North Korean Taepodong-2 missile apparently unsuccesful, three more lesser missiles also launched
- From: "Jack Linthicum" <jacklinthicum@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 4 Jul 2006 14:18:19 -0700
TV news says Taepodong-2 unsuccesful but three more shorter range
lanuched into the Sea of Japan.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/07/04/korea.missile/
U.S. official: North Korea tests long-range missile
CNNFrom Elise Labott and Justine Redman
Tuesday, July 4, 2006; Posted: 4:51 p.m. EDT (20:51 GMT)
North Korea tested a long-range missile and at least two smaller
missiles, U.S. sources told CNN.
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- North Korea launched a long-range Taepodong-2
missile early Wednesday in an apparently unsuccessful test that failed
in flight, a senior State Department official said.
North Korea also tested at least two smaller missiles, U.S. sources
told CNN.
Both missiles were launched from a site other than the one intelligence
officials have watched for weeks ahead of the long-range missile test,
a senior State Department official said.
The United States, Japan and other countries have warned North Korea
against a long-range missile test, saying such a move would be
considered a provocation.
Washington and North Korea's Asian neighbors -- South Korea, China,
Russia and Japan -- have been trying to persuade North Korea to
dismantle its nuclear weapons program since 2002, but those talks have
stalled in recent months.
President Bush warned last week that the isolated Stalinist state would
face even further isolation if it launched the Taepodong-2, which U.S.
analysts fear is capable of reaching the western United States. (Full
story)
"The North Koreans have made agreements with us in the past, and we
expect them to keep their agreements," Bush said last month at the end
of a European Union summit.
"It should make people nervous when nontransparent regimes, that have
announced that they've got nuclear warheads, fire missiles," Bush said.
"This is not the way you conduct business in the world. This is not the
way that peaceful nations conduct their affairs."
The senior State Department official said the launches were timed to
coincide with the launch of the space shuttle Discovery from Florida,
calling it "a provocative act designed to get attention."
The North Koreans fired a Taepodong-1 missile over Japan in 1998, but
declared a moratorium on future tests in 1999.
Two senior State Department officials said Tuesday that fuel trucks had
departed the site where the Taepodong-2 sat on a launch paid,
indicating that a test may have been near.
On Monday, Pyongyang's state-run media carried a report accusing the
United States of harassing North Korea and vowing to respond to any
pre-emptive attack "with a relentless annihilating strike and a nuclear
war with a mighty nuclear deterrent." (Watch why North Korea is talking
about annihilating the U.S. -- 2:04)
The White House has dismissed that threat as "hypothetical." (Full
story)
Meanwhile, the Pentagon took steps to be ready for a possible military
response to a North Korean missile launch.
The U.S. Northern Command recently increased security measures at its
Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Station in Colorado Springs, Colorado, a
military official confirmed.
In other planning measures instituted in the past several days,
Northern Command, along with the Federal Aviation Administration, has
put standby commercial flight restrictions into place over Vandenberg
Air Force Base in California and Fort Greely, Alaska, where the U.S.
interceptor missiles are based.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/07/04/korea.missile/
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