U.S. Releases Ship With Scuds

A chagrined Bush administration Wednesday released a vessel carrying Scud missiles from North Korea to Yemen, after securing a fresh promise from the Yemeni government that it would stop buying such weapons from the communist regime.

Administration officials had trumpeted this week’s seizure of the vessel as a blow against arms dealing by cash-strapped North Korea, singled out by the U.S. as a dangerous source of weapons proliferation.

But on Wednesday, after phone calls between the Yemeni government and Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, administration officials said they were forced to let the missiles reach their destination because no international law permitted Washington to block the delivery. U.S. intelligence agents had tracked the ship from North Korea to the Arabian Sea since mid-November, suspecting it was bound for Iraq, White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said.

“We have no choice but to obey international law,” Fleischer said.

About 600 miles off the Yemeni coast, officials from a Spanish ship that had been patrolling the area as part of an international effort to enforce a trade embargo against Iraq boarded the vessel, the So-San, whose name and identifying numbers had been painted over. They found 15 Scud missiles hidden under bags of cement.

The incident highlights a loophole in the international treaty designed to prevent the spread of missile technology. The Missile Technology Control Regime bans the export of missiles with a range of more than 185 miles, including some of the easily hidden, widely manufactured but notoriously inaccurate Scuds. Neither North Korea nor Yemen has signed the agreement.

The fracas also spotlights the difficulty in separating friend from foe in the administration’s war on terrorism. Yemen and Pakistan, two key allies in the global campaign, are among the biggest weapons customers of North Korea, a nation that President Bush has named -- along with Iraq and Iran -- as part of an “axis of evil.”

“Today’s action has been a real blow to U.S. credibility and U.S. nonproliferation policy,” said Jon B. Wolfsthal, a nonproliferation expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “How do you say it’s OK for Yemen but not for Iran?”

Only Tuesday, the administration issued a national security strategy document that says weapons of mass destruction in the possession of hostile states and terrorists represent one of the major challenges to U.S. security. The document states that “effective interdiction is a critical part of the U.S. strategy to combat weapons of mass destruction and their delivery means.”

The administration has objected to all or part of a number of treaties, including the Antiballistic Missile Treaty and the Chemical Weapons Convention, particularly when it sees such treaties as unenforced or unenforceable.

The president’s spokesman said the inability of the United States to block the Scud shipment revealed a need to strengthen international laws on arms transfers.

“One thing that this does underscore is the need to take a look [at] -- and we will do so with friends and others around the world -- whether or not the international regimes that deal with missile proliferation need a second look,” Fleischer said.

On Capitol Hill, some lawmakers offered a harsher assessment.

“We have no idea whether these missiles were really intended for the Yemeni military or whether they would end up in the wrong hands,” said Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.). “The Bush administration, in its focus on disarming Iraq, appears to be ignoring other potential threats to our security.”

The administration apparently was driven by a concern that the weapons were headed for Iraq, analysts said. Intercepting a shipment of Scuds from North Korea to Iraq could have bolstered the U.S. position on Iraq. Fleischer said the White House “wanted to make certain that the weapons did not end up in the hands of either terrorists or terrorist nations.”

Upon learning that the Yemenis had ordered the missiles, some experts said the administration made the only decision it could.

The incident began when U.S. intelligence officials notified Spanish authorities of a suspicious vessel near the Persian Gulf. The United States began tracking the vessel after learning of its contents in mid-November, Fleischer said. The U.S. asked Yemen about the shipment at the time, but Yemen denied that it had purchased the missiles, U.S. officials said on condition of anonymity.

The ship flew no flag, declined to identify itself and maneuvered to evade its pursuer, even after the Spanish frigate fired three warning shots over the So-San’s bow, Spanish and U.S. authorities said. Under maritime law, an unflagged vessel may be stopped and searched.

Spanish marine sharpshooters then fired at cables on the So-San to clear the way for helicopter-borne commandos to descend by rope onto the deck, Spanish officials said. No one was injured. After boarding the ship, the commandos discovered the hidden weapons. The missiles were not on the ship’s cargo listing, officials said. Spain turned over the intercepted vessel to the U.S. Navy.

The United States released the ship after securing a promise from Yemeni officials that they would not transfer the arms to another country or to militant groups, U.S. officials said.

The Yemenis, who said the contract to purchase the missiles was made “long ago,” promised to make no more purchases of missiles from North Korea, although U.S. officials acknowledged that Yemeni authorities had made the same promise before. Asked why the White House would accept such a promise a second time, a senior Pentagon official said, “We need them.”

Since the Sept. 11 attacks, Yemen has been an eager ally in the war on terrorism. The Yemeni government cooperated with the CIA last month in an attack by an unmanned aircraft that killed six suspected Al Qaeda operatives.

The fast-moving developments in the missile affair seemed to whipsaw Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who has been touring the Horn of Africa and the Persian Gulf this week. Speaking to reporters early Wednesday in the impoverished East African state of Djibouti, across the Red Sea from Yemen, he vowed that the missiles would never reach what he said then was an unknown destination.

“There’s clearly an interest in determining where they were headed, but they’re not going to get there,” Rumsfeld said.

Hours later, in the Persian Gulf state of Qatar, Rumsfeld’s tone was sharply altered. “I’ll leave it to the folks in Washington,” he said.

The about-face by American leaders followed a flurry of diplomacy. First, Yemen’s foreign minister, Abubakr al Qerbi, delivered a letter of protest over the seizure to the U.S. and Spanish embassies Wednesday.

“The cargo belongs to the Yemeni government and its armed forces for defense purposes, and it will not reach a third party,” Qerbi wrote, according to Yemen’s official Saba news agency.

Powell later telephoned Qerbi, and Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh called Cheney late Wednesday.

The interdiction became an embarrassment for the Bush administration when Yemen belatedly claimed the shipment. For years, Yemen has had a spotty record on combating terrorism. Terrorist leader Osama bin Laden once lived in the country. And it was at a Yemeni port in 2000 that suicide bombers in a small boat blew a hole in the U.S. destroyer Cole, killing 17 sailors.

Fleischer said Yemen is now an ally who poses no threat to the U.S. and is “doing everything it can” to aid the war on terrorism. Still, the administration intends to explore why the ship was sailing unflagged and the missiles were concealed, he said.

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Times staff writers Mark Fineman in Doha, Qatar, Sebastian Rotella in Paris and Edwin Chen in Washington contributed to this report.