IBDeditorials.com: Editorials, Political Cartoons, and Polls from Investor's Business Daily -- Target Alaska: Gov. Palin Pushes SDI

IBDeditorials.com: Editorials, Political Cartoons, and Polls from Investor's Business Daily -- Target Alaska: Gov. Palin Pushes SDI

Robert Gates' visit to our missile defense facility at Fort Greely on Monday was a pointed reminder to the North Koreans that while we have been talking softly, we still have a few big sticks in the ground ready to turn the North Korean missile program into so much scrap metal.

That is somewhat reassuring as Pyongyang moves another ICBM to the launchpad, this time at a new facility on its west coast. South Korea's Yonhap news agency said the missile had been sent by train to the newly completed missile facility of Dongchang-ni, about 40 miles from the Chinese border.

The weapon being prepared for launch is believed to be an intercontinental ballistic missile with a range of up to 4,000 miles, the JoongAng Ilbo newspaper reported, citing an unnamed South Korean official. That would put Alaska within striking range.

Gates spoke a little less softly in Singapore on Saturday, with encouraging words regarding any attempt by Pyongyang to export its technology of mass destruction.

"The transfer of nuclear weapons or material by North Korea to state or non-state entities would be considered a grave threat to the United States and its allies," he said at the annual security conference. "And we would hold North Korea fully accountable for the consequences of such action."

We hope so, for Pyongyang has already been there, done that. In 2007, Israel took out a North Korean-built, Iranian-financed nuclear plant at Damascus' al-Kibar complex in eastern Syria.

The Washington Post noted that the timing of the raid was related to the arrival three days earlier of a ship carrying North Korean materials labeled as cement but suspected of concealing nuclear equipment.

In 2002, the U.S. tracked the So Sang, a vessel of unknown registry. Spanish commandos, operating in conjunction with American authorities, intercepted and boarded the vessel. It was found to be carrying 15 Scud-B missiles hidden under sacks of concrete.

Gates believes the 30 interceptors developed, tested and deployed by his former boss, President George W. Bush, at Fort Greely and at Vandenberg AFB in California are adequate for the threat. While Gates' words are tough and the visual aids stunning, Gov. Palin, who hosted Gates' visit and whose state is on the wrong end of a Taepodong trajectory, thinks more is needed — such as the other 14 ground-based interceptors that were planned for but cut.

A statement from her office last Friday, after North Korea launched its sixth missile in less than a week, said: "Missile Defense Agency funding must be fully restored in the federal budget to guarantee our protective measures remain the best in the world." We think so too.

"The United Nations sanctions have failed to stop North Korea's development of nuclear weapons," the statement quotes Palin as saying, "and the Obama administration cannot afford to be playing catch-up to an irrational dictator like Kim Jong Il."

One response that might get North Korea's attention would be to enforce the Proliferation Security Initiative created by President Bush in 2003 after the So Sang incident. The PSI allows its 95 signatory states to inspect ships and planes for illicit weapons and materials and to seize their cargos.

South Korea, at great risk of provoking Pyongyang, announced last week that it was joining the PSI.

Former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton, who was instrumental in creating the PSI, says the Obama administration as of recently doesn't think much of the option: "I don't think they even knew what it was."

As in the war on terror, most of our successes remain secret. But according to former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the OSI was used in October 2003 to intercept nuclear-fuel centrifuge components being shipped to Libya on a German-owned vessel.

That's how you stop proliferation.