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By Dan De Luce – 1 day ago

WASHINGTON (AFP) — The US military beefed up defenses in Hawaii on Friday over fears that North Korea could launch a missile toward the Pacific island chain.

The US military also tracked a North Korean ship possibly carrying banned cargo — the first vessel to be monitored under UN sanctions imposed last week after the Stalinist state carried out an underground nuclear test on May 25.

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday that there were concerns that North Korea might “launch a missile… in the direction of Hawaii.”

He said he had approved the deployment of THAAD missile defense weapons to Hawaii and a radar system nearby “to provide support” in case of a North Korean launch. Ground-based defenses in Alaska were also at the ready, Gates added.

“I would just say I think we are in a good position should it become necessary to protect American territory,” he said.

The Theatre High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) weapons, coupled with the radar system, are designed to shoot down ballistic missiles.

US and South Korean officials have said North Korea might be readying another ballistic missile test after three launches in 1998, 2006 and this year.

Pyongyang said its latest April 5 launch put a satellite into orbit. The United States and its allies labeled it a disguised test of a Taepodong-2 missile theoretically capable of reaching Alaska.

Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper this week quoted Japanese defense ministry sources as saying any new test of North Korea’s two or three stage Taepodong-2 missile would probably be fired toward Hawaii even if it could not hit the island chain.

It quoted the ministry as saying the Taepodong-2 has a range of 4,000-6,500 kilometres (2,500-4,000 miles), but that Hawaii is more than 7,000 kilometers from the Korean peninsula.

Tensions on the Korean peninsula have been running high since Pyongyang carried out its second nuclear test last month.

A US defense official confirmed that the military has been monitoring a North Korean ship, the Kang Nam, that might be carrying nuclear or missile-related cargo in violation of new UN sanctions.

“There is a particular ship that we are closely monitoring,” the defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told AFP.

The ship could provide the first test of a UN Security Council resolution adopted a week ago that bans shipments of arms and nuclear and missile technology to and from North Korea.

The US military has long kept a close watch on ships heading in and out of North Korea, but the new UN resolution means “we have newfound authorities and responsibilities,” the official said.

The UN resolution calls for inspections of ships but rules out the use of military force to back up the searches.

The sanctions allow for the US Navy and others to ask to inspect North Korean vessels and ships flagged from other countries suspected of carrying banned cargo.

Admiral Mike Mullen, the top US military officer said the United States would “vigorously enforce” Security Council resolution 1874.

If the ship refuses the search, then the vessel would be directed to a nearby port, Mullen told a news conference with Gates.

Mullen would not confirm whether the military was tracking a particular North Korean vessel.

The United Nations resolution calls on member states to inspect ships if there are “reasonable grounds” that a vessel may be carrying illicit cargo.

Analysts say however that North Korea could get around the shipping measures by transporting banned cargo by air and exploiting provisions that prohibit the use of military force.

However, experts say the financial sanctions in the UN resolution could prove more effective against the isolated Stalinist state.

On June 13, the North vowed to build more nuclear bombs and start enriching uranium for a new atomic weapons program, in response to the new UN sanctions. It has not yet demonstrated the ability to put a nuclear warhead on one of its ballistic missiles.

The United States said Thursday it is looking into five-way talks with China, Russia, Japan and South Korea about pressuring North Korea to change tack on its nuclear and missile programs.

The idea was raised, a US official said, when Obama hosted South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak this week.

Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved.

By YOCHI J. DREAZEN

WASHINGTON — The U.S. is moving ground-to-air missile defenses to Hawaii as tensions escalate between Washington and Pyongyang over North Korea’s recent moves to restart its nuclear-weapon program and resume test-firing long-range missiles.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Thursday that the U.S. is concerned that Pyongyang might soon fire a missile toward Hawaii. Some senior U.S. officials expect a North Korean test by midsummer, even though most don’t believe the missile would be capable of crossing the Pacific and reaching Hawaii.

Mr. Gates told reporters that the U.S. is positioning a sophisticated floating radar array in the ocean around Hawaii to track an incoming missile. The U.S. is also deploying missile-defense weapons to Hawaii that would theoretically be capable of shooting down a North Korean missile, should such an order be given, he said.

“We do have some concerns if they were to launch a missile to the west, in the direction of Hawaii,” Mr. Gates said. “We are in a good position, should it become necessary, to protect American territory.”

In another sign of America’s mounting concern about North Korea, a senior defense official said the U.S. is tracking a North Korean vessel, the Kang Nam, suspected of carrying weapons banned by a recent United Nations resolution.

The U.S. moves come as strains intensify between the U.S. and North Korea. Earlier this year, Pyongyang test-fired a missile that flew over Japan before crashing into the Pacific Ocean. On May 25, Pyongyang detonated a nuclear device at a test site near its border with China, drawing rare rebukes from Moscow and Beijing.

President Barack Obama and South Korean President Lee Myung-bak met earlier this week at the White House and agreed to launch a new effort to persuade North Korea to give up its nuclear arsenal. In a joint statement, the Obama administration also agreed to maintain the longstanding U.S. vow to defend South Korea from a North Korean attack.

Japan’s Yomiuri newspaper reported Thursday that North Korea would launch a long-range Taepodong-2 missile at Hawaii from the Dongchang-ni site on the country’s northwestern coast on or close to July 4. In his comments to reporters, Mr. Gates didn’t directly address the Japanese report or say whether the U.S. had evidence that North Korea was preparing for a launch.

Some U.S. officials have said that satellite imagery shows activity at a North Korea testing facility that has been used in the past to launch long-range missiles. During a trip to Manila earlier this month, Mr. Gates said the U.S. had “seen some signs” that North Korea was preparing to launch a long-range missile. But he cautioned that “at this point, its not clear what they’re going to do.”

The stakes would be high for both North Korea and the U.S. in the event of a missile launch.

North Korea would be attempting to demonstrate that it was capable of striking the U.S., but many U.S. defense officials are highly skeptical that North Korea has a missile capable of reaching Hawaii, which is more than 4,500 miles away from North Korea.

North Korean long-range missiles have failed three previous tests in the past 11 years. In the most notable North Korean misfire, a Taepodong-2 missile that Pyongyang launched on July 4, 2006, imploded less than 35 seconds after taking off.

The Obama administration, meanwhile, would have to choose whether to attempt to shoot down the missile, a technically complicated procedure with no guarantee of success. An American failure would embarrass Washington, embolden Pyongyang and potentially encourage Asian allies like Japan to take stronger measures of their own against North Korea.

Last week, the U.N. Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution expanding sanctions and inspections against North Korea in response to the nuclear test. The resolution bars North Korea from exporting a wide range of weaponry, from nuclear to conventional, and “calls upon” all U.N. states to search North Korean vessels — with their consent — for nuclear-related material and other contraband.

The senior defense official said the U.S. would seek to have the North Korean ship suspected of carrying banned arms searched before it reaches its final destination, believed to be Singapore. The ship, which is at sea, left North Korea on Wednesday. The official said that U.S. or allied personnel wouldn’t board the ship by force and would search the ship only with the permission of its crew.

North Korea has said that it would view any efforts at interdiction as an act of war, and some U.S. military officials worry that North Korean vessels would use force to prevent U.S., Japanese or South Korean personnel from searching their ships, potentially sparking an armed confrontation between the two sides.

More broadly, the Obama administration has recently begun re-evaluating the entire premise of American diplomatic outreach to North Korea. Successive U.S. administrations dating back to the Clinton White House have struck deals with North Korea that traded financial assistance, food and power generators for North Korean promises to shut down its nuclear program. Each time, North Korea eventually backed out of the deals.

Pyongyang’s refusal to honor its agreements has persuaded the Obama administration that North Korea was unlikely to ever voluntarily give up its nuclear weapons. That has led the administration to reject the idea of offering North Korean additional aid in exchange for new North Korean vows to abide by agreements it has repeatedly abrogated.

Many Obama administration officials are also skeptical of reopening the so-called six-party talks with North Korea, which also involve China, Japan, Russia and South Korea.

Instead, the administration is trying to persuade China to take a stronger line with North Korea, a putative ally that is deeply dependent on China. U.S. officials hope China will help search and potentially board suspicious North Korean vessels, but China has been noncommittal.

Asked if China had finally accepted U.S. assessments of the threat posed by North Korea, Mr. Gates demurred. “I think that remains to be seen,” he said.

Copyright ©2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Source: The Wall Street Journal

by Staff Writers
Moscow (AFP) June 2, 2009

Russian anti-aircraft defences would be incapable of reaching North Korean ballistic missiles, a former Russian air force commander told the Interfax news agency on Tuesday.

“If North Korean missiles enter Russian air space, the S-300 anti-aircraft defence systems in the Russian Far East could not destroy them,” General Anatolyi Kornukov said.

“This system is not designed to destroy ballistic missiles.”

The most modern anti-aircraft defences - the S-400 Triumf - would be up to the task, but these systems have not been tested outside Moscow, the general added.

North Korea carried out its latest nuclear test on May 25, and defied global condemnation by firing five short-range missiles.

Kim Jong-Il’s regime has since renounced the truce that ended the Korean war in 1953, straining already tense relations with the South.

The hardline communist state is reported to be preparing to test-fire a long-range missile capable in theory of reaching Alaska from a northwest base, as well as several medium-range missiles from along its southeast coast. Kim reportedly named his youngest son as the eventual heir to his family dynasty on Tuesday.

Source: Space War

11:49 30/05/2009

MOSCOW, May 30 (RIA Novosti) - North Korea is preparing to launch a long-range missile in the middle of June despite international condemnation and threats of further sanctions, Yonhap cited on Saturday an intelligence source as saying.

The source told the news agency that an object, which resembled an intercontinental ballistic missile, had been observed at an “artillery research center” near the North Korean capital of Pyongyang.

Yonhap quoted the official as saying “We believe that the object is certainly an ICBM,” adding that North Korea is thought to be moving the missile to its Musudan-ri launch site on the east coast.

The reclusive communist state threatened it would respond if the UN Security Council issued a new resolution and sanctions following an underground nuclear test and the launch of at least six short-range missiles earlier this week.

“If the UN Security Council continues provocations, we will inevitably respond with further self-defense measures,” the North Korean foreign ministry on Friday said in a statement carried by the official KCNA news agency.

The South Korea official told Yonhap, “It usually takes about two months to set up a launch pad, but the process could be done in as little as two weeks, which means the North could launch a long-range missile as early as mid-June,”

Pyongyang is already under a number of UN sanctions over its first nuclear test, carried out in 2006.

Possible new sanctions may include a ban on importing and exporting all arms and not just heavy weapons, additional asset freezes and travel bans for North Korean officials, and placing more firms on a UN blacklist, according to UN sources.

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran test-fired a new missile Wednesday it claimed had a range capable of reaching Israel and U.S. bases in the Middle East, sending a provocative message days after President Obama pressured Tehran to accept his offer for dialogue.
The announcement by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad comes less than a month before Iran’s presidential election. The vote could determine how Tehran responds to Washington’s threat of further international sanctions if Iran does not respond positively by year-end to U.S. attempts to open negotiations on its nuclear program.

“But I don’t think the Obama administration and other nations will look at this as a constructive sign,” said Patrick Clawson, deputy director for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Iran said the solid-fuel Sajjil-2 surface-to-surface missile has a range of about 1,200 miles. It is a new version of the Sajjil missile, which the country said it successfully tested late last year and has a similar range.

Defense Minister (Mostafa Mohammad Najjar) has informed me that the Sajjil-2 missile, which has very advanced technology, was launched from Semnan and it landed precisely on the target,” state radio quoted Ahmadinejad as saying. He did not name any targets for the missile when he spoke during a visit to the city of Semnan, 125 miles east of the capital Tehran, where Iran’s space program is centered.

Italy said its foreign minister, Franco Frattini, canceled a planned trip to Iran on Wednesday because Ahmadinejad wanted to meet in Semnan rather than in Tehran.

Najjar said the Sajjil-2 differs from the Sajjil missile because it “is equipped with a new navigation system as well as precise and sophisticated sensors,” according to Iran’s official news agency.

Sajjil means “baked clay.” It is a reference to a story in the Quran, Islam’s holy book, in which birds sent by God drive off an enemy army attacking the holy city of Mecca by pelting them with stones of baked clay.

Iran’s nuclear and missile programs have alarmed Israel. The country’s new prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, pressed Obama to step up pressure on Tehran when the two met in Washington on Monday. Israeli officials had no immediate comment on the Iranian missile launch.

Moshe Arens, a former Israeli defense minister who trained in the U.S. as an aerospace engineer, said Wednesday’s test was apparently part of Iran’s broader quest to develop more advanced missiles and nuclear capability.

“They’re increasing their abilities to launch rockets of longer and longer range that go beyond Israel and into Europe and eventually will carry nuclear weapons,” he said. “They’re troublemakers and you have to deal with troublemakers.”

Ahmadinejad has repeatedly called for Israel’s elimination, and the Jewish state has not ruled out a military strike to deal with the Iranian nuclear threat. The Israeli government has been skeptical of U.S. overtures to Iran, which have received a mixed response from Ahmadinejad.

The U.S. released an intelligence report about 18 months ago that said Iran abandoned a secret nuclear weapons program in 2003 under international pressure and has not restarted it.

Israel and several other countries have disputed the finding. A group of U.S. and Russian scientists said in a report issued Tuesday that Iran could produce a simple nuclear device in one to three years and a nuclear warhead in another five years after that.

The study published by the non-partisan East West Institute also said Iran is making advances in rocket technology and could develop a ballistic missile capable of firing a 2,200-pound nuclear warhead up to 1,200 miles “in perhaps six to eight years.”

Iran says its missile program is merely for defense and its space program is for scientific and surveillance purposes. It maintains that its nuclear program is for civilian energy uses only.

Ahmadinejad touted the launch in the final weeks of a presidential campaign that could influence Iran’s response to the U.S. outreach. Two of the three candidates approved by Iran’s constitutional watchdog to run in the June election are reformists who favor improving ties with the West.

The hard-line president has been criticized by his opponents and others for antagonizing the U.S. and mismanaging the country’s faltering economy. On Wednesday, the constitutional watchdog approved three candidates to challenge Ahmadinejad, setting up a showdown in June 12 elections between reformists and hard-liners.

Hard-liners have used the Guardian Council in the past to block reformist candidates, but Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mahdi Karroubi were likely too high-profile to reject. The watchdog also approved a well-known conservative candidate, Mohsen Rezaei, a former leader of Iraq’s elite Revolutionary Guards who has joined his reformist competitors in criticizing Ahmadinejad for mismanaging Iran’s economy.

The group rejected 471 other candidates who wanted to run, including illiterate peasants, a 12-year-old boy and 42 women, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.

Reformists, who believe they have a strong chance of defeating Ahmadinejad, have criticized the president for spending an inordinate amount of time and energy slamming the West. They say his behavior has isolated Iran and believe he should have focused on battling rising unemployment and inflation in the country.

Mousavi, a former prime minister who is seen as the leading challenger to Ahmadinejad, has said he would reshape Iran’s policies and restore the country’s dignity.

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2009-05-20-iran-missiletest_N.htm

May 06, 2009
ATK Press Release

ATK Engineering, Fabrication, and Testing Supports Missile Defense Agency’s STSS-ATRR Satellite

MINNEAPOLIS, May 6 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Alliant Techsystems propulsion, composites and spacecraft technologies have key roles in the successful launch of United Launch Alliance’s Delta II rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, and the mission of the Missile Defense Agency’s Space Tracking and Surveillance System - Advanced Technology Risk Reduction (STSS-ATRR) satellite.

ATK designed, fabricated, and tested the Optical Bench for the satellite deployed on this mission. The ATK bench is a critical composite structural assembly providing the required stability for the payload sensors onboard the spacecraft. ATK also provided engineering analysis for the precise thermal and moisture distortion performance of the payload bench required to meet mission expectations in the harsh environment of space.

The Missile Defense Agency’s STSS Advanced Technology Risk Reduction satellite serves as a technology pathfinder for the STSS mission - a space-based sensor component of the layered Ballistic Missile Defense System.

Nine ATK GEM-40 solid propulsion strap-on boosters provided augmented thrust for the launch. Six of the boosters ignited at lift-off with the first-stage main engine and provided over 824,000 pounds maximum thrust. Just over one minute later, the remaining three boosters ignited to provide an additional 427,000 pounds maximum thrust. The spent motors were then jettisoned from the rocket as it continued its ascent.

ATK manufactured the GEM-40 motors at its facility in Magna, Utah, continuing a tradition of flight support for Delta II missions that began in 1990. The composite cases for the GEM-40 boosters were produced at ATK’s Clearfield, Utah, facility and are made of graphite epoxy material using an automated filament winding process the company developed and refined through its 40-year heritage in composite manufacturing. The 10-foot diameter composite payload fairing, encapsulating the third stage that holds the payload, was fabricated by ATK’s Iuka, Mississippi facility. The fairing was produced using advanced composite hand layup manufacturing, machining, and inspection techniques. This launch marks the 16th ATK-built fairing flown on a Delta II mission.

ATK is a premier aerospace and defense company with more than 19,000 employees in 22 states, Puerto Rico and internationally, and revenues in excess of $4.5 billion. News and information can be found on the Internet at www.atk.com.

Certain information discussed in this press release constitutes forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Although ATK believes that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, it can give no assurance that its expectations will be achieved. Forward-looking information is subject to certain risks, trends and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected. Among those factors are the performance expectations of ATK’s products on the STSS-ATRR spacecraft. ATK undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements. For further information on factors that could impact ATK, and statements contained herein, please refer to ATK’s most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and any subsequent quarterly reports on Form 10-Q and current reports on Form 8-K filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

SOURCE: ATK

Web site: http://www.atk.com/

Raytheon

TEWKSBURY, Mass., April 20, 2009 /PRNewswire/ — Raytheon Company has been awarded $27 million for engineering services for the Patriot Air and Missile Defense System.

The U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command, Redstone Arsenal, Ala., provided the additional funding under a previously awarded contract to Raytheon in January 2009. This $27 million combines with $132.2 million awarded earlier this year bringing the value of the contract to $159.2 million with the potential for additional funding.

“We continually engage in software development, testing, and modernization to ensure that warfighters have the advantage in a world where the threat is changing,” said Sanjay Kapoor, vice president for Patriot Programs at Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems (IDS). “These investments in engineering services ensure that Patriot will continue to be the most modern, combat-proven and globally-fielded air and missile defense system.”

This contract provides for engineering services that support Patriot systems in the hands of the U.S. Army and Raytheon’s 11 international partners.

Work under this contract will be performed by Raytheon IDS at the Integrated Air Defense Center, Andover, Mass.; at IDS Headquarters, Tewksbury, Mass.; at the Warfighter Protection Center, Huntsville, Ala.; and at the Mission Capability Verification Center, White Sands, N.M.

Raytheon IDS is the prime contractor for both domestic and international Patriot Air and Missile Defense Systems and systems integrator for Patriot Advanced Capability-3 missiles.

Integrated Defense Systems is Raytheon’s leader in Global Capabilities Integration providing affordable, integrated solutions to a broad international and domestic customer base, including the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, the U.S. Armed Forces and the Department of Homeland Security.

Raytheon Company, with 2008 sales of $23.2 billion, is a technology and innovation leader specializing in defense, homeland security and other government markets throughout the world. With a history of innovation spanning 87 years, Raytheon provides state-of-the-art electronics, mission systems integration and other capabilities in the areas of sensing; effects; and command, control, communications and intelligence systems, as well as a broad range of mission support services. With headquarters in Waltham, Mass., Raytheon employs 73,000 people worldwide.

Contact:
Roopa Bhide
978.858.1177

SOURCE: Raytheon Company

Web site: http://www.raytheon.com/

Company News On-Call: http://www.prnewswire.com/comp/149999.html

Company News On-Call: http://www.prnewswire.com/comp/742575 .html

By MARTIN SIEFF, UPI Senior News Analyst
Published: April 16, 2009 at 11:49 AM

WASHINGTON, April 16 (UPI) — The announcement of Russia’s latest agreement to provide Belarus with S-400 air-defense systems is of much more than routine significance.

Russian military analysts say the S-400 Triumf — NATO designation SA-21 Growler — is the most long-range, high-altitude and effective air-defense system in the world, arguing that it combines the best characteristics of the U.S. Patriot PAC-3 and the Israeli Arrow-2 interceptors.

However, progress on actually manufacturing the demanding, high-tech system has been slow, especially with so many competing claims on the resources of Russia’s aerospace companies. As we reported earlier this week, the Russian air force has even been driven to the expedient of buying a number of Israel’s excellent unmanned aerial surveillance spy drones, as Deputy Defense Minister Vladimir Popovkin essentially admitted, to reverse engineer them because the major Russian corporations like MiG and Russian Helicopters had fallen so behind schedule in developing and manufacturing their own new unmanned aerial vehicle systems.

Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov announced only on March 17 this year that the second regiment equipped with S-400s had just been operationally deployed.

Yet even before a third S-400 air-defense system has been deployed, the Kremlin has already announced it is going to equip the neighboring state of Belarus with them, the RIA Novosti news agency reported on April 9.

The S-400s will be supplied as part of the new comprehensive mutual air-defense agreement between Russia and Belarus, under its longtime authoritarian ruler President Alexander Lukashenko, that was concluded in February.

“One of the provisions of the agreement is to upgrade the network. It must be equipped with the most advanced weaponry,” Russia’s first deputy air force commander Lt. Gen. Vadim Volkovitsky announced on April 9, according to a report from the RIA Novosti news agency.

The news agency said the S-400 Triumf system had been built with the mission of shooting down airborne targets at ranges as great as 240 miles, or 400 kilometers. RIA Novosti claimed that the S-400 therefore had twice the range of the U.S. MIM-104 Patriot and 2.5 times the range of its predecessor, the old but still formidable Russian and Soviet S-300 PMU-2.

Russian experts also say the S-400 functions as an effective anti-ballistic missile system that is effective at the very least against intermediate-range ballistic missiles with a range of 300 miles to 3,000 miles.

RIA Novosti reported that the S-400 had the capability to hit and annihilate stealth-equipped Western and U.S. aircraft, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles at ranges up to 3,500 kilometers, or 2,200 miles. It could fly at a maximum velocity of 4.8 kilometers per second — 3 miles per second. That translates into a speed of 10,800 miles per hour.

That performance would certainly be insufficient to intercept any intercontinental ballistic missile or any multiple independently targeted re-entry vehicle warhead delivered by an ICBM. But it would be fast enough to shoot down IRBMs.

© 2009 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

By MARTIN SIEFF
Published: April 6, 2009 at 11:40 AM

WASHINGTON, April 6 (UPI) — North Korea’s failed Taepodong-2 ICBM test Sunday highlighted the need for ballistic missile defense systems to defend against such threats — just as U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates prepares to make more cuts in the U.S. ballistic missile defense budget.

Gates was scheduled to announce plans Monday to rein in annual U.S. defense spending, which has soared from an already colossal $365 billion eight years ago to more than $654 billion in the current fiscal year. Gates certainly doesn’t want to kill the U.S. BMD program, but he is under intense political and fiscal pressure to cut costs and rein it in.

Some targets for Gates in the field of BMD defense spending appear obvious. Israel may lose U.S. funding for its ambitious Arrow-3 anti-ballistic missile interceptor, but the United States may instead sell Israel its already operational Standard Missile-3, which has a far superior performance to what the Israelis wanted from their Arrow-3 anyway. Boeing may take a hit for its long-delayed and much criticized Airborne Laser program, even though the company has been eager to publicize progress on it.

Funding for the two U.S. ballistic missile bases to deploy 10 Ground-based Midcourse Interceptors in Poland and a radar tracking array for them in the Czech Republic has already been targeted by Democrats in Congress who slashed funding for the bases by up to a third last year.

The Czech government of Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek, who wanted to build the radar base, was toppled by a no-confidence vote nearly two weeks ago. The Social Democrats and Communists, two parties that strongly oppose letting the United States build the radar base, will form the next government. And U.S. President Barack Obama, during his election campaign last year, clearly expressed his skepticism about the BMD European deployment, even though it is the only possible defense the United States could have in the foreseeable future against the threat of Iranian intercontinental ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads fired against any city on the Eastern Seaboard.

The Iranian threat is certainly real. Iran continues to push ahead with top priority on its enormous gas centrifuge program to separate nuclear-weapons-grade uranium-235 from uranium-238. And in February Iran put its first communications satellite into orbit. Unlike North Korea’s attempted launch Sunday, the Iranian one proved to be a complete success.

As we have repeatedly pointed out in these columns, any nation that has the capability to launch a satellite into orbit around the world at 18,000 miles per hour also has the capability to send a nuclear-armed ICBM halfway round the world in half an hour or so to obliterate any city it chooses.

The U.S. Missile Defense Agency’s GBI program is still a long way from being a fully mature, reliable technology. A U.S. Government Accountability Office report published March 13 pointed out cost overruns, delays in the program and the importance of putting it through far more testing than it has received so far. The report, GAO-09-338, is titled “Production and Fielding of Missile Defense Components Continue with Less Testing and Validation than Planned.”

However, GBIs have already successfully shot down target ICBMs in tests, and they are the only defense America’s cities could have against any ICBM threat from either North Korea or Iran for years to come.

North Korea and Iran already are close allies. Both of them cooperated in trying to help Syria build a nuclear development complex that the Israeli air force destroyed last year. But by timing its attempted ICBM launch Sunday, the day before Gates was scheduled to unveil his new spending-cut plans, Pyongyang may have played into the hands of the defenders of the U.S. ballistic missile defense program.

For although Sunday’s test failed, it served notice that North Korea remains determined to develop its own ICBM capability. And to defend U.S. and other North American cities against that, pushing ahead with the Boeing-led GBI program remains the only game in town.

Also, the North Koreans can claim some legitimate progress from Sunday’s test. Their ICBM flew nearly 2,000 miles before crashing — about twice as far as any of their previous launches. It appears inevitable that they will achieve their goal in the end.

All efforts by previous U.S. administrations, both Republican and Democratic, to rein in the North Korean nuclear and ICBM programs have totally failed, whether they be constructive, friendly diplomacy or angry rhetoric supposedly backed by economic sanctions.

Sometimes the best — indeed only — form of defense is defense. That is the argument that the defenders of the GBIs and Airborne Lasers will be making in the Washington debate over which defense programs to ax or cut back and which to save this week.

© 2009 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

SUNNYVALE, Calif., April 9 /PRNewswire/ –The Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) Space-Based Infrared System (SBIRS) team has submitted its proposal for the program’s follow-on production phase and has completed a major Preliminary Design Review (PDR) milestone with the U.S. Air Force.

The SBIRS program is designed to provide early warning of missile launches, and simultaneously support other missions including missile defense, technical intelligence and battlespace awareness.

The SBIRS Follow-on Program, which will complete the SBIRS constellation, will add the third and fourth highly elliptical orbit (HEO) payloads as well as the third and an option for a fourth geosynchronous orbit (GEO) spacecraft.

The proposal, submitted on March 22, builds on the experience of prime contractor Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Sunnyvale, Calif., and payload integrator, Northrop Grumman, Azusa, Calif. in providing the SBIRS development program for the Space Based Infrared Systems Wing at the U.S. Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center, Los Angeles Air Force Base, Calif.

“With the submission of the full production proposal for the SBIRS follow-on program, the joint government-industry team is another step closer to making the planned constellation of this critical system a reality,” said Col. Roger Teague the U.S. Air Force SBIRS Wing Commander. “I salute the entire SBIRS team for their dedication and hard work and look forward to future mission success.”

Working under an initial $370 million contract for advanced procurement phase, the team has successfully completed PDRs for the HEO & GEO payloads and systems along with critical components and subsystems. With the completion of the SBIRS follow on program PDR phase, the program team will transition to the Critical Design Review (CDR) stage, followed by the production phase.

“Successful completion of the PDR phase will allow us to move efficiently into the next phase of this essential program,” said Jeff Smith, Lockheed Martin’s SBIRS Vice President. “We look forward to building on our close customer partnership as we strive to achieve operational excellence on this critical system.”

Lockheed Martin’s current SBIRS contract includes the two HEO payloads now on-orbit, two GEO satellites, as well as ground-based assets to receive and process the infrared data. Contract award for the additional GEO spacecraft and HEO payloads is expected in late 2009.

Headquartered in Bethesda, Md., Lockheed Martin is a global security company that employs about 146,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture, integration and sustainment of advanced technology systems, products and services. The corporation reported 2008 sales of $42.7 billion.

SOURCE Lockheed Martin

N. Gopal Raj
The Hindu

There are bound to be concerns that this rocket stage may turn up in other countries, including potentially Pakistan

Thiruvananthapuram: North Korea has failed yet again to put a satellite into orbit. Nevertheless, the recent launch of a three-stage rocket, which the North Koreans named Unha-2, appears to have provided the first successful flight of a first stage that Western analysts believe is bigger and more powerful than any the country has used before. If so, given North Korea’s propensity to export its rocket technology, there are bound to be concerns that this rocket stage might turn up in other countries, including potentially Pakistan.

North Korea began its long-range missile programme by reverse engineering the tried-and-tested Soviet Scud liquid-propellant missiles. Then in the space of about five years, between 1987 and 1992, North Korea began developing an improved version of the Scud as well as the Nodong, the Paektusan-1 (Taepodong-1), the Paektusan-2 (Taepodong-2) and the Musudan missiles, according to Daniel Pinkston, currently North East Asia Deputy Project Director for the International Crisis Group. (The names ‘Nodong’ and ‘Taepodong’ were coined by the U.S. intelligence and are the old names for two administrative districts near the Musudan-ri launch site.)

“Unprecedented”

“This rapid sequence of development is remarkable and historically unprecedented for a small developing country,” wrote Dr. Pinkston in a report published by the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College. “Some analysts believe that foreign assistance has been so extensive that North Korea’s ballistic missile programme more closely resembles procurement or licensed production rather than ‘near self-sufficiency in development and production’,” he added.

North Korea provided Nodong missile technology to Pakistan and Iran. In Pakistan, it became the basis for the Ghauri missile, which was first tested in 1998. Equipped with a nuclear warhead, the Ghauri is believed to have a range of over 900 km. Iran used the Nodong technology to produce the Shahab-3 missile. Iran went on to develop the Safir launch vehicle that successfully put a small satellite into orbit in February this year. In August 1998, North Korea fired the Paektusan-1/Taepodong-1, using it as a three-stage launch vehicle carrying a small satellite. “The first two stages appear to have worked but, based on radar tracking data, the third stage seems to have exploded and no satellite entered orbit,” according to an article on the website of the Federation of American Scientists.

North Korea does not seem to have tried to fix the problem. Instead, its next attempt in July 2006 involved an entirely new rocket, the Paektusan-2/Taepodong-2. The rocket, however, exploded just 40 seconds into the flight.

3-stage version

In its attempted satellite launch last Sunday (April 5), North Koreans used a three-stage version of the Paektusan-2/Taepodong-2 that they called the “Unha-2.” (The name ‘Paektusan’ has martial overtones, explained Dr. Pinkston in an email. On the other hand, ‘Unha’, which means galaxy or the Milky Way, has peaceful connotations.)

A satellite image of the Unha-2 on the launch pad showed that it was “a very large rocket,” Geoffrey Forden of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology told this correspondent. Later, based on images from the launch, Dr. Forden said in a posting on the blog ArmsControlWonk.com, “The first stage is not quite as large as I thought based on a slanted satellite view.” Nevertheless, the diameter of the first stage “appears quite large.”

The first stage could use a cluster of four engines, each similar to the single large engine in the Nodong missile, said David Wright, an analyst with the Union of Concerned Scientists, in an article published shortly before the launch in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. The second stage could be a single Nodong engine or another engine of similar capability, which had been modified for high-altitude operation. While the first two stages used liquid propellants, the third could be a solid-propellant one.

“It’s a cluster! I cannot tell for sure whether or not its 2 or 4 engines but it is definitely a cluster,” noted Dr. Forden.

In Sunday’s launch, after Unha-2’s first stage was jettisoned, the stage splashed down in the Sea of Japan, exactly in the area North Korea had designated. What happened thereafter is not clear. “The remaining stages along with the payload itself landed in the Pacific Ocean,” said the North American Aerospace Defense Command and the U.S. Northern Command in a statement. “No object entered orbit,” they said.

Dr. Forden, however, noted: “Reports are starting to come in that the Unha-2 failed after the second stage burn was complete with the second stage splash down inside the predicted zone.”

North Korea therefore appears to have sorted out the problems that led to the big first stage exploding when Paektusan-2/Taepodong-2 was flight-tested three years ago. This time, the first stage seems to have been successful in flight, agreed Dr. Forden.

How likely is it that the Unha-2 first stage and the technology for it will now go to Pakistan? “I don’t think that Pakistan would be particularly interested in importing a large liquid-propellant stage at this point in its missile programme,” said S. Chandrashekar, currently a professor at the IIM-Bangalore. A former staffer at the headquarters of the Indian Space Research Organisation, Prof. Chandrashekar is also J.R.D. Tata Visiting Professor at the National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS). He and his colleagues at NIAS published an assessment of Pakistan’s ballistic missile programme a few years ago and later an analysis of the Chinese missile programme as well.

The Nodong missile technology had been imported and used by the Khan Research Laboratories to produce the Ghauri missile. Independent of that effort, the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission had developed the fully-solid Shaheen missiles, which had now been flight-tested. Solid-propellant missiles had considerable advantages over liquid-propellant ones, he said. All the indications were that Pakistan had created a robust domestic capability in solid propulsion. Pakistan’s ballistic missile programme was entirely India-centric and much of India already fell within range of its two-stage Shaheen-2 missile. Consequently, Pakistan had little incentive to spend its scarce resources importing a more powerful liquid-propellant stage from North Korea and creating a new missile, Prof. Chandrashekar argued.

Aviation Week’s DTI | John M. Doyle | April 06, 2009
This article first appeared in AviationWeek.com.

Military.com

Because of budget constraints, the U.S. should invest in just a single boost-phase missile defense system, the former director of the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) says.

“I don’t believe we need to carry dual boost phase missile defense capability,” “I think we need to have either an operationally effective Airborne Laser [ABL] or an operationally effective Kinetic Energy Interceptor [KEI],” retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Henry “Trey” Obering said April 3. “I would go with one of those, not both,” he told a news conference organized by an advocacy group ahead of an announced rocket launch by North Korea.

Obering, who joined the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance shortly after retiring from the military, said he favored the ABL, a modified Boeing 747-400F equipped with a powerful chemical laser, “if it proves to be operationally affordable.” Otherwise, “KEI is the only alternative,” although it is still in development and not expected to be effective against missiles in all phases of their flight path. Obering noted Northrop Grumman’s KEI was developed as an alternative to ABL because the flying laser was considered a high-risk technology. ABL is slated for a test of the entire weapon system against a ballistic missile later this year.

Obering also said he strongly favored investment in a satellite sensor system, like Northrop’s Space Tracking and Surveillance System (STSS), to track ballistic missiles from launch to destruction or impact. “That’s critically important in being able to deal with more complex threats,” Obering said. For the same reason he favored funding the Multiple Kill Vehicle, calling it a good path to follow in the near term “even in a resource-constrained environment.” Obering favors combining the ABL and STSS with the proven shipborne Aegis missile system and ground-based midcourse interceptors as part of a layered approach to missile defense.

Boost-phase defensive weapons that can destroy an attacking missile shortly after its launch, or boost, phase should be part of that layered approach, according to other missile defense advocates. At a gathering on Capitol Hill, defense contractors promoted their respective companies’ answer to boost-phase missile defense.

In addition to Boeing’s ABL AND Northrop Grumman’s KEI, executives discussed Raytheon’s Network Centric Airborne Defense Element and Lockheed Martin’s Air Launch Hit To Kill program. All noted in the symposium sponsored by the George C. Marshal Institute that ballistic missiles were most vulnerable during boost phase because they are not up to full speed, their rocket’s heat signature is larger and they usually are unable to deploy countermeasures. Marshall Institute President Jeff Kueter said the meting was held to dispel the belief that destroying a missile shortly after launch “is too hard to do.”

Copyright 2009 Aviation Week’s DTI. All opinions expressed in this article are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect those of Military.com.

By ARIEL COHEN
Published: April 3, 2009 at 12:48 PM

WASHINGTON, April 3 (UPI) — The Islamic Republic of Iran produces several short-range rockets domestically, including the Shahab-1 and the Shahab-2. They are spin-offs respectively of the Soviet-built Scud-B and Scud-C. It also produces a 1,300 kilometer-range — 780 miles — single-stage liquid-fueled ballistic missile Shahab-3 that is a spin-off of North Korea’s relatively reliable No-dong intermediate-range ballistic missile. Details of these systems can be found at nti.org/e_research/profiles/Iran/index.html.

Iran remains committed to developing a long-range ICBM that can extend Tehran’s military reach to Europe and the United States. The Middle East, Europe and even the Eastern Seaboard of the United States may find themselves within range of Iranian nuclear missiles in the next three to five years or less.

Even in case of a conventional intercontinental ballistic missile — ICBM — launch from Iran, the warheads could reach the U.S. mainland within approximately 33 minutes, as described in The Heritage Foundation’s new documentary trailer on the missile threat. It can be accessed at eritage.org/33-minutes/index.htm. That leaves precious little time for preparedness, and there is not a functional anti-ballistic missile — ABM — defense system in place on the Eastern Seaboard or in Europe to stop such an attack.

President George W. Bush and his administration arranged for missile defenses designed to shoot down individual or small-scale ICBM attacks to be installed in Central Europe, but the new Obama administration has signaled it may scrap those plans as a sop to Russia.

The long-range ballistic missiles of Iran and North Korea demonstrate that missile defenses in Eastern Europe and East Asia address a real threat and are not aimed at Russia, as the Kremlin keeps alleging.

Indeed, Iran’s recent steps should serve as a wake-up call for Moscow, despite its long-time ties with Tehran. Russia should finally be able to see that the threat from “rogue states” with nuclear weapons and long-range ICBM is real. But the Kremlin appears to be still blinkered by its narrow geopolitical and power projection interests. Its offer to let the United States use its new early warning station at Armavir and an old one in Qabala, Azerbaijan, is no substitute for a real defense. They may only help the United States to detect the launch, but do nothing to impede their flight to the targets.

These are early warning stations. One of them, Qabala is over 30 years old. They lack capabilities for intercepting ballistic missiles. In addition, Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev announced on March 11 that Azerbaijan will not lease Qabala to the United States.

At the time when Iran’s missile program advances become obvious, doubt and delay in deploying the elements of ballistic missile defense in Poland and Czech Republic could not be more dangerous.

U.S. President Barack Obama may be hoping for a change in Iran’s foreign policy if Mohammad Khatami regains Iran’s presidency in the upcoming June 2009 election.

However, first, it is the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who controls Iran’s foreign and defense policy. And second, even if that happens, Washington foot-dragging on missile defense will have cost precious time and signaled weakness. The adversaries of the United States would likely interpret that as a signal to push forward, not pull back.

–

(Ariel Cohen, Ph.D., is a Senior Research Fellow in Russian and Eurasian Studies and International Energy Security at the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute at The Heritage Foundation.)

© 2009 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Updated at 7:08 p.m., Monday, March 30, 2009

By William Cole
Advertiser Military Writer
Honolulu Advertiser

The head of a U.S. missile defense advocacy group is urging the Pentagon to deploy “all available” defensive assets in the Pacific, including the giant Sea-Based X-Band radar docked at Ford Island, ahead of North Korea’s planned rocket launch.

The Sea-Based X-Band Radar — more commonly known as the “Giant Golfball” after its white bulbous dome — “is the most powerful and most capable sensor to discriminate the debris, payload and a possible reentry vehicle in detail from a North Korean long-range missile or rocket launch traveling at extreme high speeds across the Pacific,” said Riki Ellison, chairman of the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance.

The alliance is a non-profit organization that supports a missile shield for the U.S.

Ellison today said he sent a letter to U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates urging the deployment of all available missile defense assets in the Pacific.

North Korea has said it will launch a communications satellite between Saturday and April 11, but the U.S. is concerned the North may be testing long-range missile technology.

The Pearl Harbor-based destroyer Chafee, which was in a South Korean port, is among U.S. and Japanese ships with missile tracking and/or shoot-down capability said to have been ordered to sea to monitor the North Korean launch.

Ellison said North Korea has declared two “clear zones” on either side of Japan for the first and second stages for debris falling from the rocket launch.

“The North Korea trajectory following that flight path would terminate close to Hawai’i if the rocket failed to achieve orbit or was a long-range ballistic missile launch,” Ellison said.

Ellison said the Sea-Based X-Band Radar, or SBX, which he described as “one of the United States’ most valuable assets and the best discriminating and tracking sensor for ballistic missile launches,” has not been deployed and has been docked for the past several months at Ford Island.

The SBX was the main sensor in a Dec. 5, 2008 ballistic missile intercept test simulating a North Korean long-range missile threat and using current U.S. missile defense deployed assets, Ellison said.

“If deployed, the SBX can begin to emit its sensor 50 or so miles from Hawai’i and can become effective by providing sensoring information to the deployed long-range missile defense system in place today,” Ellison said.

The 280-foot-tall radar platform, which is so powerful it could discriminate a baseball-sized object on the West Coast from the East Coast, remains in Pearl Harbor for $34 million in repairs. The SBX has 45,000 radiating elements within its pressurized dome.

The U.S. Missile Defense Agency in late February told The Advertiser the current round of work is scheduled to be done in June. The MDA also said June was when the SBX was next scheduled to leave Pearl Harbor for further testing.

Work proceeding now includes the addition of a second crane on the port side, improvements to the starboard crane, upgrades to the galley and the addition of equipment to facilitate mooring, MDA said.

The SBX, which the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance’s Ellison said cost $950 million to build and costs tens of millions annually to operate, has never pulled into port at its intended home of Adak, Alaska, the MDA said.

The radar known as the “giant golfball” arrived in Hawai’i in 2006 from Corpus Christi, Texas, for what was supposed to be a temporary stay.

In April 2006 the SBX returned to Pearl after a leak in its ballast piping forced it to abort a voyage north to Adak.

It returned to Pearl Harbor again in June 2007 from the waters of the Aleutian Islands for the repairs and upgrades that the MDA said now total $34 million.

In 2003, Pearl Harbor and Kalaeloa were considered home port possibilities, along with anchorages in California, Washington state, the Marshall Islands and two sites in Alaska, before Adak was selected.

The SBX has spent about 340 cumulative days in Pearl Harbor, and 791 days out in the Pacific for testing or operations, according to the MDA.

In March 2006, Coast Guard District 17 commander Rear Adm. James Olson sent a letter to the MDA saying operations in the Bering Sea were inherently dangerous, with winds of 80 knots and gusts of more than 120 knots, and sea states in the SBX operations area exceeding 30 feet.

“I urge you to consider safety as your first priority in this hostile environment,” Olson said at the time, adding that he believed the SBX was not capable of “maintaining station” in the area.

While improvements continue to be made on the platform, the MDA said the SBX has “successfully met every operational test requirement to date.”

Reach William Cole at wcole@honoluluadvertiser.com.

By MARI YAMAGUCHI – 2 days ago

TOKYO (AP) — Japan took the rare step Friday of ordering missile-equipped battleships and missile interceptors to protect the northern coast, preparing should a rocket launch by communist North Korea go awry. Still, Tokyo urged calm and said the likelihood of rocket debris falling on the country was low.

North Korea plans to launch its Kwangmyongsong-2 satellite April 4-8, designating a zone near Japan’s northern coast where debris is likely to fall.

Japan, South Korea and the U.S. suspect North Korea will use the launch to test the delivery technology for a long-range missile capable of striking Alaska. Amid heightened regional tensions, the communist nation has warned that any attack on its satellite could be an act of war.

Tokyo has repeatedly urged Pyongyang to refrain from the launch. But Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada on Friday ordered the deployment of missile interceptors to the area at risk, vowing to “eliminate anything that may cause us any damage.”

Under the order, Japan’s military will deploy two missile-equipped destroyers to the Sea of Japan and send batteries of Patriot missile interceptors to protect the northern coast.

Prime Minister Taro Aso, who chaired Japan’s National Security Council earlier in the day, said the military deployment was to ensure security, but added the possibility of debris falling on Japanese territory is very low. The security council approved Hamada’s order to mobilize the missile interceptors.

“By any chance, if any flying objects fall on our territory, we have to respond to ensure safety for our citizens,” Aso said Friday, according to Kyodo News agency. But the premier said such a possibility was remote. Chief Cabinet spokesman Takeo Kawamura urged people “to remain calm” and repeated that falling debris was “unlikely.”

Tokyo’s deployment comes as Japan’s nuclear envoy will meet his U.S. and South Korean counterparts in Washington to coordinate a joint strategy.

U.S. intelligence officials say North Korea mounted a rocket on a launch pad on its northeast coast, putting Pyongyang well on track for the launch. Citing an unnamed diplomatic official, South Korea’s Chosun Ilbo newspaper also said North Korea is now “technically” capable of a launch in three to four days.

Along with Japan, South Korea and the U.S. prepared deployments of their own.

Seoul is dispatching an Aegis-equipped Sejong the Great destroyer off the east coast to monitor the launch, a military official in Seoul said. He asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Two U.S. Aegis-equipped ships, docked at a South Korea port, will also set sail in coming days, U.S. military spokesman Kim Yong-kyu said.

The U.S. and South Korea warned Thursday it would be a major provocation with serious consequences, and Japan’s parliament was expected to issue a resolution next week demanding the launch be scrapped.

Regional powers have said any launch is banned under a 2006 U.N. Security Council resolution and would trigger sanctions.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton warned that such a “provocative act” could jeopardize the stalled talks on supplying North Korea with aid and other concessions in exchange for dismantling its nuclear program.

Of all the North’s neighbors, Japan has reacted the most strongly because the satellite will fly over its airspace. North Korea sent a similar rocket over Japan in 1998, prompting Tokyo to build up its missile defenses.

Under Friday’s order, the Japanese military is allowed to shoot down any missile fragments and debris heading toward Japanese territory.

The military will move some PAC-3 land-to-air missiles, currently deployed around Tokyo, to Japan’s northern coast, and deploy a pair of destroyers carrying SM-3 sea-to-air missiles in nearby waters, the Defense Ministry said in a statement.

A set of the PAC-3 missiles would be also brought into central Tokyo to defend the nation’s capital. The destroyers, equipped with Aegis radar, will sail from their southern homeport of Sasebo.

Japan and others are also threatening sanctions.

Japan imposed tight trade sanctions on Pyongyang in 2006 after it tested ballistic missiles in waters dividing the two countries and conducted an atomic test. Japan’s current sanctions, which have been extended every six months, are set to expire April 13.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

By Sachiko Sakamaki

March 27 (Bloomberg) — Japan’s Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada said he ordered security forces to shoot down any North Korean missile that strays into its territory.

“We will take every effort to protect the safety of Japanese people,” Hamada told reporters in Tokyo today. The order applies to any projectile that threatens to land in Japan.

The U.S., China, Japan, South Korea and Russia aim to forestall North Korea’s plans to launch what it calls a “peaceful” satellite, and re-focus on joint efforts to end the communist nation’s nuclear program.

“Whether North Korea launches a satellite or test-fires a missile, it is extremely unpleasant for such an object to fly over Japanese territory,” Hamada said. “Whatever the intention is, we’d like them to stop.”

The U.S. State Department yesterday rejected North Korea’s threat that it will pull out of talks on the program if there is any attempt in the United Nations to criticize a rocket launch. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the U.S. would raise the issue of any test at the UN.

North Korea test-fired a long-range Taepodong-2 missile in July 2006, three months before it tested a nuclear device, prompting Security Council sanctions.

For Related News and Information: On North Korea and sanctions: NSE NORTH KOREA SANCTIONS Top Stories: TOP

Last Updated: March 26, 2009 20:47 EDT

Thu Mar 26, 2009 6:45am IST

By Jonathan Thatcher

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea has put a long-range missile in place for a launch that the United States warned would violate U.N. sanctions already imposed on the reclusive state for past weapons tests.

The South Korean daily Chosun Ilbo on Thursday quoted a diplomatic source as saying the North could technically fire the missile, which has the range to hit U.S. territory, within four days. This is earlier than the April 4-8 timeframe Pyongyang has announced for what it says is the launch of a communications satellite for peaceful purposes.

The planned launch is the first major test for U.S. President Barack Obama in dealing with the prickly North, whose efforts to build a nuclear arsenal is seen as a major security threat to one of the world’s most economically powerful regions and has plagued relations with Washington for years.

The Chosun Ilbo quoted a diplomatic source in Seoul as saying a U.S. reconnaissance satellite spotted the Taepodong-2 missile on a launch pad at North Korea’s east coast Musudan-ri missile base on Tuesday.

“Technically a launch is possible within three to four days,” the source said. Government officials in South Korea were not immediately available for comment.

On Wednesday, a U.S. counterproliferation official told Reuters that North Korea had appeared to have positioned the rocket on its launch pad.

“It’s possible that this signals an imminent launch, but the exact timeframe remains undetermined,” the official said.

Another U.S. official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said North Korea had placed together two stages of what is expected to be a three-stage rocket.

Once it has been positioned on the launch pad, North Korea will need several days to put fuel into the rocket.

GROWING TENSION
The planned launch and the growing tension on the Korean peninsula is beginning to discomfort financial markets in the South.

“Certainly, if the North does launch the missile it will highlight South Korea’s geopolitical risks,” said Kim Young-june, a market analyst at SK Securities, but added that so far there had been little impact.

Seoul financial markets showed a muted reaction, with foreign investors net buying local shares despite a slight drop in the stock market’s benchmark index.

“If they really fire something, it would definitely shake the financial market, but only briefly, as has been the case in many previous cases of provocation and clashes,” said Jung Sung-min, a fixed-income analyst at Eugene Futures.

The United States, along with Japan and South Korea, have said the launch is a disguised test of the North’s longest-range missile which could, in theory, carry a warhead as far as Alaska.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, during a visit to Mexico, said the launch would deal a blow to six-party international talks to end Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons programme.

“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 and moving forward as quickly as possible,” she told reporters.

“This provocative action … will not go unnoticed and there will be consequences,” she said.

Clinton did not specify the consequences but repeated earlier warnings that a launch could put the issue before the U.N. Security Council for discussions on additional sanctions.

SANCTIONS
North Korea already faces a range of U.N. sanctions, some linked to its first nuclear test in 2006, and many analysts doubt new ones would get past China — the nearest Pyongyang has to a powerful ally — in the U.N. Security Council.

The six-party talks — with the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States — sputtered to a halt in December over disagreement on the process to check whether the North was disabling its nuclear facilities.

The first time North Korea launch its Taepodong-2 in 2006, it fizzled out seconds into the air.

A successful launch this time would prove a huge boost at home to leader Kim Jong-il, whose illness last year — widely thought to have been a stroke — has raised questions over his grip on power.

A recent photograph in North Korean media showed the normally portly Kim to have lost a lot of weight and looking slightly frail.

It would also be a snub to the South, which hopes to launch its own satellite later this year, and whose conservative government Pyongyang has railed against for ending a once condition-free stream of aid.

North Korea has given international agencies notice of the rocket’s planned trajectory that would take it over Japan, dropping booster stages to its east and west.

Analysts said the notice was given to help the North argue that the rocket launch does not violate U.N. sanctions put in place after it test-launched a series of missiles in 2006.

“Even though the North Koreans have made a public declaration that this is a space launch, it would be in violation of the U.N. Security Council Resolution 1718,” said Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell. “Therefore, we would, of course, oppose it.”

He declined to say if the United States would take military action if the missile was launched.

Admiral Timothy Keating, head of U.S. Pacific Command, has said the U.S. military could with “high probability” intercept any North Korean missile heading for U.S. territory, if ordered to do so.

Pyongyang has said any attempt to shoot down the rocket would be an act of war.

It has also said any attempt by the U.N. Security Council to punish it over a satellite launch would mean the collapse of the nuclear international disarmament talks.

(Additional reporting by Randall Mikkelsen and Paul Eckert in Washington, Arshad Mohammed in Mexico City, Jack Kim, Park Jung-youn, Yoo Choonsik and Seo Eun-kyung in Seoul)

© Thomson Reuters 2009 All rights reserved

By LORNE COOK, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Published: 22 Mar 08:31 EDT (12:31 GMT)
Defense News

BRUSSELS - Poland urged the United States on March 22 to live up to past commitments on missile defense as Washington reviews plans to expand its system into Europe, including basing interceptors in Poland.

But U.S. Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher, touted for a top arms control post in the Obama administration, said it was more important to counter the real threat from short- and medium-range missiles, while the review takes place.

“We hope we don’t regret our trust in the United States,” Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said at the Brussels Forum conference to an audience of senior world politicians and experts.

Russia was enraged by the U.S. missile plans - which the Bush administration said was needed to counter a threat from Iran - but has welcomed the review ordered by President Barack Obama.

“When we started discussing this business with the United States, the U.S. assured us that they would persuade Russia,” Sikorski said.

“I am afraid Russian generals and even the Russian president continue to threaten us with the deployment of medium-range missiles,” he said.

The United States has been negotiating with Poland and the Czech Republic to install 10 missile interceptors, which would not carry explosive warheads, and a radar system on their territories to expand its shield into Europe.

Russia sees the system, initially meant to be in operation by 2013, as a threat to its security, but Washington denies this and has even struggled to bring Moscow on-board with the system.

Russia had threatened to deploy Iskander missiles to Kaliningrad, a Russian exclave wedged between NATO and EU members Poland and Lithuania, if Washington did not halt the planned extensions.

But it was assuaged by Obama’s decision to order a review of the multi-billion dollar project to see whether it is still technically feasible and cost effective. The time needed to conduct it is unclear.

Obama has also offered Tehran a “new beginning” to turn back the tide on decades of mutual distrust.

“Poland has taken a political risk in signing up with the previous administration,” Sikorski underlined.

Last month, Polish Defence Minister Bogdan Klich said talks with Washington on the plan, and in particular the stationing of U.S. Patriot missiles in Poland and other benefits Warsaw stood to gain, were ongoing.

But Czech officials have said they would be prepared to wait three years for work on the radar base to begin. Polls show the Czech public is largely opposed to the system.

Tauscher, currently being vetted for the job of undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, said it was more important to move ahead with short- and medium-range missile defenses.

She said that Russia should be brought on board with NATO on such a system and that if the U.S. shield proved feasible and cost-effective, it could be attached if this were acceptable.

“We need to reassess,” she said, noting that Congress believes the shield should not be deployed further until it has undergone “three or four more tests”.

“The threat is short- and medium-range missiles targeted towards our forward deployed troops, and our allies in southern Europe,” she said.

“We need to move in a NATOized way. Eventually we will develop a short- and medium-range system, one that will clearly share optics with Russia. We can certainly bolt on a long-range system once it has been tested.”

All content © 2009, Army Times Publishing Company

By INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Friday, March 13, 2009 4:20 PM PT

Missile Defense: Japan says it may shoot down North Korea’s upcoming “satellite” launch if it gets too close, and a key U.S. commander says he’s prepared to do the same should President Obama give the order. Will he?

It has become the mantra of this administration that a good crisis is a terrible thing to waste. It was first spoken by White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and echoed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. North Korea’s imminent launch of a “satellite” may be just such a crisis.

We put “satellite” in quotes because we sincerely doubt Pyongyang is interested in the peaceful exploration of space. Why does a nation that starves millions of its citizens need a communications satellite in a land without cell phones?

Yes, it could be a symbol of prestige. But more importantly, as with Iran’s first indigenous satellite, Omid (Hope), it’s a sign of the ability to deliver a nuclear warhead anywhere on this planet. North Korea is a nuclear power. Iran soon will be.

Japan has been keenly aware of the North Korean missile threat at least since North Korea test-fired a Taepodong ICBM, which flew over the Japanese home islands in 1998. Without any warning. In July 2006, North Korea launched a volley of seven North Korean Scuds and Nodongs into the Sea of Japan.

Japan has since been an active partner in our development of missile defenses and has a number of Aegis destroyers equipped with the U.S.-designed Standard Missile-3 antimissile system like the one that recently — and successfully — shot down a dying spy satellite as it fell to earth.

Japan jointly produces the Patriot Advanced Capability (PAC-3) antimissile missiles and has deployed them at bases around Tokyo. One of our early-warning phased array radar sites is located at a Japanese Self Defense Force base in the northern Japanese city of Tsugaru to warn of North Korean missile launches.

On Friday, Japan announced that it reserved the right to destroy any threatening missile in midflight, including the North Korean launch scheduled between April 4 and April 8. The missile boosters are expected to fall an uncomfortable 75 miles from Japan’s northwest coast.

“Under our law, we can intercept any object if it is falling towards Japan, including any attacks on Japan, for our security,” Takeo Kawamura, the chief cabinet secretary, told reporters.

Thanks to the vision of President Reagan, who launched the Strategic Defense Initiative in 1983, and the follow-through of President George W. Bush, who withdrew us from the nonsensical ABM treaty, President Obama has the option to shoot down any such launch.

Gen. Trey Obering III, former Missile Defense Agency chief, has said that after dozens of successful missile intercepts, “Our testing has shown not only can we hit a bullet with a bullet, we can hit a spot on a bullet with a bullet.”

“If a missile leaves the launch pad, we’ll be prepared to respond upon the direction of the president,” Adm. Timothy Keating, head of the U.S. Pacific Commands, told ABC News on Feb. 26. “It’s a fairly stern test early of President Obama and his administration,” he also noted.

President Obama has said he would not invest more money in “unproven” missile defense. He has also expressed a willingness to trade away missile defense sites in Poland and the Czech Republic aimed at Iranian Shahab and Safir missiles.

This would be a perfect time to put our missile defenses to the ultimate test and at the same time send a message to nuclear-armed thugs that if they shoot, we’ll shoot back. After all, a crisis is a terrible thing to waste.

© Copyright 2009 Investor’s Business Daily. All Rights Reserved.

Sun Mar 8, 2009 10:43pm IST

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran has test-fired a new air-to-surface missile, Iranian media reported on Sunday, in the Islamic Republic’s latest display of its military capability.

The missile test was carried out despite the offer by the administration of new U.S. President Barack Obama to engage Iran in direct talks if it “unclenches its fist”.

Iran’s Fars News Agency said the domestically produced missile had a range of 110 km and was designed for use by military aircraft against naval targets.

“Now these jet fighters have acquired a new capability in confronting threats,” the semi-official news agency said. Iran’s Press TV initially said a long-range missile had been tested, but later also used Fars’ way of describing it.

Iran often stages war games or tests weapons to show its determination to counter any attack by foes such as Israel and the United States.

Israel and Washington accuse Tehran of trying to develop nuclear bombs. Iran says its nuclear programme is a peaceful drive to generate electricity so that the world’s fourth-largest oil producer can export more of its gas and crude.

Israel, believed to be the only nuclear-armed Middle East state, has said Iran’s nuclear plans threaten its existence and has not ruled out military action if diplomacy fails to end the dispute.

Iran has said it would respond to any attack by targeting U.S. interests and Israel, as well as closing the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway between the Gulf and the Sea of Oman through which about 40 percent of the world’s traded oil is shipped.

One Western defence analyst said he believed the missile test was a signal by Iran that “we can severely disrupt traffic” in the Gulf if attacked.

“That’s what would be the frightening thing for the West and the Middle East,” Andrew Brookes of the International Institute for Strategic Studies think-tank in London said by phone.

The U.S. State Department declined to comment on the Iranian press reports.

Military experts say Iranian missiles often draw on technology from China, North Korea or other countries.

“They’ve taken Chinese missile technology and converted and developed it to take out ships,” said Brookes. “It is not a new development, it has been going on for some years.”

The air-to-surface missile’s range of 110 km would be far less than that of the surface-to-surface Shahab missile, which Iranian officials say can travel about 2,000 km, enabling it to reach Israel and U.S. bases in the Gulf.

A top Iranian military commander last week said that Iranian missiles could now reach Israeli nuclear sites. Iran has often said it has missiles able to reach the Jewish state but had not previously mentioned such specific targets.

(Additional reporting by Thomas Ferraro in Washington)

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