MSNBC STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS
WASHINGTON, Sept. 2 - The United States is sending six strategic bombers to Guam in reaction to North Korea's test-firing of a medium range ballistic missile over Japan, NBC News learned Wednesday.
The "power demonstration" is aimed at easing the fears of the Japanese and to let North Korea know that the United States can project substantial air power "a long way on a moment's notice," a source told NBC News.
THE UNITED STATES is sending three B-2 bomber and three B-52 bombers to Guam in a deployment scheduled for 30 days. The bombers are expected to conduct bombing runs on a test range on Guam beginning as early as Friday.
This is only the second time the B-2's have been deployed outside the continental United States on such a mission. The B-2's are being deployed from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri and the B-52's
from Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana.
U.S. officials stress that there is no indication that any aggressive actions by North Korea are imminent.
North Korea, meanwhile, broke its silence about test-firing the missile, dismissing the "fuss" over what it said was its own business. Japan continued to respond forcefully, however, as Tokyo banned all flights between the two countries.
Japan said North Korea fired its newly developed three-stage ballistic missile - known as Taepo Dong 1 with a range of 1,200 miles - on Monday over Japanese territory.
The official Korean Central News Agency chastised Japan for speaking out: "We bitterly denounce Japan for making a fuss over the matter that belongs to our sovereignty while being unaware of its background."
An analyst at Tokyo-based Radiopress, a respected agency that monitors North Korean media, said although the North Korean statement wording was oblique, it amounted to confirmation by North Korea
that it carried out the test.
"The wording was the same as when North Korea fired a missile into the Sea of Japan in 1993," the analyst said.
Japan, determined to make North Korea pay for the firing, on Wednesday added bans on flights between the two countries to an announcement on Tuesday that it was breaking off talks about restoring relations and ending food aid to the Stalinist state.
"We will take measures that will not result in North Korea somehow benefiting from firing a missile, that enables North Korea to understand it will be to their disadvantage when it does something internationally unacceptable," Japanese Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura told parliament.
Top government spokesman Hiromu Nonaka told reporters nine flights scheduled to leave Nagoya in central Japan for North Korea from now until the end of this year were all cancelled.
He said 14 additional flights currently under discussion for the same period were also cancelled. There are only about 30 chartered flights - all involving North Korean aircraft - a year between the two
countries.
They began operation in 1992 and mainly originate in North Korea carrying matsutake mushrooms, a prized delicacy in Japan.
Nonaka said more measures may be needed.
Japanese officials have said the first stage of the rocket dropped in the Sea of Japan separating the two nations, the second stage flew over Japan's main island of Honshu and dropped in the Pacific Ocean and the cone of the rocket landed in the Pacific about 370 miles off the northern Japanese coast.
Transport Ministry officials said the second stage may have passed through flight paths used by commercial airliners.
One official said that at the time seven airliners were in the area through which the rocket flew. "The incident endangered the safety of commercial aircraft," Nonaka said. Some politicians have called for a
freeze on financial assets of ethnic North Koreans living in Japan, who send significant amounts of money, particularly hard currency such as the yen, to their cash-strapped homeland.
"Further measures against North Korea are still open to debate, and we must cautiously consider various options, including whether it is legally possible to inspect or freeze financial transactions of institutions in Japan over this (missile) incident," Nonaka said.
On Thursday, North Korea will resume talks with the United States after Washington and its partners indefinitely suspended a deal to fund a landmark nuclear energy project for North Korea, the State
Department said. The talks were canceled on Tuesday.
Before the cancellation, U.S. and North Korean officials had been meeting this week and last week in New York over various issues, including intelligence reports that thousands of North Koreans were
digging an underground installation at a vast site near a former nuclear research center at Yongbyon.
After the missile firing, the United States, South Korea, Japan and the European Union indefinitely shelved a deal to fund construction of two nuclear power reactors for the North.
North Korea and the United States agreed four years ago that Pyongyang would freeze its nuclear program in exchange for two light-water reactors to be built by a consortium led by the United States, Japan and South Korea.
Japan had agreed to pay $1 billion as its share of the $4.6 billion cost. Seoul agreed to pay 70 percent of the total cost, subject to parliamentary approval, KEDO has said.
The United States promised to deliver 500,000 tons of fuel oil annually as an alternative energy source until the reactors were commissioned.
But the U.S. Congress has blocked funds for the oil supplies because of reports North Korea supplied missiles to Pakistan.
Besides the Daepodong, North Korea is thought to have two other types of missiles: The Rodong 1, a single-staged liquid fuel missile, can fire a 450-pound warhead up to 620 miles - and thus could strike
South Korea and much of Japan - although it has never been fired more than 310 miles. The Rodong 2 has a longer range, up to 940 miles, but carries half the payload.
The Rodong 1 was last test fired in 1993, and also landed in the Sea of Japan, which divides the Korean Peninsula from Japan. Scud B and C missiles, which are North Korean variations on the well-known
Soviet design that Iraq used in the 1991 Gulf War. Their ranges are 210 miles and 310 miles, respectively. |
