Clinton warns North Korea "Don't launch that missile!"

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton warned North Korea yesterday that firing a missile for any purpose would be a "provocative action" that would have consequences.

North Korea is loading a rocket on a launch pad in anticipation of the launch of a communications satellite between April 4 and 8, U.S. counterproliferation and intelligence officials said. North Korea announced its intention to launch the satellite last month but regional powers worry the claim is a cover for the launch of a long-range missile capable of reaching Alaska.

Clinton told reporters during a visit to Mexico City that the U.S. believes the North Korean plan to fire a missile for any purpose would violate a United Nations Security Council resolution barring the country from ballistic activity. She linked a missile launch to the future of talks between the U.S., North Korea and four other nations aimed at ending North Korea's nuclear weapons program.

"We have made it very clear that the North Koreans pursue this pathway at a cost and with consequences to the six-party talks, which we would like to see revived," Clinton said.

"We intend to raise this violation of the Security Council resolution, if it goes forward, in the UN," she said. "This provocative action in violation of the UN mandate will not go unnoticed and there will be consequences.''

National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair said earlier this month that all indications suggest North Korea will, in fact, launch a satellite. However, North Korea faked a satellite launch in 1998 to cloak a missile development test.

In 2006, North Korea launched a Taepodong-2 that blew up less than a minute into flight.

Both the satellite launch rocket and long-range missile use similar technology, and arms control experts fear even a satellite launch would be a test toward eventually launching a long-range missile.

Read the full story HERE.

Navy Aegis Ships Moving To Intercept N Korean Rocket

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- U.S. Navy ships capable of shooting down ballistic missiles are being moved to the Sea of Japan, a Navy spokesman said.
The USS Chaffee is one of two destroyers headed to South Korea for an upcoming ceremony.

The USS Chaffee is one of two destroyers headed to South Korea for an upcoming ceremony.

The move came as North Korea was preparing for an expected rocket launch next month.

Later Thursday, Japan announced it was ready to fire on the rocket if any part of it enters Japanese airspace.

Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada's order was to destroy debris from the North Korean rocket if its launch fails and fragments fall in Japanese territory, said defense ministry spokesman Yuichi Akiyoshi.

The U.S. ships, with powerful Aegis radar that can track ballistic missile launches, were on regularly planned deployments but were, "prepared to track a launch or more, if afforded," according to a U.S. Navy official who could not be named due to the sensitivity of the information.

The United States generally has a number of Aegis-capable ships in the Sea of Japan because of the threat posed by North Korea to launch missiles. The ships monitor the region and are designed to track and, if need be, shoot down ballistic missiles.

U.S. intel head disputes N. Korea's claim

WASHINGTON, March 27 (UPI) -- The U.S. intelligence chief challenged North Korea's repeated claim it will launch a satellite into space next month, not a missile test.

"Most of the world understands the game they are playing," National Intelligence Director Dennis C. Blair said during a news briefing. "I think they're risking international opprobrium and hopefully worse if they successfully launch it."

Satellite images indicate North Korea is in the final stages of assembling a multistage rocket at a launch site along its coast, the Los Angeles Times reported Friday. North Korea says it plans to launch a communications satellite between April 4-8, but Western leaders said they are concerned that the launch is a missile test-firing.

Western nations and North Korea have been sparring over consequences of the launch, with the United States, South Korea and Japan saying they would seek punitive action from the United Nations, while Pyongyang threatening to reverse the steps it has taken on nuclear disarmament if sanctions are imposed.

"They're trying to use the rationale of a legitimate space launch for a missile, which is in its foundation a military missile," Blair said, describing the rocket as a Taepodong, a multistage missile that may be capable of reaching Alaska.

Breaking News: North Korea loading rocket on launch pad

By PAMELA HESS
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- North Korea is loading a Taepodong rocket on its east coast launch pad in anticipation of the launch of a communications satellite early next month, U.S. officials say. U.S. counterproliferation and intelligence officials have confirmed Japanese news reports of the expected launch between April 4 and 8.

North Korea announced its intention to launch the satellite in February. Regional powers worry the claim is a cover for the launch of a long-range missile capable of reaching Alaska. National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair said earlier this month that all indications suggest North Korea will in fact launch a satellite.

North Korea faked a satellite launch in 1998 to cloak a missile development test. In 2006, it launched a Taepodong-2 that blew up less than a minute into flight.

Both the satellite launch rocket and long-range missile use similar technology, and arms control experts fear even a satellite launch would be a test toward eventually launching a long-range missile.
South Korea, the U.S. and Japan have urged North Korea to refrain from launching a satellite or missile, calling it a violation of a U.N. Security Council resolution barring the country from ballistic activity.

North Korea insists it bears the right to develop its space program and on Tuesday warned the U.S., Japan and its allies not to interfere with the launch.

Officials at the South Korea's National Intelligence Service and the Defense Ministry were not available for comment early Thursday in Seoul.
South Korea's chief nuclear envoy, Wi Sung-lac, said Wednesday after returning from talks with his Beijing counterparts, that a launch would trigger a response.

"If North Korea launches rocket, certain countermeasures are unavoidable," he said. He refused to elaborate, saying the measures, including any sanctions, would be discussed among U.N. Security Council member nations.
It probably won't be clear if the latest launch is a satellite or a missile test until footage can be analyzed after the event; the trajectory of a missile is markedly different from that of a satellite.

Analysts have been watching for signs of a satellite or missile on the launch pad in Musudan-ni, the northeast coastal launch site. Satellite imagery from March 16 showed progress toward mounting a rocket, with a crane hovering over the launch pad, said Christian LeMiere, an editor at Jane's Intelligence Review in London.
He said that once mounted, scientists would need at least a week to fuel and carry out tests before any launch. Images from earlier this month did not indicate the rocket or missile had been mounted, he said Wednesday.
---
Associated Press Writer Jean H. Lee in Seoul contributed to this report.

Special Envoy Headed to N.Korea in Lieu Of Possible Missile Test.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is sending her new envoy for North Korea policy to Asia early next week to work on reviving stalled international nuclear talks with an increasingly hostile Pyongyang.

The trip comes as North Korea threatens to punish anyone trying to disrupt a plan to conduct what the United States and South Korea believe may be a long-range missile test.

Clinton told reporters Thursday that Stephen Bosworth will travel to the capitals of four countries that have been working with Washington to get Pyongyang to give up its nuclear program — Japan, China, Russia and South Korea.

Bosworth said the United States plans to directly engage North Korea, but it is still unclear whether any meetings will happen on this trip.

Christopher Hill, the top U.S. diplomat for Asia, later told reporters that Asian and U.S. officials are looking at the best way "to deter this launch." He dismissed North Korea's claims that it was preparing to conduct a satellite launch.

"It looks an awful lot like a missile launch, and the reason it looks a lot like a missile launch is because it essentially is a missile launch, whatever the payload," Hill said. Considering the North's "opaqueness," coupled with its claims that it has weaponized plutonium, he said, "you can see why we have some very deep concerns about the missile launch."

The North's potential test is seen as a bid for President Barack Obama's attention as six-nation nuclear disarmament talks remain stalled and tension with South Korea soars.


Any missile test would trigger international sanctions.

Bosworth, a former U.S. ambassador to South Korea, traveled earlier this month to Pyongyang on a private trip. North Korea, he said, seems to want to continue talks with the United States. "They see the benefits to them of engagement with the outside world and are prepared to move ahead," he said.

Bosworth was named last week as the Obama administration's special representative for North Korea. He will be responsible for coordinating the overall U.S. policy for North Korea and will keep his position as dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. The State Department says another special envoy for North Korea, Sung Kim, w

Another North Korea Alert Drill for GMD?

Another North Korea Alert Drill for GMD?: "

There doesn't seem to be any official word from U.S. defense officials online yet, but'if North Korea is preparing for another missile launch, then the Ground-based Midcourse Defense System of ballistic interceptors based in Alaska and California'probably is on alert.

'

The New York Times is reporting that North Korea said today it was preparing to send a satellite into orbit in what U.S. and South Korean officials believe will be a provocative test of a long-range missile capable of reaching parts of North America. CNN is reporting it too.

A statement from Pyongyang, via the official Korea Central News Agency online, also said today that 'preparations for launching experimental communications satellite Kwangmyongsong-2 by means of delivery rocket Unha-2 are now making brisk headway at Tonghae Satellite Launching Ground in Hwadae County, North Hamgyong Province.'

The statement said North Korea 'envisages launching practical satellites for communications, prospecting of natural resources and weather forecast, etc. essential for the economic development of the country in a few years to come and putting their operation on a normal footing at the first phase of the state long-term plan for space development.'

The move comes as U.S. and South Korean officials warned the enigmatic North in recent days not to do so. 'We have made it clear that we consider it both provocative and unhelpful,' Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said.''And we will continue to seek ways to discourage them from launching a missile for any purpose.'

U.S. officials declared themselves pleasantly surprised with GMD when they placed it on an extended, 40-day alert in mid-2006 ahead of North Korea's infamous July 4 ballistic missile tests. The alert provided an effective shakedown of the system and allowed the team to work out bugs that could not have been discovered any other way, GMD prime Boeing and Missile Defense Agency officials said through 2007.

North Korea test launched a number of missiles that day'including a long-range Taepodong-2 that might have been capable of reaching some non-continental U.S. states and territories. All splashed down harmlessly in the Sea of Japan, and in fact may have fizzled quickly.

As Aviation Week reported in mid-2007, those launches, as well as ballistic missile demonstrations by Iran, have driven U.S. officials to make plans for simultaneously operating and testing their defenses, which include radars in the U.S., Europe and Pacific region, space-based detectors and interceptors at Ft. Greely, Alaska, and Vandenberg AFB, Calif.

BBC has an excellent wrap-up of North Korea missile mania too.

'

"

(Via Ares.)