US Says Yes... And It Could Happen This Weekend

Defense department officials believe North Korea has accelerated its preparations for testing a new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) -- and what's more, that test could come as early as this weekend.

The unidentified officials told Reuters it seems likely the communist stalwart will go through with the test, and not just make preparations in a ploy to get international attention.

"The North Koreans have been working on it for a while without much of a let up ... We think they are speeding up," said one official. Others confirmed that assessment.

Satellite pictures indicate many people are working at a North Korean test site, and assembly of components may have already begun.

Should the rumors be proven true, it would be Pyongyang's first long-range missile test since it surprised the world -- especially Japan -- with its August 1998 firing of a Taepodong 1 ICBM over its neighboring country. That missile fell harmlessly into the Pacific Ocean.

Japanese media outlets have reported signs of preparations by North Korea to test its new, multi-stage Taepodong 2 missile since early May. Many believe the ICBM is capable of reaching US territory.

Additionally, satellites recently spotted a missile on a flatbed truck at a launch facility in the North Hamgyong province in the northeast part of the country.

"Removing it from its storage site and erecting it for launch, and then filling it with extremely volatile liquid oxygen and other liquid fuels, and then finally commencing the countdown to the actual launch point, that would take at least the better part of a day and might well take much longer," said defense analyst Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute.

With global attention currently focused on the Mideast -- in particular, Iran -- officials in Washington believe North Korea feels slighted, as well as aggravated that America joined five other countries this week in offering a proposal to end the Iranian nuclear crisis that includes, among other incentives, light-water nuclear power reactors.

That technology has been denied to North Korea.

US intelligence estimates state the still-untested Taepodong 2 could, in theory, reach portions of US territory. A three-stage version of the rocket could hit "most of the continental United States," according to a recent report by Monterey Institute's Center for Non-proliferation Studies.

Fortunately, that report also stressed the missile's "probable inaccuracy", and the fact that North Korea has not proven it can make a nuclear warhead small enough to fit a missile.

FMI: www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/dprk/index.html