World Tribune.com

Scientists dispute administration over N. Korean threat

SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Thursday, January 13, 2000

WASHINGTON -- The Clinton administration has been engaged in a dispute with leading U.S. scientists regarding the North Korean threat.

The administration said North Korea's missile program could give Pyongyang the capability to rain missiles on targets in the United States. But the non-profit Federation of American Scientists said the North Korean threat has been exaggerated and that Pyongyang's facilities are primitive.

In an attempt to prove its point, the nonprofit group has posted photos of a North Korean missile test site on its Web site, www.fas.org. This is the first such satellite photograph of a Nodong launch facility released to the public and was obtained from an Ikonos satellite. The site does not show roads, propellant storage or housing that the group says are required to support an extensive test program.

The group said the Nodong test site is "barely worthy of note, consisting of the most minimal imaginable test infrastructure. It is quite evident that this facility was not intended to support, and in many respects is incapable of supporting, the extensive test program that would be needed to fully develop a reliable missile system."

The group pointed out that in the United States, intercontinental ballistic missiles undergo at least 20 flight tests during development. Missiles with less of a range undergo more tests.

"The Nodong facility betrays no indication of permanent occupancy, but rather gives every evidence of consisting of a temporary encampment to which launch crews might from time to time repair to test their handiwork," the group said. "There is a complete absence of any manner of industrial support or other test facilities, and the bare bones test infrastructure is connected by no more than a spidery network of unpaved trails."

The group says the lack of infrastructure points to North Korea's inability to sustain development. So far, two tests were conducted at the facility near the town of Nodong, about 10 kilometers from the town of Taepodong.

Pentagon officials said the photograph doesn't disprove U.S. assessments of North Korea's missile capabilities. "We have always known that North Korea has primitive facilities, that it is far behind us technologically, but that it devotes an enormous amount of money, energy and manpower to developing weapons of mass destruction and the means to deliver them," Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon said. "So I am not sure that the fact that the launch facility is primitive makes the missiles any less threatening."

A prototype of the Nodong-1 missile was detected on a launch pad in May 1990, the group said, and the single test flight of this missile was conducted in May 1993. In August 1998 the longer-range Taepo Dong-1 missile was launched, with what the group said was a range of 1,500 kilometers.

During 1999, the group said, preparations were detected for the launch of the much larger Taepo Dong-2 missile. Since May, U.S. reconnaissance satellites monitored developments apparently related to another missile launch. Construction of a new launch pad was nearly complete as of late July and by early August the vehicle was already complete and stored near the launching pad, which is 1.5 times taller than the first Taepo Dong pad.

The group said that the Taepo Dong-2 has not been transported to the launch pad. It said it would take two days to set the missile on the launch pad and load liquid fuel from a tanker.

"Therefore, preparations for a launch could be confirmed in advance by U.S. reconnaissance satellites," the group said. "By year's end these activities were abandoned with no launch resulting.

The group said that the satellite photograph disputes a claim by North Korean defector Im Young-sun that North Korean authorities have ordered the relocation of those living in an 80 kilometer-radius of the test site.

Thursday, January 13, 2000


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