posted 03-19-2003 12:01 PM               

A recent report that a long-range missile fired from North Korea turned up in Alaska should make Americans reevaluate committing to a war with Iraq.

Exclusive To American Free Press

By Mike Blair

The Bush administration is ignoring reports from South Korea and Japan that the North Koreans have test-fired a nuclear-capable, intercontinental ballistic missile, which landed in or near the state of Alaska.

The White House has not commented on a report in The Korea Times that the warhead of a “long-range missile test-fired by North Korea was found in the state of Alaska.”

The discovery of the missile warhead was reported to South Korea’s National Assembly and was culled from “a U.S. (presumably intelligence) document,” the paper said.

If the report is accurate, the warhead could be from a North Korean three-stage Taepo Dong 3 ICBM, which is, according to U.S. intelligence sources, capable of striking targets about 9,300 miles away.

Officially, as previously reported by American Free Press, the Pentagon admits that North Korea has only a two-stage Taepo Dong 2 missile, which CIA Director George J. Tenet indicates is capable of striking the U.S. West Coast, while the Taepo Dong 3 can strike targets anywhere in North America.

In the report to the National Assembly, Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Nakayama was quoted as saying “Washington, as well as Tokyo, has so far underrated Pyongyang’s missile capabilities.”

According to a retired Air Force intelligence officer, long assigned to the top-secret National Security Agency and to South Korea to work on radar defenses, the finding of the warhead in Alaska would indicate that the North Korean missile would have been tracked to where it landed by U.S. radar which constantly screens the sky as part of America’s air defense system.

“It would appear,” the retired officer said, “that the Pentagon is keeping a real tight lid on this one and I am amazed that the U.S. press has not picked up on a story appearing in a prominent South Korean paper and reported before South Korea’s National Assembly.”

All that the Pentagon is commenting on is that North Korea has tested in recent days two short-range anti-ship missiles, which White House spokesmen have said is “not surprising” and insists there is no cause for particular concern.

However, officials are ignoring the fact that North Korean anti-ship missiles could target U.S., Japanese and South Korean warships operating in the area, including a U.S. carrier battle group which has been sent to the region as a result of Pyongyang’s saber-rattling.

The missile hitting Alaska is (of course) not the first time in recent history an enemy nation’s weapon has struck the continental United States.

During World War II hundreds of Japanese barometrically controlled balloons, which carried explosive and incendiary devices, landed in the Northwest and elsewhere after being released from the Japanese coast. One balloon traveled as far east as Michigan.

It is reported that some Japanese balloon weapons were to have been laden with biological weapons.

But except for starting some forest fires and killing a small number of people who came upon one explosive balloon and accidentally detonated it, the Japanese balloon devices never became a serious threat.

Japan attacked the U.S. mainland twice with sub marine-launched floatplanes, setting more forest fires.

The North Koreans’ missile and nuclear weapons programs do present a serious threat, according to military experts.

In fact, a recent poll on CNN’s web site indicated that Americans are more fearful of North Korea than they are of Iraq, where a major war is looming.

Rep. Steven Kirk (R-Ill.) said the U.S. government might have to bomb the North Korean nuclear complex, located north of Pyongyang, should North Korea try to export nuclear material to other countries.

A March 5 article in The Anchorage Daily News downplayed the South Korean report, quoting Air Force Lt. Col. Rick Lehner, spokesman for the Missile Defense Agency.

Lehner told the Alaskan newspaper that the report probably referred to a three-stage missile tested by North Korea in 1998.