WASHINGTON Ñ The United States has acknowledged that Egypt has
acquired No-Dong missiles from North Korea.
U.S. officials, speaking in an open session of Congress, did not provide
any details of the No-Dong export. But they did not deny the sale and
acknowledged that the North Korean export of No-Dongs to Egypt poses a
threat to the Middle East.
The delivery of No-Dongs to Egypt was briefly discussed during a joint
hearing of the House Military Procurement subcommittee and the Military
Research and Development subcommittee. The hearing on Thursday was chaired
by Rep. Curt Weldon and Rep. Duncan Hunter.
The issue was raised by Rep. Mark Steven Kirk, an Illinois Republican
toward the end of the hearing, after the chief witness, Deputy Defense
Secretary Paul Wolfowitz had left. Kirk asked Missile Defense Agency
director Lt. Gen. Ronald Kadish about the missile programs of Iran and
Egypt.
Kirk said when he was a State Department official in the late 1980s he
dealt with Egypt's attempted import of missile engines from Argentina. "Now
we have reports of Egyptian purchases of No-Dong missile engines from North
Korea," Kirk said. "You obviously know how seriously we would take a move of
that nature by the armed forces of Egypt. I don't know if you can comment on
that publicly, or anything that you can say, because it obviously rattled
some nerves on Capitol Hill."
Kadish did not deny Kirk's assertion. But he said he would prefer to
discuss details of the No-Dong in closed session.
"We would take that very seriously, too, congressman," Kadish said. "And
I think the discussion of the threat at the level that you are probing, I
think, would be best handled if we could go classified."
A congressional staffer said the Kadish response was regarded as a
confirmation of Kirk's assertion. "He could have said 'Egypt is an ally' and
that's it," the staffer said.
It was the second time in as many months that Congress heard testimony
regarding Egypt's import of No-Dong missiles from North Korea. In May, the
House Armed Services subcommittee on terrorism heard testimony that Egypt
had obtained 24 No-Dong missiles from North Korea.
