Panel warns of missile threat to US

“The threat to the US is broader, more mature and evolving more rapidly than has been reported by the intelligence community,” the nine-member panel concluded without dissent.

In the unclassified version of its report, the commission to assess the ballistic threat to the US did not spell out precisely how close North Korea and Iran might be to fielding missiles that could hit the US.

But it said they would be able to cause “major destruction” in US cities “within about five years of a decision to acquire such a capability,” and 10 years in the case of Iraq.

Arguing that Washington may be in the dark aboutcovert missile programmes, the panel left open the question of how far along North Korea and Iran might be now.

Chaired by former Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the commission spent six months studying the threat based on what Rumsfeld called “unprecedented access to the most sensitive and highly classified” US Intelligence data.

The commission said China and Russia each posed a threat to US national security as big exporters of ballistic missiles technologies. The commission found Stalinist North Korea had deployed its No Dong medium-range ballistic missile, capable of flying 1,300 kms and threatening Japan and South Korea.

“The commission judges that the No Dong was operationally deployed long before the US Government recognised that fact,” the report said. Defence Secretary William Cohen declined as recently as last week to confirm any such deployment.

The panel said North Korea’s current effort to develop a longer-range missile called the Taepo Dong 2 could put at risk Western US soil inan arc extending North-East from Phoenix, Arizona to Madison, Wisconsin.

Once UN-imposed sanctions after Iraq’s 1990 march into Kuwait were lifted, Iraq could pose an inter-continental ballistic missile threat to the US “within 10 years,” the commission said.

Curbs on Russian firms for tech transfer

The United states has imposed sanctions on nine Russian companies allegedly involved in aiding Iran’s ballistic missile programme, a State Department spokesman said in Washington.

“These companies are believed to have violated Russian export controls and attempted to export goods or services (to Iran) which could contribute to weapons of mass destruction,” James Rubin said while announcing the sanctions.

The US commission on export controls is conducting an investigation into the report on these companies pending which all assistance to them will remain suspended, Rubin said. “These investigations may result in administrative action also,” he added.