Washington Post says seven North Korean missile launches


David E. Powell wrote:
Jack Linthicum wrote:
The count is now one Taepodong-2 long range attempt which failed within
35-40 seconds, 2 of the MRBM Rodongs and 2 Scuds. Sounds like an
exercise built around the launch of the Taepodong-2 with a scenario
including an attack on both Japan (Rodongs--620 m) and South Korea,
(Scuds). All went fairly well except the biggie seems to have gone to
pieces early.'

We had enough stuff close enough to get telemetry readings if they were
there.

Maybe they had the fuel in it too long and that actually did corrode
it, so they kept it up too long on the launch pad before they were
ready to go, and when they did, boom....

As for telemtetry, I would guess so. There were enough vessels in the
area. Things must have been interesting on those ships in the area....

Jack Linthicum wrote:
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

From Elise Labott and Justine Redman
CNN
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/

North Korea Test-Fires Seventh Missile
Launch Comes After Controversial Long-Range Rocket Fails; U.N. Session
Set After U.S., Japan Condemn Action

By Dana Priest, Anthony Faiola and Fred Barbash
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, July 5, 2006; 5:34 AM

North Korea test-fired another missile today, at least its seventh such
launch in 48 hours, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi told
reporters in Tokyo.

Koizumi, speaking this morning, also said he could not rule out further
launches, said Japan's Kyodo News Agency.

The test today was also confirmed by South Korean officials, wire
services reported. Little reliable information was immediately
available on the type and range of the latest missile tested.

North Korean test-fired at least six missiles yesterday, including its
long-range Taepodong-2, senior U.S. officials said, defying warnings
from the United States and regional powers in Asia. The controversial
long-range missile failed less than a minute after launch, falling into
the Sea of Japan, along with the other, less-sophisticated missiles.

Diplomatic and military officials played down any imminent threat
yesterday, but Stephen J. Hadley, President Bush's national security
adviser, called the display of firepower on the Fourth of July
"provocative behavior."

Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso said Tokyo was likely to impose
economic sanctions against North Korea in response to the missile
tests; Japanese authorities said they would begin by banning North
Korean ships from Japanese ports for six months or more.

In Pyongyang, an official from North Korea's communist government met
with Japanese reporters and acknowledged the missile launches. Japan's
NHK television quoted Foreign Ministry official Lee Byong Dok as
saying: "This is an issue of national sovereignty, and other countries
do not have the right to judge. We are not bound by any agreement
regarding missiles."

Over the past several weeks, U.S. intelligence officials had warned of
a possible long-range missile test by North Korea, and the issue became
the subject of increasingly acrimonious exchanges between the United
States and North Korea. Pyongyang's main benefactors, China and South
Korea, as well as Japan and other nations had urged the North not to
proceed with a test. Last night, Hadley said the launch "just shows the
defiance of the international community by North Korea."

The tests could further isolate North Korea and tilt U.S. policy in
favor of Bush administration hard-liners who have argued that stronger
sanctions are the only way to bring North Korea back to the table in
stalled disarmament talks.

In Japan, U.S. Ambassador J. Thomas Schieffer told reporters that he
and Japanese officials had discussed the possibility of getting the
U.N. Security Council to impose economic sanctions on Pyongyang.

In a nationally televised announcement in South Korea, Suh Choo Suk,
senior presidential secretary for security policy, said the North's
"provocative act" would deepen its isolation and affect inter-Korean
ties.

The South Korean government has said it would punish Pyongyang in the
event of a missile test by curbing the massive investment and
humanitarian aid that has formed an integral part of its rapprochement
with the North in recent years. President Roh Moo Hyun is now likely to
face international and domestic pressure to follow through. A scaling
back of financial assistance to the North by South Korea and China is
considered key to the success of any international sanctions against
Pyongyang.

North Korea last test-fired a long-range missile in 1998; it had
observed a moratorium on such launches since 1999. Hadley said that
although the test was a clear violation of that moratorium, it offered
the United States important insight about North Korea's weapons
capabilities: "The Taepodong is a failure. That tells you something
about capabilities." North Korea's intentions were left unclear, he
said.

"It's hard to get a sense of what they think could be achieved by
this," he told reporters. "This is something we've been seeing coming
for a while, so it's not a particular surprise."

The Taepodong-2 was the third of at least six missiles launched
beginning at 2:33 p.m. EDT and ending four hours later. They included
two short-range Scud missiles and three medium-range Nodongs, another
type of Scud, Hadley said. It was the first time in recent memory that
North Korea had launched so many missiles at once.

All the missiles apparently landed within 400 miles of the Japanese
coast, with the last landing approximately 312 miles northwest of
Japan's western city of Niigata, Japanese officials said.

U.S. surveillance observed all the launches, said an official at the
Pentagon, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

"None posed a threat," a Pentagon spokesman said in an e-mail account
of the incident, and "no action [was] required." The Taepodong-2
missile failed after about 35 seconds, he said.

There were South Korean news reports that 10 missiles had been
launched, but those reports could not be immediately confirmed.

A senior State Department official said the tests were "an affront to
everybody, not just us," and that they would likely have a big effect
on South Korean public opinion, which is already impatient with the
flow of humanitarian assistance meant to induce the North Korean
leader, Kim Jong Il, to join the world community.

The failure of diplomacy is also likely to embarrass China. Beijing,
North Korea's biggest benefactor, has called on Pyongyang to return to
a new round of nuclear disarmament talks, which involve six nations and
have been stalled for the past six months. China's ability to prod the
North Koreans back to the table was considered a key test of Beijing's
aspirations for increased diplomatic clout in the region.

There was no immediate reaction from the Chinese Foreign Ministry to
the missile tests, but a North Korea specialist at People's University
in Beijing said the action puts China and other nations in a difficult
position. "Generally it has not changed dramatically the major elements
in the game," said Shi Yin Hong. "The first casualty will be the
six-sided talks. Of course it embarrasses China, but it also
embarrasses the U.S. It embarrasses mostly the South Koreans."

To counter the growing missile threat from the North, the United States
plans to send Japan four defensive Patriot Advanced Capability-3
missile batteries to be stationed on the island of Okinawa by the end
of the year.

After the tests, Shinzo Abe, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's chief
cabinet secretary, said: "The fact that North Korea launched these
missiles despite warnings from the international community is a grave
issue not only regarding Japan's security but peace and stability for
the international community and non-proliferation, and we will make a
stern protest and express our regret to North Korea."

The Nodong is a medium-range Scud missile. The Taepodong-2 is a
multi-stage missile with a possible range of 2,175 to 2,672 miles,
meaning it could hit parts of Alaska.

North Korea's 1998 test involved a three-stage missile. The first stage
splashed down in the Sea of Japan, the second crossed Japan's main
island of Honshu, and a third stage -- detected by U.S. intelligence
only weeks later -- broke up and traveled 3,450 miles downrange,
falling into the Pacific Ocean.

Many analysts agree that North Korea is years away from building a
nuclear warhead small enough to fit on a missile. Its medium- and
long-range missiles also have displayed chronic problems with accuracy.

The Bush administration has increased its insistence recently that
North Korea abandon its missile program, but the administration has not
hinted at any form of immediate military action.

During a recent visit with Koizumi, Bush called a possible missile
launch by the North "unacceptable" and said North Korean leader Kim "is
just going to have to make a decision: Does he want to be isolated from
the world, or is he interested in being an active participant?"

.

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