N. Korea: Taepodong-2 pointed at waters near Hawaii: report (direct provocation)

Kyodo News ^ | 07/07/06

[TigerLikesRooster]

Taepodong-2 pointed at waters near Hawaii: report

(Kyodo) _ The Taepodong-2 long-range missile recently test-fired by North Korea was pointed at waters near Hawaii, the Sankei Shimbun reported Friday in its online edition.

Citing government sources in Japan and the United States, the report said Japan's Defense Agency and the U.S. military reached the conclusion after analyzing the missile's path from data collected by Aegis-equipped destroyers and RC-135S electronic reconnaissance aircraft.

The missile was test-fired from its launching site in Musudanri in northeast North Korea early Wednesday local time before landing into the Sea of Japan about several hundred kilometers away.

The authorities decided that the missile was pointed at Hawaii from the angle of its nose cone immediately after the launch and the altitude it has reached, the report said.

The distance between North Korea and Hawaii is about 7,000 kikometers. While Taepodong-2 was widely believed to have the firing range of 3,500-6,000 km, its actual range can be longer, the report said.

It is not clear why North Korea targeted areas near Hawaii, but the sources believe North either wanted to show that the missile's firing range includes the United States, or because Hawaii is home to the headquarters of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, or because the missile could mistakenly hit a land area if fired toward Alaska, the report said.

[DoughtyOne]

Thanks. Good points...

[SampleMan]

Thanks but I already got one at the office.

[DoughtyOne]

Thanks... that's pretty much what I thought. I didn't realize the prone part was significant though, if underground.

[Mrs. Shawnlaw]

stock market down again ...

Thats Ok. Start buying!

[BigCinBigD]

We should Nuke the launch site and act surprised it happened.

[TommyDale]

Whoa! This is tantamount to a declaration of war against Japan!

[Yorlik803]

The NK only had Windows 95.....it had the blue screen of death after it to shut down all illegal operations.

[Smartass]

Thanks...

   

 

[Jemian]

Has it been reported why it failed 40 seconds in air?

I haven't seen any report as to why. I'm wondering if we hit it or otherwise took it out. Sabotage, maybe?

[processing please hold]

Hell, I guess we'll get nuked before anybody does anything. The guvment sure is gonna lose a lot of money if a couple million of us ain't around to finance their spending sprees.

I think Bush is gun shy now. It'll take something drastic to happen to us.

I'm too trigger happy to be pres, I guess.

[H. Paul Pressler IV]

Reagan or Nixon would not let this happen.


Both men would have leveled NK.

[muawiyah]

Let's see ~ what's downrange in Hawaii from the North Korean point of view?

First, you have to recall that North Korean attitudes are pretty well stuck at 1945 or thereabouts.

With that filter in place, the Japanese-American population are, of course, simply more Japanese, and the Chinese are just Chinese. This is the great American mid-Pacific "fortress".

Hitting Hawaii with one of their rockets is a THREEFER.

[Thumper1960]

Kerry sure does look fruity in that pic.

[H. Paul Pressler IV]

No, this is tantamount to War against the U.S.A.

[TommyDale]

I guess I should have used the /sarcasm tag. Anyone who has been to Hawaii in the past 20 years knows that the Japanese own almost everything there. It was a joke.

[processing please hold]

Reagan or Nixon would not let this happen.

I've come to expect from Bush just what we've been getting from him since the election....

[H. Paul Pressler IV]

Got ya!

But on a serious this may be the closet we have been to nuclear war since the Cuban Missile Crisis.

[true_blue_texican]

We should Nuke the launch site and act surprised it happened.

I like that plan! :-0

[TennTuxedo]

I was listening to Newt Gingrich on Hannity's radio show this afternoon. Gingrich said that President Bush should tell North Korea that the United States will "Kill" any missile on the launch platform from hereon. The missiles are liquid fuel propelled and take time to ready for launch. We will know when he trying to launch such missiles.