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Pentagon ducks question in open session on Egypt's missiles

SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Tuesday, July 2, 2002

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.

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