Pentagon says North Korea could launch nuclear missile

A U.S. intelligence report concludes that North Korea has advanced its nuclear know-how 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.

The new American intelligence analysis 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.

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 Jong Un has threatened to attack the United States as well.

At a separate hearing, U.S. officials offered their assessment of the North Korean leader, Kim Jong UN. They told the House Intelligence Committee that 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.”

AP

This entry was posted in DPRK Government, Kim Jong Un by Grant Montgomery.