Biden Says US Will Not Stand In Way of Israel Attack On Iran

Vice President Joe Biden signaled that the Obama administration would not stand in the way if Israel chose to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, even as the top U.S. military officer said any attack on Iran would be destabilizing.

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In an interview on ABC’s “This Week,” Biden also said the U.S. offer to negotiate with Tehran on its nuclear program still stands. Some thought the administration’s approach might change in light of the Iranian government’s harsh crackdown on protesters after the June 12 presidential election. Opponents of the ruling authorities claimed the vote was rigged against them.

“If the Iranians respond to the offer of engagement, we will engage,” Biden said.

It was after meeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on May 18 that President Barack Obama said it should be clear by year’s end whether Iran was open to direct negotiations. Obama told The Associated Press last Thursday that persuading Iran to forego nuclear weapons has been made more difficult by the crackdown after the disputed re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

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North Korea May Launch Missile Toward Hawaii in July

North Korea may launch a long-range ballistic missile toward the U.S. state of Hawaii in early July, Japan’s Yomiuri daily said on Thursday, citing Defense Ministry analysis and U.S. intelligence.

The paper said the Defense Ministry believes the launch is most likely to take place between July 4 and July 8. The ministry has declined to comment on the report.

The paper also said that the missile was likely to fly over Japan’s Aomori Prefecture toward Hawaii, but would not be able to reach the main islands.

The missile, thought to be a long-range Taepodong-2, would be launched from the country’s Dongchang-ni site on the northwestern coast, said Japan’s best-selling newspaper.

North Korea tested a nuclear weapon on May 25, accusing the U.S. and South Korea of aggressive intentions. Pyongyang said on Wednesday that it would meet any attack with “one thousand-fold retaliation.”

Following the underground test, the United Nations widened an arms embargo and authorized ship searches in an attempt to disrupt the communist state’s nuclear and missile programs.

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Pentagon: NKorea Missiles Could Threaten US

North Korea’s missiles could hit the United States in as few as three years if the reclusive rogue nation continues to ramp up its weapons system, Pentagon officials said Tuesday.

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“We think it ultimately could — if taken to its conclusion — it could present a threat to the homeland,” Lynn told McCain during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.

“That’s assuming a lot of luck on their part in moving forward,” Cartwright said during questioning by Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind.

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Obama: N.Korea Nuclear Program Grave Threat

U.S. President Barack Obama said on Tuesday that North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs posed a grave threat to the region and to the world and called for a sustained effort to enforce international sanctions.

Obama was speaking at a news conference after meeting South Korean President Lee Myung-bak at the White House. North Korea said at the weekend it would start a uranium enrichment program and weaponize all its uranium in response to new U.N. sanctions.

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N. Korea Warns of Nuclear War Amid Rising Tensions

North Korea’s communist regime has warned of a nuclear war on the Korean peninsula while vowing to step up its atomic bomb-making program in defiance of new U.N. sanctions.

The North’s defiance presents a growing diplomatic headache for President Barack Obama as he prepares for talks Tuesday with his South Korean counterpart on the North’s missile and nuclear programs.

A commentary Sunday in the North’s the main state-run Rodong Sinmun newspaper, carried by the official Korean Central News Agency, claimed the U.S. has 1,000 nuclear weapons in South Korea. Another commentary published Saturday in the state-run Tongil Sinbo weekly claimed the U.S. has been deploying a vast amount of nuclear weapons in South Korea and Japan.

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North Korea Threatens Response Within 48 Hours

Kim Jong-il’s embattled regime is expected to deliver a tough, belligerent response to Friday’s imposition of a raft of new UN sanctions.

North Korea is expected to launch another long-range test missile over the next 48 hours according to US intelligence, as the region is on a heightened state of alert.

Pyongyang is also planning another underground nuclear test according to leaked briefings given to President Obama, US reports say.

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North Korea Threatens Merciless Nuclear Offensive

North Korea today said it would use nuclear weapons in a “merciless offensive” if provoked — its latest bellicose rhetoric apparently aimed at deterring any international punishment for its recent atomic test blast.

The tensions emanating from Pyongyang are beginning to hit nascent business ties with the South: a Seoul-based fur manufacturer became the first South Korean company to announce Monday it was pulling out of an industrial complex in the North’s border town of Kaesong.

The complex, which opened in 2004, is a key symbol of rapprochement between the two Koreas but the goodwill is evaporating quickly in the wake of North Korea’s nuclear test on May 25 and subsequent missile tests.

Pyongyang raised tensions a notch by reviving its rhetoric in a commentary in the state-run Minju Joson newspaper today.

“Our nuclear deterrent will be a strong defensive means…as well as a merciless offensive means to deal a just retaliatory strike to those who touch the country’s dignity and sovereignty even a bit,” said the commentary, carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

It appeared to be the first time that North Korea referred to its nuclear arsenal as “offensive” in nature. Pyongyang has long claimed that its nuclear weapons program is a deterrent and only for self-defense against what it calls US attempts to invade it.

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U.S. Preps for Possible Showdown With North Korea

The U.S. military is stepping up training and reviewing target sets in case the North Koreans decide to go to war.

As we learned last week, North Korea looks to be prepping for another long-range missile test, and South Korea has reportedly outlined plans to strike back if North Korea targets its warships. The U.S. military is also preparing for the worst; Aviation Week ace reporters Amy Butler and Dave Fulghum have an excellent rundown of stepped-up military preparations in the event North Korea follows through on its belligerent rhetoric.

Fulghum, reporting from Osan Air Base, South Korea, notes that the U.S. Air Force is identifying critical training fixes for close air support and air-to-air combat — two missions that would be critical in the first 72 hours of the fight. He also takes a close look at a first-day-of-the-war mission for joint tactical air controllers: XATK (pronounced “ex-attack”), the mission to destroy long-range, North Korean artillery.

Pyongyang has a lot of artillery tubes and rocket launchers parked north of the DMZ that could wreak havoc on Seoul. Col. Rick Forster, commander of the 607th Air Support Operations Group, tells Fulghum: “We’ve got a very good idea of where most of their pieces are … We’ve had 60 years to watch [the emplacement of North Korean artillery] and they can only put them in so many places.”

Forster would be the chief air liaison officer in the event of war; it would be his job to help coordinate air strikes before North Korean artillery can concentrating fire on South Korea’s capital.

via U.S. Preps for Possible Showdown with Pyongyang | Danger Room | Wired.com.

North Korea Puts Two U.S. Journalists On Trial

North Korea put two U.S. journalists on trial on Thursday on charges of illegally entering the state with “hostile intent”, in a case that could worsen tension with Washington after Pyongyang’s nuclear test last week.

The journalists, Euna Lee and Laura Ling of the U.S. media outlet Current TV, were taken into custody in March near the border between China and North Korea while working on a story. The TV network was co-founded by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore.

North Korea’s KCNA news agency said in a one-sentence dispatch that the trial would begin at 0600 GMT (3 p.m. local time) at one of the country’s highest courts.

Experts say the pair could face a sentence of 10 years or more of hard labour in the reclusive state. They add a guilty verdict is almost certain in a North Korean justice system that protects the unquestioned rule of leader Kim Jong-il.

via North Korea puts two U.S. journalists on trial | Reuters.

Fears Mount North Korea Preparing To Attack The South

It was obvious that something was up when the Chinese scarpered. One day there were scores of their fishing boats hoovering up the valuable crabs from the richest of the fishing grounds in the Yellow Sea.

Overnight all but a handful were gone.

Anywhere else the locals would have been glad to have the crabs to themselves but this is no ordinary fishing ground. A few yards from here is the maritime boundary between South and North Korea. “The Chinese fish here because the North Koreans allow them,” a coastguard official said. “If they’ve gone it’s because they’ve had some kind of warning.”

An imminent missile launch into the sea? An armed incursion of North Korean ships? A full-scale invasion of Yeonpyeong, the small South Korean island hard up against the maritime boundary? Too much blood has already been shed in these waters for anyone to risk taking any chances, and for the past week South Korea has been dispatching reinforcements.

No one will discuss numbers for security reasons but sailors and marines, as well as members of the Sea Special Attack Team, the coastguard’s commando force, have been arriving to join the several hundred troops already on Yeonpyeong.

These waters, around the Northern Limit Line, have become the most tense and dangerous patch of sea in Asia.

The rest of the world is pondering what to do about North Korea’s underground test of a nuclear bomb eight days ago. Yesterday fresh reports emerged that the nation was transporting its most advanced missile, capable of reaching Alaska, to a launch site. David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, said that Britain and other members of the UN Security Council were drafting new sanctions against Pyongyang.

In South Korea the most pressing question is: what next? The nuclear test was just the most alarming in a series of growing North Korean provocations. In April the North launched a long-range rocket over the Pacific, and last week half-a-dozen short-range missiles were fired from launch sites across the country.

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China Military Build-up Seems Focused On U.S.

China’s build-up of sea and air military power funded by a strong economy appears aimed at the United States, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff said on Monday.

Admiral Michael Mullen said China had the right to meet its security needs, but the build-up would require the United States to work with its Pacific allies to respond to increasing Chinese military capabilities.

“They are developing capabilities that are very maritime focused, maritime and air focused, and in many ways, very much focused on us,” he told a conference of the Navy League, a nonprofit seamen’s support group, in Washington.

“They seem very focused on the United States Navy and our bases that are in that part of the world.”

China in March unveiled its official military budget for 2009 of $70.24 billion, the latest in nearly two decades of double-digit rises in declared defense spending.

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North Korea Launches Rocket Despite Protests

North Korea has launched a rocket, despite international appeals not to go ahead.

Officials from Japan, South Korea and the US confirmed lift-off at 0230 GMT. The rocket appeared to have passed over Japan to the Pacific, Tokyo said.

North Korea says it is sending a satellite into orbit, but its neighbours suspect the launch could be a cover for a long-range missile test.

The US called it “provocative”, while Japan said it was “regrettable”.

The South Korean government said it would “deal firmly and resolutely” with Pyongyang.

The rocket blasted off just before midday on Sunday from the Musudan-ri launch pad in the north-east of North Korea.

“The projectile launched from North Korea today appears to have passed over towards the Pacific,” the Japanese prime minister’s office said in a statement.

The US State Department and South Korea’s presidential office also confirmed the launch.

Japan said it did not try to intercept the rocket, as it had indicated that it would if its territory was threatened.

North Korea’s neighbours say the launch violates United Nations resolutions.

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Report: North Korea Fueling Long Range Rocket

North Korea has begun fueling a long-range rocket for an impending launch, a news report said, as President Barack Obama warned the liftoff would be a “provocative act” that would generate a U.N. Security Council response.

North Korea says it will send a communications satellite into orbit on a multistage rocket sometime from Saturday to Wednesday. The U.S., South Korea and Japan think the reclusive country is using the launch to test long-range missile technology, and they’ve warned the move would violate a Security Council resolution banning it from ballistic activity.

CNN television reported on its Web site — seen Thursday in Seoul — that Pyongyang has begun the fueling. The report, citing an unidentified senior U.S. military official, said the move indicates final preparations for the launch. Experts say the missile can be fired about three to four days after fueling begins.

South Korea’s Defense Ministry said it was aware of the report but declined to comment.

At a meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in London, Obama denounced the planned launch as “a provocative act” and a breach of the U.N. resolution, a senior administration official told a background briefing, according to the White House Web site.

“He also made clear that we will respond in the event of a launch. The U.N. Security Council is the natural venue for a response since this would be a violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions,” the official said.

Obama also discussed North Korea with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, the White House said.

The issue is expected to be a key topic at Obama’s summit with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak on Thursday. Lee has sought to drum up support from world leaders in London for punishing its neighbor if the launch goes forward.

via Report: North Korea fuels its long-range rocket for launch | World | Chron.com – Houston Chronicle.

Spy Agencies Believe North Korea Has Nuke Warheads

Intelligence agencies have information that North Korea has assembled several nuclear warheads for its medium-range Rodong missiles capable of targeting Japan, an analyst said Tuesday.

Daniel Pinkston, senior analyst with the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, said the agencies believe that probably five to eight warheads have been assembled.

“Intelligence agencies believe the North Koreans have assembled nuclear warheads for Rodong missiles, which are stored at underground facilities near the Rodong missile bases,” Pinkston told AFP.

“It might be right, it might be wrong — but if others believe it is true, it has implications for the psychological aspects of deterrence,” he said, describing the assessment as “quite significant.”

Pinkston declined to identify his sources and said they had not shared their own sources with him.

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