U.S. weighs shootdown of N. Korea missile

ROBERT BURNS, AP | June 21 2006

WASHINGTON - If North Korea launches a long-range missile, as some U.S. officials say appears likely, then the Pentagon may get a first chance to use its unproven missile defenses against a real target.

Although the North Korean missile most likely would be launched for a flight test or to put a satellite in space, Bush administration officials are considering the possibility of shooting it down, since they cannot rule out in advance that the missile might be fired with hostile intent.

"The problem is that no one knows because North Korea doesn't say anything in advance of a test," said Rick Lehner, chief spokesman for the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency. "So you have no idea what it is."

Lehner would not comment on possible use of the U.S. missile defense system, but two other defense officials said Tuesday that the administration is weighing responses to a missile test, including attempting to hit it in flight over the Pacific. The United States has 11 ground-based missile interceptors in Alaska and California, although it is not publicly known how many of the 11 are currently available for use in an emergency.

The two officials agreed to discuss the matter only on condition of anonymity because of its political sensitivity.

Although shooting down a North Korean missile is a possibility, the Pentagon also must consider factors that would argue against such a response, including the risk of shooting and missing and of escalating tensions further with Pyongyang. The missile interceptors have a spotty record in controlled tests.

Robert Einhorn, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said a U.S. shootdown of a North Korean missile on a test flight or a space launch would draw "very strong international reaction" against the United States. He saw only a small chance that the U.S. would attempt a shootdown.

Signs of North Korean preparations to launch a long-range ballistic missile, possibly with sufficient range to reach U.S. territory, have grown in recent weeks, although it is unclear whether the missile has been fully fueled.

Bush administration officials have publicly and privately urged the North Koreans not to conduct the missile test, which would end a self-imposed moratorium in place since 1999. That ban was adopted after Japan and other nations expressed outrage over an August 1998 launch in which a North Korean missile overflew northern Japan.

At the time of the 1998 launch, the United States had no means of shooting down a long-range missile in flight. Since then the Pentagon has developed a rudimentary system that it says is capable of defending against a limited number of missiles in an emergency, with a North Korean attack particularly in mind.

The 1998 event turned out to be a space launch rather than a missile test; U.S. officials said the satellite failed to reach orbit.

U.S. and international concern about North Korea's missile capability is heightened by the fact that it claims to have developed nuclear weapons. It is not known whether they have mastered the complex art of building a nuclear warhead small enough to fit aboard a long-range missile, although in April 2005 the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Vice Adm. Lowell Jacoby, told Congress that North Korea was capable of arming a missile with a nuclear warhead. U.S. officials have since called it a "theoretical capability."

Even if there were not attempt to shoot down a North Korean missile, it would be tracked by early warning satellites and radars, including radars based on ships near Japan and ground-based radars in Alaska and California.

David Wright, a senior scientist at the private Union of Concerned Scientists, said he strongly doubts that the Bush administration could back up its claims of having the capability to shoot down a North Korean missile.

"I consider it to be rhetorical posturing," Wright said. "It currently has no demonstrated capability."

The last time the Pentagon registered a successful test in intercepting a mock warhead in flight was in October 2002. Since then there have been three unsuccessful attempted intercepts, mostly recently in February 2005.

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