N. Korea launch is Obama's first big foreign test

PRAGUE, Czech Republic — Hillary Rodham Clinton raised the question in a campaign television ad last year: Was she or Barack Obama better suited to answer the inevitable 3 a.m. phone call about a crisis somewhere in the world?

As it turned out, both received the call Sunday morning, and it came at a little after 4:30 a.m. in Prague. That was when Obama, now president, and Clinton, now secretary of state, received word that U.S. intelligence and defense officials had confirmed North Korea launched a Taepodong-2 rocket over the Sea of Japan.

Robert Gibbs, the president's spokesman and a confidant, was the one who roused Obama in his Hilton Hotel suite.

"I woke the president up and gave him a very quick download," Gibbs said. "As we got more information from defense and intelligence officials, he spent a lot of time being briefed."

Obama is dealing with his first international crisis only 11 weeks into his presidency — a timetable foreshadowed by Vice President Joseph Biden, who said in October that an emergency would be "generated" within six months of Obama's inauguration "to test the mettle of this guy."

Mike Green, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, called North Korea's rocket launch "a brazen challenge."

"This is going to be a real litmus test for a lot of countries about how Obama and his team handle threats," said Green, who served as an Asian-affairs specialist on the White House National Security Council under former President George W. Bush. Among potential actions outside the United Nations would be cutting off access for North Korea and its leaders to the U.S. banking system, Green said.

In 2005, the Treasury Department acted under the Patriot Act to curb Banco Delta Asia in Macau because it was a "primary money-laundering concern" for dealing with the North Koreans. The designation prompted the Macau government to take over Banco Delta, freezing $25 million in allegedly laundered money linked to North Korea, and Kim Jong Il's regime refused to participate in nuclear talks until the money was released. The United States agreed with the decision to give the North Koreans the money in 2007.

Obama's first step Sunday was to dispatch U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice to seek a Security Council resolution during an afternoon emergency session in New York.

Despite Obama's call for action, however, the 15-member council decided Sunday to take no immediate action but agreed to continue discussions on a response.

China, a veto-bearing permanent Security Council member, opposes additional sanctions on North Korea. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu called in a statement for "cool-headedness and restraint."

Clinton, who is traveling with Obama in Europe, telephoned her counterparts in Japan, China and Russia. All three counties are part of six-nation talks aimed at persuading North Korea to give up nuclear-weapons development. She also conferred with Rice and other top U.S. officials.

Biden was at his home in Wilmington, Del., and was briefed by his national-security adviser, Tony Blinken, via telephone.

The news was no surprise. Kim's regime had been telling the world for weeks that it intended to fire the satellite-bearing rocket between April 4 and 8.

"The president has been involved in several meetings about this situation over the course of the past three to four weeks," Gibbs said. "This was something that had long been planned for."

After learning of the launch, Obama spent several hours on the telephone conferring with national-security aides.

They included Defense Secretary Robert Gates, national-security adviser James Jones, White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, according to Gibbs. Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is in Pakistan.

Obama's speechwriters began crafting language to be inserted into the president's 10 a.m. address in Prague, laying out a goal of stopping the spread of nuclear weapons and eventually ridding the world of such arms.

"Just this morning, we were reminded again of why we need a new and more rigorous approach to address this threat," Obama told 20,000 people in Hradcany Square. "North Korea broke the rules once again by testing a rocket that could be used for long-range missiles. This provocation underscores the need for action — not just this afternoon at the U.N. Security Council, but in our determination to prevent the spread of these weapons."

Gibbs said there is no indication North Korea timed the launch to coincide with Obama's speech. They had announced their intentions weeks ago, he said, long before the topic for the president's remarks in Prague was settled.

A "pretty big coincidence is what it was," Gibbs said.

North Korea has defied past U.S. attempts to rein in its weapons programs and ignored threats of U.N. sanctions. On Oct. 9, 2006, Kim's regime tested a nuclear device even as the Bush administration was pressing negotiations. Four years earlier, the North Koreans admitted they were continuing nuclear-arms development in violation of an accord reached under former President Clinton.

The launch — and the concerns it raised — threatened to overshadow Obama's visit today to Turkey, his first to a Muslim country as president, during which he will meet with the Turkish president and prime minister and pay homage to the country's culture with visits to its most important monuments and mosques.

In Prague on Sunday, hours after the launch, Obama announced that he immediately would seek U.S. ratification of a ban on nuclear testing, convene a summit in Washington, D.C., to stop the spread of nuclear material within four years, and advocate for a nuclear fuel bank to allow for the peaceful development of nuclear power.

Information from The New York Times and The Washington Post is included in this report.