North Korea tests short-range missile
North Korea tests short-range missile
Western concerns focused on preparation of long-range rocket
From Elise Labott and Justine Redman
CNN
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- North Korea tested a short-range missile early Wednesday but has not fired the long-range Taepodong-2 rocket Western observers suspect has been readied for launch, U.S. sources told CNN.
Two senior U.S. State Department officials said Tuesday that fuel trucks had departed the site where the long-range missile sits on a launching pad, indicating that a test might be near.
The removal of the fuel trucks and other auxiliary equipmentmeant the North Koreans may have finished fueling the missile, said the officials, who did not want to be named because of the sensitivity of the information.
Should the North Koreans have completed the fueling "all they would need to do now is press the button," one of the sources said.
But both officials said no hard evidence points to a launch coming soon.
"It's the Fourth of July, and they know we are watching and they like to play with us," said one official, who has followed the North Korean program for years. (Watch why North Korea is talking about annihilating the U.S. -- 2:04)
The United States, Japan and other countries are concerned about North Korea's reported preparations for a long-range missile test. The North Koreans fired a Taepodong-1 missile over Japan in 1998 but declared a moratorium on future tests in 1999.
President Bush has warned North Korea that it will face further isolation if it violates agreements by test launching a missile believed capable of reaching the continental United States. (Full story)
"The North Koreans have made agreements with us in the past, and we expect them to keep their agreements," Bush said last month at the end of a European Union summit.
"It should make people nervous when nontransparent regimes, that have announced that they've got nuclear warheads, fire missiles," Bush said. "This is not the way you conduct business in the world. This is not the way that peaceful nations conduct their affairs."
On Monday, Pyongyang's state-run media carried a report accusing the United States of harassing North Korea and vowing to respond to any pre-emptive attack "with a relentless annihilating strike and a nuclear war with a mighty nuclear deterrent."
The White House has dismissed that threat as "hypothetical." (Full story)
Meanwhile, the Pentagon is taking steps to be ready for a possible military response to a North Korean missile launch.
The U.S. Northern Command recently increased security measures at its Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Station in Colorado Springs, Colorado, a military official confirmed.
Some command and control operations there might be used if the United States launched an interceptor missile in an attempt to shoot down the North Korean missile.
In other planning measures instituted in the past several days, Northern Command, along with the Federal Aviation Administration, has put standby commercial flight restrictions into place over Vandenberg Air Force Base in California and Fort Greely, Alaska, where the U.S. interceptor missiles are based.
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