Fox News just announced that the White House has confirmed that North Korea has still more missiles ready to launch. In fact, it launched a seventh missile earlier this morning.
SEOUL, South Korea - North Korea test-fired another missile Wednesday, intensifying the furor ignited when the reclusive regime launched at least six missiles, including a long-range Taepodong, earlier in the day.
The missiles apparently fell harmlessly into the Sea of Japan, and U.S. officials said the long-range Taepodong-2 failed shortly after take-off, calling into question the technological capability of North Korea's feared ballistic missile program. Pyongyang last fired a long-range missile in 1998.But the audacious military exercise drew immediate attention and condemnation. The North American Aerospace Defense Command monitored the launches as they progressed but soon determined they were not a threat to the United States, a spokesman said.
The political reaction was swift. The White House called the tests a "provocation," while the
U.N. Security Council scheduled an emergency meeting for Wednesday and Tokyo warned of economic sanctions against the impoverished, communist country.North Korea remained defiant. A North Korea foreign ministry official told Japanese journalists in Pyongyang that the regime there has an undeniable right to test missiles.
The missiles of real concern are the Taepodong-2 long range missiles which appear to be failing miserably. Also, North Korea is launching from a different site than was expected. How can North Korea have a second site that no one knew about? Update: The US knew about North Korea's other site(s) but didn't expect the missiles to be lauched from there.
The UN is going to meet later today.
Update: GOP Vixen has fun with "You know your missile sucks..."
Update II: Bill Gertz at The Washington Times reports that the missiles were launched from multiple locations.
Update III: Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi says he can't rule out more missile launches.
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Comments (13)
"The UN is going to meet la... (Below threshold)1. Posted by bnorm | July 5, 2006 8:07 AM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
"The UN is going to meet later today."
That reassures me. Now this situation will be taken care of.
1. Posted by bnorm | July 5, 2006 8:07 AM |
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Posted on July 5, 2006 08:07
2. Posted by bill | July 5, 2006 8:14 AM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
No one knew, says who -- the media, hah? That's like saying NJ bet on Corzine to not raise taxes, and they lost. Never bet against a sure thing.
2. Posted by bill | July 5, 2006 8:14 AM |
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Posted on July 5, 2006 08:14
3. Posted by Vigilante | July 5, 2006 8:38 AM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
BNorm (above) is worried about this "situation".
Too bad our warmongering administration has shot our wad over Iraq which did not have WMD's to threaten us. Otherwise, we wouldn't have to cry "wolf" to the U.N.
3. Posted by Vigilante | July 5, 2006 8:38 AM |
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Posted on July 5, 2006 08:38
4. Posted by Gianni | July 5, 2006 9:00 AM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
It isn't that we didn't know about the site. We knew the site was there, we just weren't expecting them to fire from that site.
4. Posted by Gianni | July 5, 2006 9:00 AM |
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Posted on July 5, 2006 09:00
5. Posted by cmd | July 5, 2006 9:01 AM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
"too bad our warmongering administration has shot its wad. . ."
Next time, try not to be so gleeful, huh, vigilante? Otherwise we might have to question your patriotism, and we all know how touchy you lefties are about that sort of thing.
5. Posted by cmd | July 5, 2006 9:01 AM |
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Posted on July 5, 2006 09:01
6. Posted by U.P. Man | July 5, 2006 9:08 AM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Besides, isn't that what the U.N. is for vigilante?
6. Posted by U.P. Man | July 5, 2006 9:08 AM |
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Posted on July 5, 2006 09:08
7. Posted by ted | July 5, 2006 9:18 AM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
We need to send Madelline Allbright back to N. Korea.
On a serious note, when will the Dems and their MSM allies blame Bush or the USA for all this? It's only a matter of time.
7. Posted by ted | July 5, 2006 9:18 AM |
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Posted on July 5, 2006 09:18
8. Posted by Keith, Indy | July 5, 2006 9:32 AM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Who's to say why these missles failed. Could have failed because someone was shooting at them with a high-powered laser or energy weapon.
Who ever possesses such a weapon first is not going to alert the world that they have such a weapon. And they are going to be carefull about acknowledging the capability.
Just some speculation on my part...
8. Posted by Keith, Indy | July 5, 2006 9:32 AM |
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Posted on July 5, 2006 09:32
9. Posted by Jeff Blogworthy | July 5, 2006 10:01 AM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Werner von Braun's missiles sucked too - until they didn't.
9. Posted by Jeff Blogworthy | July 5, 2006 10:01 AM |
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Posted on July 5, 2006 10:01
10. Posted by epador | July 5, 2006 11:11 AM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Failures are not necessarily bad for the NK unless they don't learn WHY the failures occurred. I'd feel better if they worked during the test and failed later when not expected. This looks more like a test of our systems by the NK than a test of their own missiles. The mass launch of other SCUDS is a known tactic to discourage tracking of the missile that carries a real warhead.
Buy your iodine tablets and bottled water and pray.
10. Posted by epador | July 5, 2006 11:11 AM |
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Posted on July 5, 2006 11:11
11. Posted by epador | July 5, 2006 11:14 AM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
And don't think that every one of our potential adversaries isn't watching carefully to see how and what we can and can't do about the missile launches. The intelligence that leaks from this event could be potentially much more damaging than SWIFT leaks to our National Security.
11. Posted by epador | July 5, 2006 11:14 AM |
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Posted on July 5, 2006 11:14
12. Posted by BC Monkey | July 5, 2006 11:31 AM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Clearly the US has hired Dr.No, whose secret island base off Japan is responsible for toppling the rockets.
Oh, and if the US had anything to do with the rockets failure via BMD, I would expect that the US would remain silent on it for a while.
12. Posted by BC Monkey | July 5, 2006 11:31 AM |
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Posted on July 5, 2006 11:31
13. Posted by Tom | July 5, 2006 8:40 PM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Why don't any of you big news reporters let the world know we were launching missles off Korea just a week before Korea launched some back. Our Government beter quit thinking it can have all the missles autority and hipocracy of telling a one sided story. We tauntedd Korea, first. Just like Iran. Stand up an voice your objection that we stay out of other countries lives. Like Iraq!
With Honor I Served, Vietnam 1969-1975
13. Posted by Tom | July 5, 2006 8:40 PM |
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Posted on July 5, 2006 20:40