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.