Defiant N. Korea tests missiles

WASHINGTON -- North Korea defied weeks of international warnings yesterday by test-launching at least one long-range Taepodong-2 missile and at least four other shorter - range missiles, US officials said, sparking several diplomatic protests and a move to hold an emergency session today at the UN Security Council.

The test of the Taepodong-2 -- which US officials believe has the capacity to reach Alaska, if not farther -- apparently failed, plunging into the Sea of Japan less than a minute after it was launched.

US military satellites had been monitoring the preparations for the long-range missile test for weeks, prompting a debate in foreign policy circles over whether the United States should shoot the missile down. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and diplomats from Japan, China, Russia, and South Korea had warned North Korea that the act would be seen as a ``provocative act."

Yesterday, US officials made it clear that they did not consider the tests an immediate threat to the United States, but that the multiple launch would carry consequences. An Air Force complex in Cheyenne Mountain, Colo., that coordinates homeland defense had already been on heightened alert, but the US military did not have to respond because the long-range missile quickly plummeted on its own, US officials said yesterday.

The test set off a whirlwind of diplomacy. Rice, who was preparing to host foreign ambassadors for the State Department's annual Fourth of July party, placed urgent phone calls to her counterparts in Asia.

Japan's chief cabinet secretary, Shinzo Abe, called the test ``regrettable," saying ``we protest strongly against North Korea for going ahead with a launch despite warnings," while Prime Minister John Howard of Australia said: ``This development is very provocative and runs completely counter to the interests of North Korea and the interests of the whole region."

President Bush, who last night was celebrating his 60th birthday, which is tomorrow, continued with his plans, but received up-to-date reports from White House aides on the situation.

The emergency session at the United Nations is scheduled for 10 a.m. today, according to French Ambassador Jean-Marc de La Sabliere. Japan was expected to present a resolution protesting North Korea's firing of its missiles.

John Bolton, the US ambassador to the United Nations, said in a statement that he was ``urgently consulting with other delegations of Security Council on the situation."

Christopher Hill, the State Department's top envoy to North Korea, prepared to leave for the region as soon as today, according to a spokesman.

This is the first North Korean test of a long-range missile since 1998, when Kim Jong Il, the country's reclusive leader, opted to test a sophisticated, three-stage missile over Japan, just as relations were thawing between the United States and North Korea.

That missile test was widely regarded as a success, with complicated boosters activating as planned. That missile crossed over Japan and fell into the Pacific Ocean several hundred miles off the main Japanese island of Honshu.

But yesterday's long-range missile apparently failed, falling in the Sea of Japan about 400 miles from Japanese territory.

North Korea fired several other shorter-range missiles yesterday that fell into the Sea of Japan. Most were thought to be Scuds of various types. The precise number of missiles was unclear, with US officials speaking of five or six in all, and South Korean officials saying early today that 10 had been fired.

Pentagon officials last night were leaving open the possibility that the long-range missile had been programmed to explode quickly after take-off, but specialists on the region said they believed the missile test simply failed.

``It is an embarrassment," said Chuck Downs, author of an American Enterprise Institute study that documents the 50-year history of US-North Korean negotiations.

Downs said the test itself, which occurred on the same day as the US space shuttle launch in Florida, was a ``stunt" designed to bolster flagging nationalist pride in the impoverished Stalinist country, as well as to get the attention of the United States.

``They are trying to say, `You think you can send a shuttle into space, certainly we have the right to sent a Taepodong into space as well,' " Downs said. ``The government is between crisis and collapse and life is difficult in North Korea, and it is difficult for Kim Jong Il to keep the ruling faction's loyalty."

Kongdan Oh, Asian specialist at Institute for Defense Analyses, also said the test was designed to impress the North Korean public, which received little information from the outside world, as well as serve national security goals.

``Dynamically, internal politics also require Kim Jong Il and the military to do something to show they are in charge of the national defense and that they are not bullied by America," she said. ``More or less, Kim Jong Il had to do it. He says, `I am your great leader. We are the strongest country. We are not bullied by America.' You have to show them something."

But North Korea also states openly that it is developing nuclear weapons, so the testing of the long-range missile also serves the purpose of trying out a delivery system for such a device.

Specialists say that Kim sees nuclear weapons as key to fending off attack from countries that want to see his regime collapse.

North Korea has also sold its missiles to other countries, providing needed income.

Since Bush came into office, North Korea has been one of his administration's most stubborn foreign policy problems. President Clinton had brokered a deal with North Korea, agreeing to provide light-water reactors for energy production in exchange for a halt to North Korea's nuclear weapons program. But Bush administration officials criticized the deal, saying it amounted to a bribe to a dictator. In 2002, when the administration received evidence that North Korea was cheating on the deal, it confronted the regime.

In January 2003, North Korea responded by pulling out of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and openly producing fuel for nuclear weapons. At the time, Pyongyang also threatened to end a self-imposed moratorium on missile testing that had been in place since 1999.

US officials have been trying to broker a new deal for the past three years in a forum known as the six-party talks, which include China, Russia, South Korea, and Japan. Last September, a breakthrough finally occurred: North Korea signed on to a joint statement indicating that it would accept some economic incentives in exchange for a halt to its program.

But shortly afterward, the US Treasury Department cracked down on a North Korean counterfeiting operation, and enraged North Korean officials refused to return to the six-party talks.

North Koreans have demanded direct talks with the United States, but US officials have refused, severely limiting negotiations.

The issue has been at a stalemate for months, as US attention has been directed at other urgent threats, including Iran's nuclear ambitions.

Many specialists have been urging the administration to take a new approach with North Korea, given that years of tense diplomacy and almost no contact has failed to work.

Oh said that US officials should give Hill more power to talk to his North Korean counterparts, and they should rethink their strategy.

``American policy-makers are not interested in understanding local pride, nationalism, sentiment, and psychology," Oh said. ``It's very foreign to them. They feel headache and they don't want to get deeply involved in that. Later, they regret when their policy is not working."