Posted on 06/22/2006 1:15:09 PM PDT by familyop
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - North Korea is far along in its preparations for testing a long-range ballistic missile but the United States would not necessarily use its missile defense system to shoot it down, U.S. officials said on Thursday.
After a week in which unnamed American officials had stoked alarm about activities at a missile site in eastern North Korea, the U.S. government appeared ready to ease tensions somewhat.
White House national security adviser Stephen Hadley said it remained uncertain if North Korea actually planned to test-fire the missile, an act which Washington has warned would be seen as a provocative act.
"We're watching it very carefully and preparations are very far along. So you could, from a capability standpoint, have a launch. Now what they intend to do ... of course we don't know. What we hope they will do is give it up and not launch," he told reporters traveling with President George W. Bush in Vienna, Austria.
Vice President Dick Cheney said in an interview with CNN that North Korea's missile capabilities were "fairly rudimentary."
"But we are watching it with interest and following it very closely," Cheney said.
A senior U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the United States would not necessarily use its developing missile defense system to shoot down any North Korean missile launch, saying it depended on where the missile was aimed.
The official was seeking to clarify conditions under which Washington would use missile defenses against a North Korean launch.
"Obviously, the United States military would use any capability it had if it could protect the American people," the official said.
PAYLOAD UNKNOWN
But "if there is a test in which a missile goes up, for example, and is headed into the ocean or whatever, would that be necessarily a trigger for our defensive systems? No, it wouldn't be," the official added.
U.S. officials have said they do not know what kind of payload the missile might carry. But two officials told Reuters they would view it as "somewhat less provocative" -- although still undesirable -- if the missile were used to try to put a satellite in orbit.
The United States has built up a complex of interceptor missiles, advanced radar stations and data relays designed to detect and shoot down an enemy missile, but tests of the system have had mixed results.
The system is based on the concept of using one missile to shoot down another before it can reach its target.
William Perry, former President Bill Clinton's secretary of defense, and Ashton Carter, an assistant secretary of defense under Clinton, argued in a commentary in The Washington Post on Thursday that the United States should state its intention to destroy the North Korean missile before it can be fired if the North Koreans persist in their launch preparations.
Asked for his reaction to this proposal, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said Bush "is trying to work this through diplomatic means," rather than military means.
Peter Rodman, assistant defense secretary for international security affairs, also rejected the idea in testimony before the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee, saying: "A pre-emptive strike is a little more dramatic than I would expect would happen."
"Our policy is to deal with this in a less drastic way at the present time. We have a missile defense capability and North Korea was very much on our mind when we designed that capability," he added.
(Additional reporting by Steve Holland in Budapest, Paul Eckert in Washington)
No bias there...Nope!
Of course if Kim aims the damned thing at some land target, especially the USA, we would shoot at it. Dozens of "rounds" if that is what it took.
Yeah, if it were to head in the general direction of our enemy, then Washington would ignore it and claim they didn't have any idea what it might or might not be carrying. However, I'd hope they get off the couch and get their trigger finger ready on the chance it heads this direction.
Where'd they dig this guy up? Some old-age home? Shoot at the missile while it's on the Pad? Sounds OK to me, but did you run that by Maddie, Hillary, Bill & the rest of the Democratic leadership? I'm sure that they'd wet their collective pants/panties.
30 seconds or less, I hope......
...agreed. I mentioned another discrepancy in my comment #6.
I predict they put a satellite in orbit that constantly plays the "I'm so ronery" song from Team America.
I was thinking Mexico City.
Only one condition is necessary --- if it leaves the launch pad.
Determining the trajectory is one thing; doing something about it is another.
This is from the ex Clinton Secretary of Defense.
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States should be ready to destroy North Korea's missile if it is not taken off the launch pad, former defense secretary William Perry and his deputy Ashton Carter said.
Preemption, while "unwisely ballyhooed" by the White House and wrongly applied in Iraq because it lacked weapons of mass destruction, "is surely a prudent policy," the two officials who served under former President Bill Clinton (1992-2000) said in a letter to The Washington Post.
"Therefore, if North Korea persists in its launch preparations, the United States should immediately make clear its intention to strike and destroy the North Korean Taepodong missile before it can be launched," they wrote.
North Korea for several weeks has been preparing to launch a multi-stage Taepodong-2 with a range of up to 6,700 kilometers (4,200 miles), raising international concern and threats of "severe action" from Washington, which has activated its yet unproven antiballistic missile system.
Perry and Carter discourage using the missile defense since, even if successful, it would not prevent the North Koreans from gathering precious flight test data, and because a failed attempt "could undermine whatever deterrent value" it may have.
Instead, they recommend a preemptive strike using a submarine-based cruise missile with a high-explosive head that would create a blast "similar to the one that killed terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq."
The blast would likely cause the Taepodong to explode. "The carefully engineered test bed for North Korea's nascent nuclear missile force would be destroyed, and its attempt to retrogress to Cold War threats thwarted," Perry and Carter said.
Before a strike, they further recommended, the United States should alert its allies and other countries in the region of its intention, and "though war is unlikely, it would be prudent" for US air and naval forces to be introduced in the region to quickly quash any military response from Pyongyang.
"This is a hard measure for President (George W.) Bush to take. It undoubtedly carries risk. But the risk of continuing inaction in the face of North Korea's race to threaten this country would be greater," they said referring to the United States.
The two former officials, both now university professors -- Carter at Harvard, Perry at Stanford, said Washington "cannot sit by and let this deadly threat mature.
"A successful Taepodong launch, unopposed by the United States, its intended victim, would only embolden North Korea even further. The result would be more nuclear warheads atop more and more missiles."
North Korea indicated Wednesday it was ready to put the launch on hold while offering dialogue with Washington, but Bush, from an EU summit in Vienna, rejected the offer saying: "This is not the way to do business in the world."
I think that with all of the assets we have in the area, our Military will have launch notification within seconds of it happening, if not live video of the missile as it lifts off.
A satellite launch will follow a specific trajectory if it is intended to place a payload into orbit. That missile will follow a completely different trajectory if it is designed to deliver a ballistic object; jusch as a simulated or real warhead. It should be perfectly clear what kind of vehicle it really is by monitoring the specific flight profile as it occurs.
There isn't any way that KN is going to launch over China.
Ditto launching over Russia.
They must launch over Japan. And when they do, we have an obligation to shoot it down as quickly as can be arranged, safely. It is entirely possible that we won't be able to get it on ascent, if doing so would cause debris to rain down on Japan, so my best guess is that we'll try for a high altitude intercept, if at all, once it is clear of Japan.
I do expect this President to try and shoot it down if there is any way possible to do it.
Hack into their targeting system and re-program it to fly up Dear Leader's ass.
OK, your right, lets let it get up a few feet and over one of their towns, then drop the thing.
LOL, except the targeting system probably involves an abacus, a piece of slate, some chalk.
I don't know about that. Wouldn't we have to get permission from Kofi Annan and have Congress pass a bill, go through a seven day waiting period, before W said OK?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.