[Knitting A Conundrum]

N.Korean missile broke up soon after launch - reports
TOKYO (Reuters) - The Taepodong-2 long-range missile test-fired by North Korea on July 5 broke up and fell back to earth just after its launch, making its flight much shorter than previously believed, media reports said on Sunday.

The Japanese government had previously said the Taepodong-2 fell into the Sea of Japan about 640 km from the launch site.

Sources quoted by Kyodo news agency said the missile exploded in mid-air within 1.5 km of the launch site, either in a northeastern region of North Korea or in its territorial waters on the edge of the Sea of Japan.

Experts have said the missile is potentially capable of hitting parts of U.S. territory.

The problem was most likely due to difficulties with the missile's boosters, sources quoted by the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper said.

A Japanese government official quoted by the Yomiuri said the new analysis, which will be included in a report to be issued by the government early next month, indicated that North Korea's missile technology was still immature.

"It will likely take a long time for North Korea to launch a Taepodong-2 again," he added.

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2006/7/30/worldupdates/2006-07-30T075034Z_01_NOOTR_RTRJONC_0_-261637-1&sec=Worldupdates

[RDTF]

whew

[SoCalPol]

WASHINGTON, July 29 (Yonhap) -- The U.S. Democratic Party criticized the administration of President George W. Bush on Saturday for failing to resolve the North Korean nuclear and missile problems.

I guess since nothing else is going on in the world, W should get right on it.

[Candor7]

The whole missle was a prop. The fact is that Hezbollah , Iran and North Korea wanted US assets to stay in the Pacific, after the Pacific Fleet exercises. The worlds attention was on N. Korea, as was the US in setting up intercept scenarios for the missles and dealing with the various diplomatic coommunications with our allies , Japan and South Korea.

Then we see that Hezbollah starts sending missles into Israel over night. The US response in getting nationals out was made more difficult. The conjunction of these events is disturbing for the fact that is shows that Iran, Chiona and N. Korea are quite capable of causing strategic diversions for the USA and its allies.

At the same time China observes to see what the US military does when its stretched thin, what vulnerable areas are created or exposed in the USA military system that can be taken advantage of next time.

This is a serious strategic situation which has very important for long term US military planning and flexability.

The Taepodong 2 disintegrated on launch because it was never supposed to do anything else accept root the attention of the world on it. Kim Jung Il was on a train into Russia, and wasn't even in the country through most of it.He might have been briefing Putin on what he wanted communicated at the G8.This was weird, Kim Jung Il is paranoid about leaving his country to travel, will not fly , and took his armored train to Russia, making people believe that the Taepodong attack was ON for real.