June 28, 2006
Senator Says North Korean Missile Firing May Not Be Imminent
By THOM SHANKER and DAVID E. SANGER
WASHINGTON, June 27 — The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee said Tuesday that while North Korea showed clear signs of preparing a missile for a test launching, it remained uncertain whether it was fully fueled for an imminent firing.
The chairman, Senator John W. Warner, a Virginia Republican, spoke on Capitol Hill after committee members received a closed-door briefing from officials of the Missile Defense Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the defense secretary's office.
The briefing came as American officials said Chinese and South Korean diplomats were putting pressure on North Korea not to launch the missile. But the Americans said they had gotten little indication about what the North Koreans may have said in response.
At the White House on Tuesday, Tony Snow, the president's spokesman, said the Chinese and South Koreans "can assert considerable influence."
"What we are hoping," Mr. Snow said, "is real simple — that they will use it constructively to say to the North Koreans: 'Come on, you don't want to do this. Let's abide by your moratorium. Come back to the six-party talks.' " He added that North Korea had "a lot to gain by coming back to the table."
American intelligence officials say they believe that the missile is a Taepodong 2 and that a three-stage version could strike the United States. One administration official said the missile at the launching pad was a two-stage version.
Details like that have not been clearly spelled out, either because administration officials are uncertain of the facts or because the details are classified. Several officials would discuss recent intelligence reports on the situation only on condition of anonymity, because the situation is diplomatically delicate and the intelligence is secret.
The New York Times reported Monday that North Korea appeared to some officials to have completed fueling the missile, citing American officials who warned that the move greatly increased the probability that the North would go ahead with its first important test launching in eight years.
A senior American official said Sunday that data from satellite photographs suggested that booster rockets had been loaded onto a launching pad, and liquid-fuel tanks fitted to the missile at a site on North Korea's remote east coast.
Roughly 10 days ago, American intelligence agencies reported to the administration that fueling trucks had been spotted around the missile.
On Monday and Tuesday, two officials said the intelligence could, at best, be interpreted as offering only a prudent assumption that the missile was fueled, and that intelligence analysts had described an already fueled missile as a worst-case scenario.
"It is impossible to know for certain whether or how much fuel is moving between a closed container through a closed line to another closed container," one official said.
Citing intelligence gathered by "overhead systems" photographing the missile, Senator Warner said, "We are not certain if it's fueled."
He also said the surveillance images indicated that "certain infrastructure" remained around the missile and would have to be removed in advance of a launching.
"They could be launching a satellite, a weather satellite or any type of satellite that might be launched by this system," Mr. Warner said. But he said the United States must "prepare for the possibility of a hostile strike," though he termed it a "probably remote possibility."