"Here's this bizarre, hermit kingdom over there with a paranoid leader getting ready to test a missile system that can hit us," Mondale said.

Former President Clinton's defense secretary, William Perry, also advocated a pre-emptive strike in The Washington Post, but National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley brushed aside Perry's suggestion. Mondale spoke about a pre-emptive strike during an appearance on WCCO-AM in Minneapolis.

Mondale and President Jimmy Carter took office in 1976 and were defeated by Republican Ronald Reagan in 1980. Mondale lost as the Democratic presidential nominee in 1984. He was appointed ambassador to Japan in 1993 and is now practicing law in Minneapolis.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid...rticle/ShowFull

-- --

Jun. 26, 2006 6:57
'US to deploy PAC-3 interceptor missiles in Japan'
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
TOKYO

Japan and the United States have agreed to speed up deployment of advanced Patriot interceptor missiles on US bases in Japan, officials said Monday, amid concerns that North Korea may test-fire a long-range ballistic missile.

The two sides agreed earlier this month on the US plans to deploy Patriot Advanced Capability-3 missiles, designed to intercept ballistic missiles, cruise missiles or enemy aircraft, on its bases in Japan for the first time, a Defense Agency spokeswoman said on condition of anonymity.

The US military would deploy three or four of the surface-to-air missiles on the southern island of Okinawa by the end of the year, where it also plans to send an additional 500-600 troops, Japan's largest newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun reported, quoting unidentified government officials.

The plan was proposed by US officials during a June 17 meeting in Hawaii, the report said.

The Defense Agency spokeswoman said the PAC-3 deployment sites have not been finalized.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml...25/wkorea25.xml



If we've got a missile, let's fire it into George Bush's window, say N Koreans
Sergey Soukhorukov in Pyongyang and Colin Freeman
(Filed: 25/06/2006)



In a land where anti-Western propaganda is the norm, one might have expected a triumphant state broadcast - or, perhaps, a rallying denunciation of "American lies".

But last week, as North Korea created a diplomatic storm over claims that it was preparing to test fire a missile that could hit the United States, television sets in Pyongyang were tuned into a rather different drama.


North Koreans have long been urged to hate the United States
Instead of giving any details of the mounting crisis, state television broadcast the final episode of Mother, a turgid 22-part series based on a novel by the Soviet-era Russian novelist Maxim Gorky.

As with so much of life inside the world's last Stalinist state, the vast majority of North Korea's 23 million citizens remain completely in the dark about their nuclear weapons programme, or the international pariah status it has earned them.

Most have never heard of the regime's new Taephodong-2 long-range missile, which Washington claimed last week was being put in position for a test launch in the north east of the country, and which analysts fear is capable of carrying a nuclear warhead to America's west coast. Nor, seemingly, are they aware of the dire consequences that such a strike would invite.

"How is it, we really have an intercontinental rocket?" asked one 50-year-old diner in a Pyongyang restaurant, sporting a lapel pin of North Korea's leader, Kim Jong-il.

When informed of the missile's existence, his face lit up in anger. "In this case we should fire it at United States, right to the White House, in Bush's window."

The restaurant's waitress also looked blank when asked why so few North Koreans knew that their country was at the centre of a nuclear standoff.

"We are at the state of war with USA, and there are a lot of spies, traitors and counter-revolutionaries around," she said. "Our Dear Leader knows what he does, and if it's necessary to keep something secret, we will".

Western intelligence reports last week suggested that fuel tanks have been seen around a missile launch pad at Moosan-rhee, although analysts conceded that it was difficult to be certain on the basis of satellite photographs. Kim Jong-il's regime has said it is willing to talk to America about its missile concerns, but Washington has insisted that it will meet the North only for talks directly aimed at scrapping the weapons programme.

On Friday, US officials in Seoul, the capital of neighbouring South Korea, repeated warnings that a missile launch by the North could have serious repercussions. "We still hope that they recognise that launching that missile would only isolate them further, and that they will make the right decision and not launch the missile," an official said. China and Russia - Pyongyang's remaining key allies - have also urged caution.

Last week, the US activated its fledgling ground-based interceptor missile defence system as a precaution after seeing the activity on the missile site.

Pentagon officials declined to say whether they would try to shoot down any missile in the event of a test fire.

South Korea is now pushing for a summit in September between its President, Roh Moo-hyun, and President George W Bush, in an effort to resolve differences in dealing with North Korea. The Bush administration has sought to pressure the North, while Seoul has taken the path of reconciliation.

In the meantime, the North Korean media and government has observed a black-out on the situation.

Queries from Pyongyang's tiny pool of foreign correspondents - two Chinese and one Russian journalist - are routinely ignored, while even Russian and Chinese diplomats complain of being in the dark. Most diplomats believe that the reason for pushing ahead with such a controversial missile test would be to strengthen the regime's hands in talks and bring the US to the negotiating table.

"The recent developments here are staged to make Washington change its position, lift sanctions it has imposed on several North Korean companies, and start direct bilateral talks with Pyongyang," said a Russian diplomat.

"The regime suggested this to the US via their United Nations representative in New York, but it didn't work out. Condoleezza Rice [the US secretary of state] made it very clear in her speech last week that intimidation, and the threat of the missile launch, is a bad way to start a dialogue."

The ongoing nuclear crisis has effectively scuppered hopes that North Korea might finally end its era of international isolation, which began in 1948 when Kim Jong-il's father, Kim Il-Sung, pioneered the doctrine of Juche, or self-reliance. Over the past half-century that system has translated into a Communist personality cult surpassing that of Ceausescu's Romania or Hoxha's Albania, with human rights groups documenting widespread cases of torture, public executions, and slave labour.

Up to 200,000 people are believed to be in prison and about two million are thought to have died since the mid-1990s because of famine caused by economic mismanagement.



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Kidnapped S Korean meets family BBC News
A South Korean man believed to have been kidnapped by North Korea in 1978 has been allowed to meet his mother and sister for the first time. The meeting was part of three days of mass reunions for families divided since the Korean War. Kim Young-nam's case has been followed especially closely because, while in the North, he married a Japanese woman, Megumi Yokota, who was also kidnapped. That case has poisoned relations between Japan and North Korea. "I am very happy to see you are so healthy," Mr Kim told his mother as the two hugged, South Korean TV reported. "Stop crying, why do you cry on such a happy day?" Mr Kim then bowed deeply in front of his mother, appearing to seek forgiveness for not having seen her for so long. They and other divided families will now be allowed three days of strictly controlled meetings, according to the BBC's Charles Scanlon in Seoul.

Given up for dead
Kim Young-nam vanished from a beach at the age of 16 in 1978. He is one of nearly 500 South Koreans who are believed to have been taken by the North, many of them used to train North Korean spies


Mr Kim was at first given up for dead. But investigative work by Japanese officials revealed he had been kidnapped by North Korean agents and was still alive and well. He was married and had fathered a daughter with Megumi Yokota, a Japanese girl who was kidnapped at the age of 13 from the coast near her home in Japan. The North Koreans say she later committed suicide. But her parents do not believe it and are desperate for any information from Mr Kim. The daughter, now 18, is expected to be present at the meetings, but it is doubtful she will be able to speak freely. North Korea has not acknowledged the kidnapping of any South Koreans, saying that they were willing defectors. But the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, did admit and apologise for the abduction of 13 Japanese citizens. Five have since been released. Most were used to teach Japanese language and customs to North Korean spies.

N. Korea Warns of Nuclear War if Attacked
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=2148224

http://voanews.com/english/2006-07-03-voa61.cfm

US Reaffirms Peaceful Intentions Toward Pyongyang
By David Gollust
Washington
03 July 2006


Tourist walks by displays of models of North Korea's Scud-B missile
The United States reaffirmed Monday it has no intention of attacking North Korea, though the State Department said there would be an appropriate U.S. response to any long-range North Korean missile test. Earlier, North Korea warned of a nuclear response in the event of an American attack.

Officials here are reiterating U.S. statements of peaceful intentions toward North Korea, while telling the reclusive Pyongyang government it can have a fundamentally different relationship with the United States, and its regional neighbors, through the Chinese-sponsored six-party talks.

The comments follow a strongly-worded media commentary by North Korea, which warned that country would respond to any pre-emptive attack against it with what was termed an annihilating counter-strike with nuclear weapons.

The North Korean comments were the strongest thus far since reports surfaced last month that Pyongyang might be preparing for a long-range missile test, breaking a self-imposed moratorium in place since 1999.

Former U.S. Defense Secretary William Perry and a former key aide drew headlines two weeks ago with a New York Times commentary advocating a pre-emptive strike to prevent the test.

The Bush administration said at the time that diplomacy was the right course to defuse the issue.

In a statement Monday following the North Korean commentary, a State Department spokeswoman said that, should North Korea take the provocation of launching a missile, the United States would respond appropriately, including by taking the necessary measures to protect itself.

But at the same time, she said, both President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have made clear the United States has no intention of invading or attacking North Korea.

She said the United States and its partners in the six-party process continue to urge North Korea not to launch a long-range missile, and, instead, return to the negotiations, and achieve the vision of the joint statement reached last September.

She said the September 19 statement lays out a framework, through which North Korea could achieve the fundamentally different relationship with the United States and the other parties, through the complete and verifiable elimination of its nuclear weapons and programs.

North Korea agreed in principle in the September document to give up its nuclear ambitions in exchange for aid and security guarantees from the other parties, which include South Korea, Japan and Russia along with the United States and host China.

But the six-party talks have been idle since a brief session in Beijing last November.

North Korea has refused to return, demanding that the United States first drop penalties imposed against North Korean business entities because of alleged counterfeiting of U.S. currency and other illegal activity by Pyongyang.

The United States has said the sanctions are completely unrelated to the six-party talks, but is prepared to discuss the matter with North Korean officials, if that country returned to the negotiations.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/HG06Dg02.html
N Korea's missiles met by Japanese sanctions
By Hisane Masaki

TOKYO - Just hours after North Korea's provocative series of missile launches, Japan has reacted by banning the docking of the Mangyongbyon-92, a ferry that shuttles between Wonson in North Korea and Niigata, and which is the main direct link between the two countries.

As of Wednesday morning, the ship was anchored in the Sea of Japan about two kilometers off Niigata prefecture.

Also on Wednesday morning, the United Nations Security Council held an emergency, closed meeting to discuss the issue, after a
request to do so by Japan's ambassador to the UN, Kenzo Oshima. The request followed an emergency meeting of Japan's national security council, convened by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.

Additional Japanese sanctions are in the pipeline. Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe said "Japan will take any kind of sanctions we can" against North Korea, including economic and financial sanctions. Japan also plans to bring up the issue at the Group of Eight (G8) summit to be held in St Petersburg later this month, Abe said.

North Korea staged a series of missile tests in the early hours of July 5, which was still July 4, Independence Day, in the US. One of the missiles launched was the Taepodong-2 long-range missile, which some claim can hit the western extremities of the US. It fizzled out, crashing into the Sea of Japan less than a minute after launch.

The other half dozen launches were various versions of shorter-range Scuds and Rodong missiles, some of which have a range sufficient to reach virtually any target in either South Korea or Japan. They all fell harmlessly in the Sea of Japan (which Koreans call the East Sea).

"North Korea has gone ahead with the launch despite international protests," Abe said. "That is regrettable from the standpoint of Japan's security, the stability of international society, and non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. This is a grave problem in terms of peace and stability not only of Japan but also of international society. We strongly protest against North Korea."

Meanwhile, Japan's Foreign Minister Taro Aso was consulting by telephone with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. The two agreed that the UN Security Council should take up the issue.

Washington denounced the launches as a "provocation" soon after they were confirmed. "You're going to see a lot of diplomatic activity here in the next 24-48 hours, said National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley. US anti-missile systems based in Alaska, California and at sea were on alert but not activated.

Japan and the US had warned in recent weeks that a Taepodong-2 launch would violate Pyongyang's self-imposed 1999 moratorium on ballistic missile tests, a 2002 agreement with Japan, and also its implicit agreement in the six-party nuclear talks last year. Pyongyang had claimed, however, that its moratorium on ballistic missile tests no longer applied as it was no longer in direct talks with Washington.

While stepping up diplomatic efforts to rally international pressure on Pyongyang to halt its preparations, Japan had threatened to impose economic sanctions in close cooperation with the US if the Taepodong-2 was launched, with or without a sanctions resolution of the United Nations Security Council.

Even before Wednesday's missile tests, Japan and the US reportedly had already begun discussions on a prospective Security Council resolution harshly condemning such action. Foreign Minister Aso said recently that it would be "inevitable" for the Security Council to consider imposing sanctions on Pyongyang if a launch went ahead.

But it remains to be seen how much support Japan and the US can garner. When Pyongyang test-launched a Taepodong-1 missile over Japan's air space in 1998, the Security Council only issued a statement to the press - not a binding resolution or even a chair's statement - expressing concerns. That was because China objected to discussing the matter in the Security Council.

However, this time China may agree to take up the issue because it must be aware of the seriousness of the situation and because of its position as the chair of the six-party nuclear talks. But Beijing's support for sanctions appears unlikely. Among the participant countries in the talks, China, Russia and South Korea have advocated a softer approach to Pyongyang, while the US and Japan have taken a harder line.

China and Russia appear unlikely to agree to economic sanctions against Pyongyang. Because of this prospect, Japan and the US have been poised to cooperate in imposing economic sanctions of their own, even without a UN resolution. Japan has already passed the necessary bills to do so on its own.

In 2004, Japan revised the Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Law to allow the government to halt trade and block cash remittances to North Korea - or to any other country, without a UN resolution. Japan also enacted a law that year that authorizes the government to ban the docking of North Korean ships, or ships that have visited North Korea, at Japanese ports. The Mangyongbyon-92 ferry had been widely considered to be among the most likely targets.

Pyongyang has often warned that economic sanctions would be tantamount to a "declaration of war". To be sure, North Korea would suffer if Japan went that far. But the impact of the Japanese punishment would be limited unless other nations, especially China and South Korea, join in the sanctions.

Until 2002, Japan was North Korea's second-largest trading partner after China, facilitated in part by the large ethnic-Korean community in Japan. However, the two-way trade has shrunk considerably in recent years, reflecting increasingly tense relations. Japan has fallen behind China, South Korea and Thailand.

Japan now appears very likely to accelerate work on implementing recently enhanced security arrangements with the US and bilateral cooperation on a missile defense system. In April 1996, then prime minister Ryutaro Hashimoto and then US president Bill Clinton issued a joint security declaration in Tokyo reaffirming the importance of the bilateral security alliance in the post-Cold War era. The next year, Japan and the US adopted new defense cooperation guidelines to flesh out the declaration.

Beginning in May 1999, Japan set about enacting laws needed to put these agreements into effect. The government initially faced opposition the Diet (Japan's parliament). But the increased sense of crisis among many Japanese over threats posed by North Korea smoothed the way for passage, helped by provocations from Pyongyang.

Heading the list of provocations was the multi-stage Taepodong-1 missile the North sent without warning over Japan into the northern Pacific in August 1998. Also, two North Korean spy ships were spotted in March 1999 in Japanese territorial waters off the Noto Peninsula, central Japan. In December 2001, a North Korean spy ship blew itself up and sank after a fire fight with Japan Coast Guard patrol boats in waters off the Amami Islands, Kagoshima prefecture.

North Korea's 1998 Taepodong-1 missile launch also spurred Tokyo to begin joint technological research with Washington on a missile defense system the following year. In December last year, the Koizumi government formally committed to the joint development of a new sea-based interceptor missile, called the Standard Missile-3 (SM3), as a main pillar of the US-led system. The joint development cost is estimated at a maximum of $2.7 billion, with Japan shouldering up to $1.2 billion and the US paying the rest.

Japan also decided in late 2003 to introduce a defensive system, using existing interceptor missiles, by 2007. Well over 100 Patriot Advanced Capability 3, or PAC3, surface-to-air missiles will be procured by the end of fiscal 2010. PAC3 missiles are intended to hit incoming missiles at an altitude of up to 20 kilometers that have escaped missiles launched from Japanese destroyers.

In July last year, Japan revised the Self-Defense Forces law to allow the Defense Agency chief to order emergency missile interceptions without waiting for approval from the prime minister and the cabinet. Since North Korean missiles would reach Japanese territory in about 10 minutes, the defense chief could not afford to follow normal procedures.

On June 23, Japan and the US signed an agreement to formally begin the joint development of an advanced SM3. And recently, the Bush administration reportedly notified Tokyo that it would deploy PAC3 missiles at a base in Okinawa by year's end. The deployment will be the first time the surface-to-air missiles have been installed to defend US forces in Japan from possible North Korean missile attacks.

On June 22, a US Navy ship intercepted a medium-range missile warhead above the earth's atmosphere off Hawaii in the latest test of the US missile defense program. The US said the test had been scheduled for months and was not prompted by indications that North Korea was planning to test launch a long-range missile. The Japanese destroyer Kirishima practiced tracking the target, marking the first time that a Japanese Aegis destroyer had participated in a US interception test.

Hisane Masaki is a Tokyo-based journalist, commentator and scholar on international politics and economy. Masaki's e-mail address is yiu45535@nifty.com.

(Copyright 2006 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing .)

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/HF21Dg02.html
The long reach of North Korea's missiles
By Bertil Lintner

BANGKOK - North Korea may be a poor country, but it has some of the most developed missile systems in the world. Not even years of near-economic collapse, famine and hunger have hampered the country's missile-development programs, which are meant both as a preemptive defense - to scare off potential attackers - and for export.

Over the years, North Korea has earned substantial revenue from the sale of missiles, and missile components and technology. It is widely believed that the sale of missiles is the financial source for the country's nuclear program, which is the reason United States and other Western countries are eager to stop North Korean missile exports.

According to US-based North Korea expert Joseph Bermudez, countries that have bought missile parts and technology from North Korea include Iran, Egypt, Pakistan, Libya, Syria, the United Arab Emirates and Vietnam. In recent years, however, North Korea has lost two important customers: Pakistan, which has become a US ally, and Libya, whose Muammar Gaddafi has pledged to give up his country's weapons-of-mass-destruction program.

Assisted by Soviet experts and technicians, North Korea began producing surface-to-air missiles more than 40 years ago. But the first ones were quite rudimentary, and it was not until North Korea signed a military agreement with China in 1971 that the industry took off. Gradually, however, the North Koreans themselves became capable of developing and fine-tuning their growing arsenal of missiles - together with some rather unexpected, non-communist partners.

The first was Egypt. North Korea helped that country in the war with Israel in October 1973 by providing some pilots. In return for that assistance, Egypt transferred a small number of its Soviet-supplied FROG-7B and rockets and launchers to North Korea, which had already started a ballistic-missile program. As early as 1965 - and with the Korean War still in fresh memory - the Great Leader Kim Il-sung established the Hamhung Military Academy to conduct research into missile technology. In an inaugural speech before the academy, he stated:
If war breaks out, the US and Japan will also be involved. In order to prevent their involvement, we have to be able to produce rockets which fly as far as Japan. Therefore it is the mandate of the Military Academy to develop mid- and long-range missiles.
In the early 1980s, Egypt provided North Korea with Soviet-made Scud B missiles, which can carry a 200-kilogram warhead 290 kilometers or more. None of these missiles was test-fired, but they were used as models for reverse-engineering in a string of new factories that were built near the Chinese border in the north, far away from the Demilitarized Zone and prying South Korean and US eyes. The first North Korean-made replica was finished in 1984 and called the Hwasong 5.

Throughout the Hwasong program, North Korea cooperated closely with Egypt, and part of the deal was that the North Koreans would set up a production capability for Scud-type missiles in Egypt. North Korea also realized that there was money to be made from its new invention.

At an early stage, Iran expressed an interest in buying missiles, which it needed for its long and bloody war with Iraq, from North Korea. In June 1987, the two countries concluded a US$500 million arms agreement, which included about 100 Hwasong 5s. In Iran, the missile was given a new name: the Shehab 1.

There is nothing to indicate that the Soviet Union and other communist states at this stage were involved to any significant extent in North Korea's missile development, although China provided technical training to North Korean engineers as well as high-quality machine tools.

As skills and techniques improved, North Korea began to develop more advanced missiles. The Hwasong 5 was followed by the Hwasong 6, which could be armed with chemical and cluster warheads. It was also sold to Iran as the Shehab 2.

In March 1993, North Korea test-fired a new missile called Rodong, which could carry either a 1,200kg warhead 1,300km, or a 1,000kg warhead as far as 1,500km - or enough to be able to reach major cities and US bases in Japan. A 21-member delegation headed by Brigadier-General Hossein Mantequei, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard commander in charge of Tehran's missile force, had arrived in Pyongyang to observe the test. The Iranians were satisfied, and as many as 150 Rodongs were sold to Iran, where the missile was renamed the Shehab 3.

New customers were also found in the Middle East. Not only were Syria and Libya among them, but even the conservative United Arab Emirates bought 25 Hwasong 5 missiles as well as artillery pieces and multiple rocket launchers in 1989. The UAE, however, was not pleased with the quality of the Hwasongs, and they were left to rust in a warehouse.

Outside the Middle East, Pakistan emerged as North Korea's foremost trading partner for military hardware. Pakistan initially approached North Korea to buy conventional weaponry in the early 1970s, when tension was escalating with India over East Pakistan's attempts to break away.

On September 18, 1971, the first shipment of North Korean weapons arrived in Karachi, but East Pakistan managed to break away anyway - with help from India - and form independent Bangladesh that December. The following year, North Korea and Pakistan established diplomatic relations, and North Korea sold artillery, multiple rocket launchers, ammunition, and a variety of spare parts to Pakistan. The modified Pakistani version of the North Korea's Nodong, or Rodong, missile was called the Ghauri and was first tested on April 6, 1998.

Pakistan's cooperation with North Korea came to a halt when, in late 2001, the former became an ally of the United States in the "war on terror". Now Iran has become North Korea's main partner in missile, and most likely also nuclear, development.

Apart from being a major source of hard currency, North Korea's missile-development program serves another, equally important purpose. Pyongyang has repeatedly asked Japan to pay compensation for its brutal colonial rule of Korea, from 1910 to 1945 - and Japan is extremely sensitive to North Korea's missile and nuclear capabilities. In 1999, Hwang Won-tak, adviser to then South Korean president Kim Dae-jung, indicated that the North might demand food and hard currency from Japan in return for not test-firing missiles.

In 1998, a new generation of North Korean missiles was born with the three-stage Taepodong 1, which it test-fired over Japan on August 31 from the Musudan-ni launch facility on the coast of North Hamgyong province. The Japanese were outraged and saw it as a grave provocation, but the North Koreans stated that the purpose was only to place their first satellite - the Kwangmyongsong 1 - into orbit to beam down hymns in praise of Kim Il-sung.

Whatever the case, the missile flew 1,090km from the launch site in North Korea into the Pacific Ocean east of the main Japanese island of Honshu. Since then, a Taepodong 2 with a range of 6,700km has been developed, which has brought US bases in Okinawa, Guam, Alaska and Hawaii within the potential range of North Korean missiles. The North Koreans are working on a third Taepodong, which will be capable of delivering a 500-1,000kg warhead at a distance of 10,000-12,000km - anywhere in the United States.

It is believed that it is the Taepodong 2 that North Korea now is planning to test-fire. Whether is will scare Japan, and perhaps also South Korea, into offering more aid remains to be seen. But the United States appears to be in no mood to offer North Korea anything, focusing as it is on finding ways to choke off North Korea's lethal exports - and to eliminate any threat that those missiles pose to US interests and security.

NORTH KOREA'S MISSILE SYSTEMS



Short-range ballistic missiles (SRBM)

SA-2/HQ-2 SSM
Range: 60-160km
Warhead: 190kg
Year developed: 1976

DF-61
Range: 600km
Warhead: 1,000kg
Year developed: na

Scud B (R-17E)
Range: 300km
Warhead: 1,000kg
Year developed: 1981

Hwasong 5 (Prototype Scud Model A)
Range: 300km
Warhead: 1,000kg
Year developed: 1984

Hwasong 5 (Scud Model
Range: 320-340km
Warhead: 1,000kg
Year developed: 1985
(Note: In Iran, the Hwasong 5 is known as the Shehab 1)

Hwasong 6 (Scud Model C; Scud PIP)
Range: 500km
Warhead: 770kg
Year developed: 1989

Medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBM)

Nodong (Nodong 1, Rodong 1, Scud Model D)
Range: 1,350-1,500km
Warhead: 1,200kg
Year developed: 1993
(Note: the Pakistani copy of the Nodong is called the Ghauri. The Nodong has a range of 1,350km with a 1,200kg warhead; the Ghauri has a range of 1,500km with a 700kg warhead. The Nodong 1 is known as the Shehab 3 in Iran)

Taepodong 1 (Daepodong 1, Nodong 2, Scud X, Scud Model E, Rodong 2)
Range: 2,500km
Warhead: 700-1,000kg
Year developed: 1998
(Note: This is the kind of missile that the North Koreans test-fired over Japan in August 1998. Range according to the latest estimate by the South Korean Ministry of Defense. Earlier estimates were 1,500-2,000km)

Intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBM)

Taepodong 1 SLV
Range: 4,000km
Warhead: 50-100kg
Year developed: 1998

Intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM)

Taepodong 2 (Daepodong 2, Nodong 3)
Range: 6,700km
Warhead: 700-1,000kg
Year developed: 2000
(Latest estimate by the South Korean Ministry of Defense. Earlier estimates were 4,000-6,000km)

Three-stage Taepodong 2 (Taepodong 3)
Range: 10,000-12,000km
Warhead: 500-1,000kg
Year developed: Being developed

Range requirements
The entire South Korea - 500km
US bases in Japan and major Japanese cities: 1,000-1,500km
US bases in Alaska and Hawaii: 4,000-6,000km
Continental US: 6,000+km
(Source: Joseph S Bermudez Jr, Shield of the Great Leader: The Armed Forces of North Korea, Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2001.



Bertil Lintner is a former correspondent with the Far Eastern Economic Review and the author of Great Leader, Dear Leader: Demystifying North Korea under the Kim Clan. He is currently a writer with Asia-Pacific Media Services.

(Copyright 2006 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)









Japan puts more pressure on North Korea (Jun 16, '06)

Of soccer mania and missiles (Jun 15, '06)

Proliferation: A good idea badly executed (Jun 2, '06)

Outcry over N Korea missile test BBC News
World powers have condemned North Korea for test-firing a series of missiles, including one thought capable of reaching the US. The seven missiles included a long-range Taepodong-2, which the US said failed shortly after take-off. The US called the tests "provocative", and urged a resumption of multilateral talks. Japan went on to announce a range of sanctions against Pyongyang. The UN Security Council has held an emergency meeting on the crisis. The ambassadors of the US, Japan and the UK said there had been widespread concern with not a single member of the council defending North Korea's actions. A draft resolution drawn up by Japan and the US is said to demand that Pyongyang immediately stop the development, testing and deployment of ballistic missiles.


It also calls on member states to prevent the transfer of resources, items and technology that could contribute to North Korea's missile programme. Experts are beginning discussion on the document but there is no indication when it may be passed by the council. Tokyo - one of North Korea's harshest critics, and in easy reach of a long-range missile - has already said it will ban the entry of North Korean officials, chartered flights and a ferry. In its first response to the tests, China urged all sides to remain calm. Japanese and South Korean military are on high alert, and share prices have fallen in both countries.

See the possible range of North Korea's missiles
Pyongyang remained defiant. A foreign ministry official said such launches were a matter of national sovereignty, Japanese media reported. The BBC's Charles Scanlon in Seoul says the North has been feeling under pressure and ignored in recent months, with the US refusing to negotiate on its demands over its nuclear plans.President George W Bush's spokesman repeated on Wednesday that this was not "a US-North Korea issue" and the US would not "permit the leader of North Korea to transform it into that". But he added: "The key point is to figure out a diplomatic way to get the North Koreans to step back and rejoin the six-party talks." The spokesman did not say if the US planned any sanctions, adding the country was "beholden to other parties" for energy and economic aid.

Heightened alert
Some observers believe it was not a coincidence that North Korea launched six of the missiles as the US celebrated its Independence Day holiday and launched the space shuttle from Florida.According to US officials, the six earlier launches took place over a four-hour period, beginning at 0332 Japan time (1832 GMT Tuesday). Among them was the Taepodong missile - thought capable of reaching Alaska. US officials said it failed shortly after take-off, while the others fell into the Sea of Japan. The seventh missile launch came hours later, at 1722 Japan time (0822 GMT) according to local media reports. The US and North Korea's neighbours have been on heightened alert in recent weeks amid suspicions that Pyongyang was preparing to launch the Taepodong-2, which has a range of up to 6,000 km (3,730 miles). It was Pyongyang's first test of a long-range missile since a self-imposed moratorium in 1999. The last time North Korea tested a long-range missile was in 1998, when it launched a Taepodong-1 over northern Japan.

World Security Institute
1779 Massachusetts Ave. NW
Phone: 202.797.5287
Fax: 202.462.4559
PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
July 5, 2006 Contact: Whitney Parker
Phone: 202.797.5287


"North Korea’s Launch of Several Missiles Prompts Concern, Confusion"

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- North Korea’s launch of numerous missiles this week raises interesting questions about the capabilities of both the U.S. missile defense system and North Korea’s ballistic missile program. Many reports noted that while six of the launches were short- to medium-range ballistic missiles, with Scuds ranging about 200 miles and the Nodongs about 625 to 875 miles, there was only one test of the Taepodong-2, thought to be North Korea’s longest-range ballistic missile with the theoretical capability of reaching 2,500 miles. However, the Taepodong-2 fell apart about 40 seconds into its flight, before its second stage could be engaged.

But confusion has mounted regarding the exact number of launches, and how the U.S. missile defense system can respond when many of the tests were not confirmed until after the fact. According to CDI Senior Advisor Philip E. Coyle, III, “The press was confused about how many missiles North Korea actually fired. At first it was three, then four or five, then six. Furthermore, according to Yonhap news agency, citing South Korean government officials, a total of 10 missiles, including two Taepodongs, were launched, and both Taepodongs failed. The head of the Russian General Staff has said that 10 missiles were launched, and that according to one set of data they all looked like ICBMs; and according to another set of data they were rockets of different classes. This displays one of the vulnerabilities of missile defense. If you don't see all of the missiles an enemy fires, or if they fire too many, even the most futuristic missile defenses we can imagine will be overwhelmed.”

Also, CDI Research Analyst Victoria Samson points out, “The failure of the Taepodong-2 highlights the extent of the hype surrounding North Korea’s missile program. The rising hysteria about their assumed capabilities has done nothing except promote support for the U.S missile defense system, which did nothing to mitigate this particular situation.”

The United States has nine ground-based interceptors fielded in Alaska and two in California. The system is still in its early stage of development and has not proven its reliability in flight tests. The missile defense program has made five intercepts in only ten, highly-scripted attempts. The last intercept was made in October 2002. For more on the missile defense system’s capabilities, see CDI’s flight test chart at http://www.cdi.org/pdfs/gmd%20ift2.pdf.

Philip Coyle and Victoria Samson, both of the World Security Institute’s Center for Defense Information, are available to the press for comments on the North Korean missile launches and the state of the U.S. missile defense system. Please call the World Security Institute Press Office to arrange an interview.

From Sept. 29, 1994, through Jan. 20, 2001, Coyle was assistant secretary of defense and director, Operational Test and Evaluation, in the Department of Defense, and is the longest serving director in the 20-year history of the office. In this capacity, he was the principal advisor to the secretary of defense on test and evaluation at DOD. Coyle was called upon regularly to testify before Congress and to brief congressional staff on the status of major defense acquisition programs.

Samson is the author of numerous op-eds, analytical pieces, journal articles, and electronic updates on missile defense and space security matters. Prior to joining CDI, Samson worked as a subcontractor on war-gaming scenarios for the Missile Defense Agency's Directorate of Intelligence.
# # #

N Korea vows more missile tests BBC News
North Korea has confirmed that it has test-fired a series of missiles and said it would continue launching them. It also warned of "stronger physical actions" if the international community tried to put pressure on Pyongyang. The North launched seven missiles, one of which was a failed test of a long-range Taepodong-2, believed to be capable of hitting Alaska. The UN Security Council is due to reconvene later to discuss a draft resolution in response to the launches. The document, co-sponsored by the US, UK and Japan, calls for sanctions against North Korea, but differences in approach are already emerging among key powers.


China and Russia - sympathetic to the North - oppose any punitive measures. Japan is reportedly pushing for economic sanctions while South Korea is anxious to continue engaging with the North. US envoy Christopher Hill is travelling to the region to discuss the next steps. China said it would send its chief nuclear negotiator, Vice-Foreign Minister Wu Dawei, to Pyongyang next week to try to restart stalled negotiations on North Korea's nuclear programme.

'Our legal right'
In a statement reported by South Korean media, the North made its first public acknowledgement on Thursday that it had recently test-fired missiles. It described the tests as successful - despite the fact that the flight of the long-range Taepodong-2 failed shortly after take-off. The missiles all landed in the Sea of Japan. The launches were part of "regular military drills to strengthen self-defence," the North's foreign ministry said in a statement carried by the state-run Korean Central News Agency. "Our military will continue with missile launch drills in the future," it added, insisting such action was "our legal right". South Korean media reported on Thursday that there were three or four more missiles waiting on North Korean launch pads, and intelligence sources reported activity in the area around the test sites. But these missiles are not thought to be long-range. Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe said an imminent launch of another Taeopodong-2 was unlikely.

International divide
US President George W Bush has been spearheading efforts to push for joint action against North Korea. He has already spoken to Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and South Korean Preisdent Roh Moo-hyun in an effort to reach a consensus on the way forward. But there are obvious differences between the parties involved. Tokyo - one of North Korea's harshest critics, and in easy reach of its missiles - has led regional condemnation of the launches. Japanese officials said Tokyo and Washington had together agreed to push for sanctions against Pyongyang, and Japan has already said it will ban the entry of North Korean officials, chartered flights and a ferry. But South Korean officials have only agreed to co-operate in diplomacy, with no mention of punitive measures. Unification Minister Lee Jong-seok called for "patient dialogue" rather than sanctions. North Korea's closest allies China and Russia will also have an important part to play in deciding any international action, and are extremely unlikely to back sanctions. Speaking after a UN Security Council emergency session on Wednesday, China's UN ambassador Wang Guangya said that while Beijing was concerned about the launches, a response should be "constructive to maintaining peace in that part of the world". The last time North Korea tested a long-range missile was in 1998, when it launched a Taepodong-1 over northern Japan.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/HG07Dg01.html

Korea's ace threatens US-Seoul alliance
By Donald Kirk

LONDON -- The volley of missiles fired by North Korea confronts Washington with a challenge that no amount of yakking in the United Nations or tut-tutting in Washington is likely to answer. The maestro of North Korean strategy, Kim Jong-il, believes President George W Bush has no cards to play, as one South Korean analyst put it, and North Korea can do whatever it pleases to grab attention.

While bogged down in Iraq, all the United States is doing for now is issuing statements while privately urging its South Korean ally to back down from its policy of reconciliation with North Korea. At the least, South Korea may be expected to ignore North Korea’s request for half a million tons of rice to feed its near-starving people, whose interests Kim would prefer to sacrifice on the altar of a show of military power.

Amid the rhetoric and histrionics, Kim Jong-il, step by step, appears likely to raise the stakes. He’s already got six to eight, possibly more, nuclear warheads, and it’s safe to assume that North Korean scientists and technicians are developing the means to put them on warheads capable of reaching targets near and far.

Right now the target with the most to fear is Japan. The failure of the long-range Taepodong-2 to go anywhere is less than comforting news to the Japanese considering the success of the other missiles - short-range Scuds and mid-range Rodongs - on test flights into the waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan.

North Korea earns about $1.5 billion a year exporting these missiles, and some of their components and technology, to markets mainly in the Middle East. While notoriously inaccurate, they can menace Japan any time while scientists and technicians correct the flaws that make the Taepodong an unreliable instrument of war.

Understandably, the Japanese are more outraged than anyone else by the North Korean display. The Japanese response may have an impact that Kim may not have anticipated. Pressure is building inside Japan to do away with article nine of Japans’ post-war "peace constitution" forbidding Japanese forces from going to war against foreign enemies for anything other than the defense of the Japanese islands. Japan already has mounted SAM3 missiles on Aegis-class destroyers and is installing American Patriot missiles, all to ward off any real threat from North Korea and, in case of some future conflagration, possibly China as well.

The pressure for a shift in Japanese policy is sure to increase, especially since Japan in recent years has become increasingly conservative. One result of this pressure is that the US-Japan alliance, strained during periods when t