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US website to carry nuke images of India, Pak

A day after a US non-profit group published top-secret spy satellite photos of suspected long-range missile sites in North Korea on its website, it says it will post nuclear and missile site images of India and Pakistan.

Media reports said the non-profit group, the Federation of American Scientists, bought pictures of North Korea's suspected Taepodong missile test site taken in November and published them on its website. The pictures were reportedly purchased for 2,000 dollars.

These pictures are the first of a dozen nuclear and missiles site images that the FAS plans to purchase from the Colorado-based Space Imaging. It next plans to buy satellite images of Pakistan and India and put them up at http://www.fas.org.

FAS was founded as the Federation of Atomic Scientists in 1945 by members of the Manhattan Project who produced the first atomic bomb. A statement at its website says it is engaged ''in analysis and advocacy on science, technology and public policy concerning global security''.

FAS appears to underplay North Korea's capability to develop a reliable missile system stating, ''It is quite evident that this facility was not intended to support, and in many respects is incapable of supporting, the extensive test programme that would be needed to fully develop a reliable missile system.''

It is reportedly interested in raising a public debate by publishing the images and wants to suggest that the US was overreacting to the threat from North Korea.

State department spokesman James Rubin, speaking at his daily media briefing yesterday, said the threat posed by the North Korean missile development was 'genuine' and the US government's judgement is based ''from a panoply of intelligence sources''.

Answering a reporter's query about the implication of the easy availability of commercial 'spy satellites' material, Rubin said US companies were allowed to commercialise remote sensing imagery, ''provided it is consistent with national security and foreign policy objectives''.

''The US retains the right at all times to restrict such commercial imagery for national security or foreign policy reasons,'' Rubin hastened to add.

Meanwhile, the United States has said that the threat from the potential missile programme of North Korea is real and it is pursuing a number of measures to deal with the issue.

''We have no doubt in our minds that North Korea has developed and deployed missiles capable of striking our forces and friends and allies in the area, and is working on increasing the range of its missile systems,'' said Rubin.

Despite the publishing of spy satellites' images of suspected North Korean missile sites and its implication that the missile capability of North Korea was 'primitive', he believed that the threat was 'genuine'.

''We take this threat seriously and, as I said earlier, we are taking and pursuing a variety of measures to deal with it,'' he added.

Pentagon spokesman Ken Bacon was also quoted as saying that the missile threat from North Korea was real.

UNI

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