WASHINGTON -- If North Korea launches one or more rockets into space in early April, the U.S. military might have trouble determining immediately whether the boosters are carrying a satellite into orbit or flight-testing a long-range ballistic missile, a top U.S. general said yesterday (see GSN, March 19).
(Mar. 20) -
U.S. Strategic Command chief Gen. Kevin Chilton (right) warned yesterday that there would be little time to determine whether a North Korean rocket launch poses a threat to the United States.
It would be "a really difficult problem" to assess what might be on the front end of rockets as they are in flight, said Strategic Command chief Gen. Kevin Chilton. He testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee alongside two U.S. commanders responsible for military operations in the Pacific region.
North Korea's Stalinist regime has announced plans to launch a communications satellite between April 4 and 8. However, regional analysts are wary of Pyongyang's intent and have warned that Kim Jong Il's military might use the space launch to fire a Taepodong 2 long-range missile, last tested in July 2006.
One top U.S. commander said this week that his forces are prepared for the possibility, however remote, of a North Korean missile attack against the United States (see GSN, March 18).
Any U.S. decision to intercept Pyongyang's launch -- a move that some say could carry political or military repercussions of its own -- would have to be made in a short time frame and based on limited information, Chilton suggested.
"There are different trajectories that you would fly, depending on whether you want to go into space or [fire] a ballistic missile," he told lawmakers. "A ballistic missile typically goes on a very high trajectory. [A satellite launch into] space usually flattens out early and then tries to accelerate its velocity, which is very important to stay in orbit.
"But being able to make that determination in 'real time' can be very difficult for us," he said.
"Which is scary," Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.) remarked.
Knowing in advance when an adversary's missile might be launched could help increase the probability of an intercept by the nascent U.S. missile defense system, Chilton said.
"If given adequate warning, which we obviously have" in this instance, the Pentagon can ready a ground-based missile defense system that routinely alternates between operational status and testing, Chilton said.
The most senior U.S. commander in the Pacific testified that there is little, if any, indication that the anticipated North Korean event would be anything other than a satellite launch.
"Is that [announcement] a threat?" asked Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.).
"No sir," responded Adm. Timothy Keating, who heads U.S. Pacific Command. "I would not think North Korea would have issued it as a threat. It was a normal notification process, which they didn't do in 2006 when they attempted a [test] launch from the same facility."
Nonetheless, Keating conceded that, if paired with a nuclear warhead, a North Korean rocket launch "could be a threat as early as 4 April."
Nuclear weapons expert Hans Kristensen of the Federation of American Scientists, who attended the hearing, noted afterward that he is unaware of any evidence that North Korea has successfully placed nuclear warheads on missiles.
It remains unclear whether the East Asian regime plans next month to test-fire a ballistic missile, according to Keating. Gen. Walter Sharp, the most senior U.S. commander in South Korea, said his forces are watching for signs that Pyongyang might test multiple missiles alongside a Taepodong 2, as it did in 2006.
Chilton said that putting a satellite into orbit could still help inform North Korea's research and development on missile technologies.
"Even if there is a satellite launch on this, as the North Koreans have said it will be, it will help advance the technology of long-range missiles," the strategic commander said.
Sharp added that a satellite launch would still violate U.N. Security Council Resolution 1718. The October 2006 resolution bans North Korea from firing a ballistic missile for any purpose or conducting any further nuclear tests.
Just days before the Security Council resolution was passed, North Korea conducted its first nuclear test detonation, which U.S. intelligence analysts believe partially failed (see GSN, Oct. 13, 2006).
Pyongyang has enough weapon-grade plutonium for as many as 10 weapons, but "nobody knows" how many warheads North Korea has actually built, according to Kristensen.
He faulted the witnesses for failing to note that no evidence has surfaced that North Korea has developed crucial re-entry vehicle technology, which would be necessary to deliver a nuclear weapon on a ballistic missile.
"I've never seen anyone describe that we have seen North Korea do that," he told Global Security Newswire. If the highly secretive regime has mated warheads with delivery devices, they could be simple gravity bombs deliverable by aircraft, "but even that we don't know," Kristensen said.
Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) did raise questions about U.S. government assumptions regarding North Korean intentions.
He asked why Kim Jong Il's regime -- almost singularly focused on preserving its own power -- would attack the United States or its allies if the clear ramifications would be a war that would end its control.
"The North Korean leadership has only their own survival in mind, that's their goal," Levin said. "If they believe and ... [they] must believe that any attack on us or the South Koreans would lead to their own destruction -- in other words, defeat their own goal -- then that deterrence should work on North Korea."
In related news, Sharp reported that Pyongyang had completed eight of 11 nuclear disarmament tasks that North Korean negotiators had agreed to in six-nation talks.
In exchange, the United States and its diplomatic partners -- China, Japan, Russia and South Korea -- have provided North Korea roughly 75 percent of the fuel oil assistance promised in 2007, Sharp said. However, Tokyo's portion has not been delivered pending resolution of longstanding grievances about North Korean abductions of Japanese citizens, he said.
The United States also has taken Kim Jong Il's regime off its list of global sponsors of terrorism.
Remaining steps include the full removal of spent fuel rods from the Yongbyon nuclear reactor, a task that is now about 80 percent complete, Sharp said (see GSN, March 16).
North Korea is proceeding toward nuclear disablement but "at a very, very slow rate," Sharp said. "They could have been well done with this, months ago, if they had done it at a reasonable rate" (see GSN, March 18).