01 September 1998
TRANSCRIPT: NSC, DOD, STATE BRIEFING, TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 1998
THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary (Moscow, Russia) September 1, 1998 PRESS BRIEFING BY ROBERT BELL, SPECIAL ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT FOR NATIONAL SECURITY AFFAIRS; TED WARNER, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE POLICY, STRATEGY AND THREAT REDUCTION; GARY SAMORE, SENIOR DIRECTOR FOR NONPROLIFERATION, NSC; DEBRA CAGAN, DIRECTOR OF POLICY AND REGIONAL AFFAIRS FOR RUSSIA AND THE NEW INDEPENDENT STATES Hotel National Moscow, Russia .................. Q: And the second question -- is there any hope that a country like North Korea would join such an early warning system for ballistic missiles? BELL: Well, I don't know. That proposition has not been tested. The first question is whether North Korea would join the voluntary multilateral pre-launch notification regime that we're announcing today, and we certainly hope they would. We have worked with North Korea on other issues where they've shown cooperation. For example, in the negotiation of the Comprehensive Test Ban agreement, North Agreement had joined the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva before that was finished. They did not obstruct or oppose the conclusion of that treaty. But in terms of where they would come out on your specific question, I just don't know the answer. Q: On North Korea, I was just wondering if anybody could give us an update on the nuclear missile test, what you now know about the missile, if there are any further tests planned, any contacts with the Japanese or the South Koreans, and has there been any reaction from the President? SAMORE: I think we've made clear that we think this is a serious development, but certainly not one that has surprised us. We're certainly aware that North Korea was working on this missile, the Taepo Dong-1. It's based on the same kind of technology as the existing North Korean force, the SCUD and the Nodong missiles, a liquid-fueled system. I think that the test indicates obviously a step forward, but we do not view this as the same as the deployment of this system. There still may be a considerable amount of time before they're in a position to deploy if they make that decision. We have discussions that are ongoing with the North Koreans -- that is to say, the U.S. has discussions that are ongoing with the North Koreans in New York this week. Obviously, we are raising this with the North Koreans, expressing our concerns. We hope to be in a position to resume the missile talks with the North Koreans that we've had over the last couple of years. One of the objectives of that is to try to persuade the North Koreans to restrain both their own missile development as well as their missile exports, which is a very serious concern -- in particular, North Korean missile exports to the Middle East, which we think is very destabilizing. And, obviously, we're going to be working very closely with our good allies, South Korea and Japan, in order to coordinate an effort to make clear to the North Koreans that we view further development of their missile program as a threat to stability in northeast Asia. Q: -- South Korea before anything at this - SAMORE: Well, we've certainly been in touch with them. Since I haven't been directly engaged in that I can't tell you where we are. But, yes, we've been in very close touch with them and we had shared with them beforehand our expectation that this test was likely to happen. BELL: There's no question that the test of the Taepo Dong-1 will factor into the congressional debate on national missile defense. But I just wanted to point out, in case you have not yet seen it, that on the 24th of August the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Shelton, wrote a letter to Senator Inhofe on the issue of whether or not in the wake of the Rumsfeld Commission findings, where the Rumsfeld Commission was of the view that we might have little or no warning of the development and deployment -- or the actual fielding of an intercontinental-range ballistic missile that could hit parts of the United States. General Shelton wrote back on the 24th of August and stated the very strong and unanimous consensus view of the Joint Chiefs of Staff that they remain confident that we will have strategic warning of the emergence of an ICBM threat. Certainly, it's their view that we'll have at least three years warning, which is the amount of time we require under the Defense Department's three-plus-three national missile defense program to field the kind of national missile defense system we're developing. And in the letter that General Shelton wrote on the 24th of August, he specifically noted that the Joint Chiefs of Staff were carefully following the Taepo Dong-1 program and that their confidence that we would have at least three years warning of an ICBM threat, such as the Taepo Dong-2, reflected an assumption that the North Koreans would go forward with a Taepo Dong-1. One of the reasons that we are confident that we will have three years strategic warning of an intercontinental-range threat is that the degree of technical challenge going from an intermediate-range missile like the Taepo Dong-1 to an intercontinental-range missile like the Taepo Dong-2 is really quite profound. It's not a simple scaling up in terms of the power of the missile. The technical challenge of going from a theater range system to an intercontinental-range system is quite daunting and unique. And that's one reason the administration, including the Chiefs, are confident that we'll have the warning that General Shelton notes in his letter. Q: Was North Korea -- discussed in today's summit meeting? COLONEL CROWLEY: That's a very nice segue that following the President's speech we'll have some other senior officials come into kind of read out the day in terms of topics and then also the economic discussion. So we'll save that question to the briefing that follows the President's speech. We'll have some factsheets on the items discussed here that we'll put out shortly, but our thanks to Robert Bell; to Gary Samore; to Ted Warner, the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Policy, Strategy and Threat Reduction; and Debra Cagan, the Director of Policy and Regional Affairs within the State Department for Russia and the Newly Independent States. So, following the President's speech, we'll be back with a thorough briefing of the day's events, and I think we'll be able to handle that at that time. THE PRESS: Thank you. (end transcript)
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