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[Pentagon: N. Korea could launch nuclear missile. ]
A U.S. intelligence report concludes
that North Korea has advanced
its nuclear knowhow
to the point
that it could arm
a ballistic missile
with a nuclear warhead, a jarring revelation
in the midst of bellicose threats
from the unpredictable communist regime.
President Barack Obama urged
calm,
calling on Pyongyang
to end its saber-rattling
while sternly warning
that he would “take
all necessary steps”
to protect American citizens.
The new American intelligence analysis,
disclosed
Thursday at a hearing in Congress,
says
the Pentagon's intelligence wing has
“moderate confidence”
that North Korea has
nuclear weapons
capable of delivery
by ballistic missiles
but that the weapon was unreliable.
Rep. Doug Lamborn read aloud
what he said was an unclassified paragraph
from a secret Defense Intelligence Agency report
that was supplied
to some members of Congress.
The reading seemed to take
Gen. Martin Dempsey,
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
by surprise,
who said
he hadn't seen
the report
and declined to answer questions
about it.
In a statement late Thursday,
Pentagon press secretary George Little said:
“While I cannot speak
to all the details of a report
that is classified
in its entirety,
it would be inaccurate to suggest
that the North Korean regime has
fully tested, developed or demonstrated the kinds
of nuclear capabilities referenced”
in Lamborn's remarks.
`”The United States continues to closely monitor
the North Korean nuclear program
and calls upon
North Korea
to honor its international obligations,”
Little added.
The DIA conclusion was confirmed
by a senior congressional aide
who spoke
on condition of anonymity
because the Pentagon had not officially released
the contents.
The aide said
the report was produced
in March.
Since the beginning of March,
the Navy has moved
two missile defense ships
closer to the coast of the Korean peninsula,
in part to protect against a potential missile launch
aimed at Guam, a U.S. territory in the Pacific.
The Pentagon also has announced
it will place
a more advanced land-based missile defense
on Guam,
and Hagel said
in March
that he approved
installing 14 additional missile interceptors
in Alaska
to bolster a portion of the missile defense network
that is designed
to protect all of U.S. territory.
On Thursday,
the Pentagon said
it had moved
a sea-based X-band radar _
designed to track warheads in flight _
into position in the Pacific.
Notably absent
from that unclassified segment of the report
was any reference
to what the DIA believes is the range of a missile
North Korea could arm
with a nuclear warhead.
Much of its missile arsenal is capable
of reaching South Korea and Japan,
but Kim has threatened
to attack the United States as well.
At the House Armed Services Committee hearing
in which he revealed
the DIA assessment,
Lamborn asked Dempsey,
whether he agreed with it.
Dempsey said
he had not seen
the report.
“You said
it's not publicly released,
so I choose not to comment on it,”
Dempsey said.
But David Wright, a nuclear weapons expert
at the Union of Concerned Scientists,
said
the DIA assessment probably does not change
the views of those
who closely follow
developments
in North Korea's pursuit of a nuclear weapon.
“People are starting to believe
North Korea very likely has
the capability to build a nuclear weapon small enough
to put on some of their shorter-range missiles,”
Wright said.
“Once you start
talking about warheads small enough
and technically capable
to be on a long-range missile,
I think
it's much more an open question.”
The DIA assessment is not out of line
with comments
Dempsey made Wednesday
when he was asked
at a Pentagon news conference
whether North Korea was capable
of pairing a nuclear warhead
to a ballistic missile
that could reach
Japan or beyond.
In response,
Dempsey said
the extent of North Korean progress
on designing a nuclear weapon small enough
to operate as a missile warhead
was a classified matter.
But he did not rule out
that the North has achieved
the capability
revealed in the DIA report.
“They have conducted
two nuclear tests,”
Dempsey told
a Pentagon news conference.
“They have conducted
several successful ballistic missile launches.
And in the absence of concrete evidence
to the contrary,
we have to assume
the worst case,
and that's why we're postured
as we are today.”
He was referring
to recent moves
by the U.S.
to increase its missile defense capabilities
in the Pacific.
At the same House hearing
where Lamborn revealed
the DIA conclusion,
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel was asked
a different version of the same question:
Does North Korea have
the capability to strike U.S. territory
with a nuclear weapon?
Hagel said
the answer is no.
“Now does that mean
that they won't have it
or they can't have it
or they're not working on it?”
Hagel added.
“No. That's why this is a very dangerous situation.”
“Now is the time
for North Korea to end the belligerent approach
they have taken
and to try to lower temperatures,”
Obama said
in his first public comments
since Pyongyang threatened
the United States and its allies
in East Asia
with nuclear attack.
Obama,
speaking from the Oval Office,
said
he preferred to see
the tensions on the peninsula
resolved through diplomatic means,
but added
that “the United States will take
all necessary steps
to protect its people.”
The North on Thursday delivered
a fresh round of war rhetoric
with claims
it has
“powerful striking means”
on standby,
the latest in a torrent of warlike threats
seen by outsiders
as an effort to scare
and pressure South Korea and the U.S.
into changing their North Korea policies.
Lamborn is a member
of the Strategic Forces subcommittee
of the Armed Services panel,
which oversees ballistic missiles.
A former state legislator
who was elected to the House
in 2006,
was a member of the Tea Party caucus
and belongs to the Republican Study Committee,
the caucus of House conservatives.
At a separate hearing Thursday,
U.S. officials offered
their assessment of the North Korean leader,
who is a grandson of the country's founder, Kim Il Sung.
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told
the House Intelligence Committee
that he thinks
Kim,
who took control after his father,
Kim Jong Il, died in 2011,
is trying to show
the U.S., the world and his own people
that he is “firmly in control
in North Korea,”
while attempting to maneuver
the international community
into concessions in future negotiations.
“I don't think ...
he has
much of an endgame
other than to somehow elicit recognition”
and to turn the nuclear threat
into “negotiation and to accommodation and presumably
for aid,”
Clapper said.
Clapper said
that the intelligence community believes
the North would use
nuclear weapons
only to preserve the Kim regime
but that analysts do not know
how the regime defines that.
Secretary of State John Kerry was headed
Thursday to East Asia,
where he planned
talks with officials
in Seoul, Beijing and Tokyo
about North Korea. (AP)
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