The Bush administration performed an about-face and
within 24 hours allowed a North Korean ship laden with Scud short- and
medium-range missiles to arrive in Yemen.
Officials said the North Korean ship, called the So San, contains 15
Scuds of both short- and medium-range, Middle East Newsline reported. They said the ship was allowed to
sale to Yemen as the incident threatened the nation's improved ties with the United States.
Officials said the seizure of the ship was threatening to turn into a
crisis in relations between the United States and Yemen. They said the
crisis jeopardized the operations of U.S. special forces in Yemen and
training of its military to eliminate Al Qaida strongholds and stop
insurgency shipping.
"While there is authority to stop and search, in this instance there is
no authority to seize a shipment of Scud missiles from North Korea to Yemen
and therefore the merchant vessel is being released," White House spokesman
Ari Fleischer said.
The 15 Scuds comprised what one official termed were B, C and D
models. The B model has a range of about 300 kilometers. The C model has a
range of 500 kilometers and the D model about 700 kilometers.
It was the first time Yemen was reported to have received Scud Cs and
Ds. North Korea has sold both missiles to Iran and Syria and is building an
infrastructure for the production of extended-range Scud missiles in Libya.
The government in Sanaa acknowledged that the Scud shipment was destined
for Yemen. Yemeni President Abdullah Saleh called the White House and
demanded an immediate release of the shipment.
"The shipment is part of contracts signed some time ago," Yemeni Foreign
Minister Abu Bakr Al Qirbi said. "It belongs to the Yemeni government and
its army and is meant for defensive purposes."
U.S. officials acknowledged that the North Korean shipment violated a
Yemeni
pledge to end the procurement of Scud missiles. They said elements within
the administration and Congress were urging Washington to reassess relations
with Sanaa. But they said the administration decided to release the Scud
shipment after Yemen pledged not to transfer the Scuds to a third party.
"We recognized that it was going to a country that we have good
relations with," Secretary of State Colin Powell said. "And after a flurry
of phone calls, and after getting assurances directly from the president of
Yemen, President Saleh, that this was the last of a group of shipments that
go back some years and had been
contracted for some years ago, this would be the end of it and we had
assurances that these missiles were for Yemeni defensive purposes and under
no circumstances would they be going anywhere else."
But administration officials said the release of the North Korean
missile shipment does not reflect a reversal of what they termed a new
policy against missile proliferation. They said President George Bush is
determined to stop North Korean medium- and intermediate-range missile
shipments to Middle East clients.
"I think the signal that was sent to Pyongyang is 'We know what you're
doing. We know where you are. You can't hide,'" U.S. Deputy Secretary of
State Richard Armitage said.
On Wednesday, the administration released an unclassified version of its
new national security strategy that focuses on efforts to stop the
proliferation of missiles and weapons of mass destruction. The Washington
Post reported the classified version of the strategy and cites Iran, Syria,
North Korea and Libya as the focus of the new U.S. approach and enables the
option of a preemptive attack.
