North Korea defies U.S.

WASHINGTON – Setting off a potential diplomatic and military firestorm, North Korea violated a seven-year missile-test ban today by launching one long-range and at least five shorter-range ballistic missiles, flights that apparently ended harmlessly in the Sea of Japan but drew a stern rebuke from the Bush administration.

As Americans celebrated Independence Day, North Korea made good on a threat to test its long-range Taepodong-2 missile, according to Stephen Hadley, President Bush’s national security adviser. American experts believe the missile has a range of about 9,300 miles – enough to carry a warhead to the United States.

In what was seen as an almost taunting display, Pyongyang also launched at least five shorter-range missiles.

Hadley called the tests “provocative behavior,” but did not say how the U.S. would respond.

“I think what we’ve learned is something about capabilities,” he said. “The fact that they can fire Scuds and Nodongs is not a surprise. The Taepodong is a failure. That tells you something about capabilities. What we really don’t have a fix on is what is the intention of all this, what is the purpose of all this.

“They have basically defied the international community,” Hadley said. “It’s hard to get a sense of what they think could be achieved by this.”

Bush conferred with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice about the tests, according to White House spokesman Tony Snow.

Snow added that Christopher Hill, the chief U.S. negotiator on the North’s nuclear weapons program, would head to the region today.

Previously, U.S. officials have suggested that North Korea, already isolated economically, would be the subject of even more stringent economic penalties if it carried out its threatened test of the Taepodong-2 missile.

U.S. and Japanese officials said at least six missiles were fired in all, launched over a four-hour period beginning about 3:30 a.m. today Korean time (11:30 a.m. PDT Tuesday.)

Japanese news agencies reported that the medium-range missiles landed about 300 miles from Hokkaido Island in northern Japan.

The U.S. Northern Command in Colorado said that it was “immediately able to detect the launch of all the missiles and all of them landed in the Sea of Japan.”

The command added that it was “able to determine quickly the missiles posed no threat to the United States or its territories.”

North Korea’s tests are sure to elicit a stern diplomatic response within the United Nations, where warnings have been issued over the prospects of a missile test. Since 2002, North Korea has increasingly taunted the West and its neighbors, primarily Japan, by escalating efforts to develop and deploy nuclear weapons, and the missiles that can carry them.

For its part, the United States is developing a multi-billion dollar defense system to shield against rogue missile attacks. Pentagon officials insist that the system, while far from complete, could be deployed in an emergency. The system was not deployed Tuesday, according to the U.S. Northern Command.

The United States also recently agreed to deploy a Patriot Advanced Capability-3 missile defense system in Japan. That system would be capable of shooting down shorter-range Rodong missiles, but not the higher flying Taepodong-2.

Though the missile test stirred some sharp rhetoric, it is unlikely to redraw the lines of support and opposition to Pyongyang.

The test puts China in an awkward position: Chinese leaders had publicly urged North Korea not to perform the test, so their advice has been rejected. But as Pyongyang’s closest ally in the region, China is unlikely to support measures that would destabilize its neighbor.

U.S. officials declined to say how they detected the North Korea launches. U.S. spy satellites are regularly positioned to observe North Korean missile activity; pictures of fueling activities at a Taepodong-2 missile site first raised concerns in the West about a month ago.

Before Tuesday’s tests, many experts considered Pyongyang’s threatened missile launch just the latest in a running series of threats and provocations by Kim Jong Il, North Korea’s mercurial leader.

North Korea is by most accounts in desperate economic straits, relying on aid from China and slowly expanding commerce with South Korea. In the past, it has used the threat of nuclear weapons to negotiate aid and concessions from the West.