'North Korea far along in testing ballistic missile'

Washington, June 23 : North Korea is far along in its preparations for testing a long-range ballistic missile but the United States would not necessarily use its missile defense system to shoot it down, U S officials said today.

After a week in which unnamed American officials had stoked alarm about activities at a missile site in eastern North Korea, the U S government appeared ready to ease tensions somewhat.

White House national security adviser Stephen Hadley said it remained uncertain if North Korea actually planned to test-fire the missile, an act which Washington has warned would be seen as a provocative act.

''We're watching it very carefully and preparations are very far along. So you could, from a capability standpoint, have a launch. Now what they intend to do ... of course we don't know.

What we hope they will do is give it up and not launch,'' he told reporters traveling with President George W Bush in Vienna, Austria.

Vice President Dick Cheney said in an interview with CNN that North Korea's missile capabilities were ''fairly rudimentary.'' ''But we are watching it with interest and following it very closely,'' Cheney said.

A senior U S defence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the United States would not necessarily use its developing missile defense system to shoot down any North Korean missile launch, saying it depended on where the missile was aimed.

The official was seeking to clarify conditions under which Washington would use missile defenses against a North Korean launch.

''Obviously, the United States military would use any capability it had if it could protect the American people,'' the official said.

PAYLOAD UNKNOWN

But ''if there is a test in which a missile goes up, for example, and is headed into the ocean or whatever, would that be necessarily a trigger for our defensive systems? No, it wouldn't be,'' the official added.

U S officials have said they do not know what kind of payload the missile might carry. But two officials told Reuters they would view it as ''somewhat less provocative'' -- although still undesirable -- if the missile were used to try to put a satellite in orbit.

The United States has built up a complex of interceptor missiles, advanced radar stations and data relays designed to detect and shoot down an enemy missile, but tests of the system have had mixed results.

The system is based on the concept of using one missile to shoot down another before it can reach its target.

William Perry, former President Bill Clinton's secretary of defense, and Ashton Carter, an assistant secretary of defense under Clinton, argued in a commentary in The Washington Post that the United States should state its intention to destroy the North Korean missile before it can be fired if the North Koreans persist in their launch preparations.

Asked for his reaction to this proposal, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said Bush ''is trying to work this through diplomatic means,'' rather than military means.

Peter Rodman, Assistant Defense Secretary for international security affairs, also rejected the idea in testimony before the the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee, saying: ''A pre-emptive strike is a little more dramatic than I would expect would happen.'' ''Our policy is to deal with this in a less drastic way at the present time. We have a missile defence capability and North Korea was very much on our mind when we designed that capability,'' he added.

Reuters

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