illusha

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/29/po...rint&position=

U.S. Aide Sees Arms Advance by North Korea
By DAVID S. CLOUD and DAVID E. SANGER

ASHINGTON, April 28 - The head of the Defense Intelligence Agency said Thursday that American intelligence agencies believed North Korea had mastered the technology for arming its missiles with nuclear warheads, an assessment that if correct, means the North could build weapons to threaten Japan and perhaps the western United States.

While Vice Adm. Lowell Jacoby, the Defense Intelligence Agency chief, said in Senate testimony that North Korea had been judged to have the "capability" to put a nuclear weapon atop its missiles, he stopped well short of saying it had done so, or even that it had assembled warheads small enough for the purpose. Nor did he give evidence to back up his view during the public session of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Still, his assessment of North Korea's progress exceeded what officials have publicly declared before.

When asked by Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York during a hearing on Thursday whether "North Korea has the ability to arm a missile with a nuclear device," Admiral Jacoby responded, "The assessment is that they have the capability to do that, yes ma'am."

At a White House news conference on Thursday, President Bush said that given the uncertainties, he was worried about the progress North Korea had made on its nuclear program under its leader, Kim Jong Il. "There is concern about his capacity to deliver," he said. "We don't know if he can or not, but I think it's best when dealing with a tyrant like Kim Jong Il to assume that he can."

In 2003, the United States warned South Korea and Japan that satellite imagery had identified an advanced nuclear testing site in a remote corner of North Korea where equipment had been set up to test conventional explosives that could compress a plutonium core and set off a compact nuclear explosion.

Since then, American investigators have been pressing Pakistan for details about the kind of technology North Korea might have been given, perhaps in conjunction with visits to Pakistani nuclear sites. North Korea supplied Pakistan with many missiles it for its nuclear arsenal.

Building a nuclear warhead that can be delivered by a missile requires the technical sophistication to make it small and light. North Korea has never conducted a test that would prove it could manufacture a warhead, though in recent days anxiety has risen in Washington and among North Korea's Asian neighbors that the country could conduct a test in an effort to force the world to deal with it as a nuclear state.

To field a working nuclear missile, North Korea would also have to conduct new tests of its missiles themselves and of their payloads, including such complex components as heat shields for re-entry of the warhead. North Korea's last significant missile test, in 1998, overshot Japan and would not have been able to reach United States territory.

North Korea is considered one of the most opaque intelligence targets for American analysts, and the absence of reliable human spies has made it more difficult to understand the progress of its program.

Admiral Jacoby said North Korea's ability to deliver a nuclear warhead to the continental United States remained "a theoretical capability" because its Taepo Dong 2 missile had not been flight tested. But he added that American intelligence agencies judged that a two-stage Taepo Dong could strike parts of the American West Coast and that a three-stage variant could probably reach all of North America.

In an interview on Thursday, Mrs. Clinton called Admiral Jacoby's statement "the first confirmation, publicly, by the administration that the North Koreans have the ability to arm a missile with a nuclear device that can reach the United States," adding, "Put simply, they couldn't do that when George Bush became president, and now they can."

At his news conference, Mr. Bush defended his decision to pursue the talks in an effort to stop North Korea's nuclear program and noted that the United States was exploring options including taking the issue to the United Nations Security Council, if the North did not return to the talks.

"It's better to have more than one voice sending the same message to Kim Jong Il. It's the best way to deal with this issue diplomatically," he said. "We'll continue to do so."

In a statement, a Defense Intelligence Agency spokesman, Donald Black, said Admiral Jacoby "was reiterating" testimony he gave last month before the committee, in which he said the Taepo Dong 2 intercontinental ballistic missile "may be ready for testing," adding, "This missile could deliver a nuclear warhead to parts of the United States." He did not say then that the North Koreans were able to make a warhead that the missile could hurl such a distance.

Analysts with experience in Asia said the importance of Admiral Jacoby's conclusion was striking.

"This has to constrain the president's ability to deal with the North Korean nuclear problem," said Jonathan Pollack, a professor of Asian and Pacific Studies at the Naval War College who has written extensively on the North's program. "If you believe that Japanese territory is potentially at risk to a North Korean nuclear-armed missile, it has to change the calculation."

If Mr. Bush accepts that judgment, it could significantly complicate choices he must make in the next several months. North Korea declared publicly for the first time in February that it had nuclear weapons. This month, American spy satellites detected that the North had shut down its nuclear power plant at Yongbyon and could be preparing to reprocess its spent fuel, a move that could result in the production of enough plutonium to build up to three more nuclear bombs.

Admiral Jacoby said American intelligence agencies had increased their assessment of the current North Korean arsenal's size, but he gave no numbers. Other government officials, in interviews off the record, have estimated that North Korea's arsenal has increased by six weapons' worth of plutonium since the North threw international inspectors out of the country in early 2003, and began turning a stockpile of 8,000 spent fuel rods into plutonium.

The six-nation talks have been stalled since last June. China has played host to three inconclusive rounds of the negotiations, which involved the United States, North and South Korea, China, Japan and Russia.

John Pike, a defense analyst with GlobalSecurity.org, said American estimates of the range of the Taepo Dong 2 and other North Korean missiles had nearly doubled in recent years. The increases, he said, may reflect American intelligence agencies' improving understanding of the help the North Korea has received from Pakistan.

Bluesman

Sure puts that Clinton-era deal in perspective, don't it?

We absolutely got our butts kicked in that give-away called a negotiation. Clinton's folly in signing that horrible deal will haunt us for years, and the fact that we were so obviously duped is one of the great crimes that mis-administration perpetrated on the country. May we never have to pay the full bill for that man's error.

Worst. President. Ever.

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"The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it, and if one finds the prospect of a long war intolerable, it is natural to disbelieve in the possibility of victory."
- George Orwell

speedracer

Official: USA Capable Of Firing Nuke At N.Korea

Confed999

I still don't know that NK has a nuke to send. They have chemical though...

__________________
No man is free until all men are free - John Hossack
I agree completely with this Administration’s goal of a regime change in Iraq-John Kerry
even if that enforcement is mostly at the hands of the United States, a right we retain even if the Security Council fails to act-John Kerry
He may even miscalculate and slide these weapons off to terrorist groups to invite them to be a surrogate to use them against the United States. It’s the miscalculation that poses the greatest threat-John Kerry

Officer of Engineers

I give up. I'm going to wait until the spooks get their stories straight.

ArmsControlWonk | an arms control weblog
Jacoby Claims North Korea Can Arm Taepo Dong 2 With Nuke

Yesterday, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) asked the Director of Defense Intelligence (DIA) Agency Admiral Lowell Jacoby whether or not “North Korea has the ability to arm a missile with a nuclear device?”

Admiral Jacoby replied: “My assessment is that they have the capability to do that, yes Maam.”

Wrong answer, Lowell.

As you can see from the video, Cambone jots down what Jacoby just said and Clinton moves in for the kill.

The scene is a study in elegant political choreography—the only person unaware of the defenestration is Jacoby himself.

Jacoby’s statement was not the public position of the IC. In fact, Paul Kerr points out, Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research Thomas Fingar offered a more cautious assessment of Pyongyang’s nuclear capabilities on 16 February 2005, testifying that “there is no evidence that it has produced such weapons and mated them to a missile capable of delivering them to the United States.” (more)

Clinton knew that immediately. Afteward, Clinton and Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) wrote a letter to Rice, beating the Bush Administration over the head with Jacoby’s revelation:

At today’s public Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, Senator Clinton asked Vice Admiral Lowell F. Jacoby, Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, whether it was his assessment that “North Korea has the ability to arm a missile with a nuclear device?” In response, Admiral Jacoby said “my assessment is that they have the capability to do that, yes…” Admiral Jacoby also confirmed prior assessments by Administration officials that North Korean two stage intermediate intercontinental missiles could reach the United States.

Admiral Jacoby’s assessment that North Korea has the ability to arm a missile with a nuclear device is, we believe, the first such public assessment by an Administration official. This assessment is only the latest development, coming after four years of North Korean escalatory action, including their declaration in February that they have nuclear weapons, and that they no longer consider themselves bound by their self-declared missile-testing moratorium, as well as recent press accounts of unusual activity at nuclear and missile sites, that could presage nuclear or missile tests. All of this continues to strongly suggest that the threat posed by the North Korean nuclear program is increasing. Yet we have not seen an aggressive diplomatic effort to address this threat.

DIA reportedly put out a statement that Jacoby’s comments were consistent with prior testimony.

That’s not true, though. IC statements have focused on the Taepo Dong 2’s nuclear weapon sized payload rather than the size of North Korea nuclear weapons. Jacoby’s prepared testimony continued that tradition, explaining that the Taepo Dong 2 “could deliver a nuclear warhead to parts of the United States in a two stage variant and target all of North America with a three stage variant.”

Clinton knew exactly what she was doing. One Congressional staffer at the hearing later told the Los Angeles Times that “We did not anticipate the answer we got. But the answer did not surprise us.”

Read this reporting by David Sanger in the New York Times back in July 2003. Sanger reported that intelligence agencies believed North Korea was developing a warhead small enough for missiles and was briefing that information to US allies:

American intelligence officials now believe that North Korea is developing the technology to make nuclear warheads small enough to fit atop the country’s growing arsenal of missiles, potentially putting Tokyo and American troops based in Japan at risk, according to officials who have received the intelligence reports.

In the assessment—which they have shared with Japan, South Korea and other allies in recent weeks—officials at the Central Intelligence Agency said American satellites had identified an advanced nuclear testing site in an area called Youngdoktong. At the site, equipment has been set up to test conventional explosives that, when detonated, could compress a plutonium core and set off a compact nuclear explosion.

Some intelligence officials say they believe that the existence of the testing range is evidence that North Korea intends to manufacture much more sophisticated weapons that would be light enough to put onto its growing arsenal of medium- and long-range missiles.

Previously, American officials had said they were uncertain whether North Korea had received enough outside technical help to even attempt the precision steps required to detonate such a “miniaturized” nuclear warhead.

The new testing capability does not mean North Korea can actually build a small weapon, but it suggests that the North Koreans are moving to combine their two most advanced weapons projects: nuclear technology and missile technology. The new intelligence reports suggest that they could develop such a weapon in less than a year, but some officials warn that that assessment represents what one called “a best guess rather than a solid estimate.”

For months, Washington has been trying to convince Asian nations, especially South Korea and China, that the North Korean threat is so urgent that it requires a unified diplomatic front to force the country to give up its weapons. The new intelligence, officials who have seen it say, apparently is being marshaled to support the administration’s argument.

According to officials who have been briefed on the American reports, conventional explosions simulating a nuclear detonation have been set off at the testing site, which is near North Korea’s main nuclear complex. North Korea has never tested a nuclear weapon, though the C.I.A. long ago estimated that it manufactured two crude devices in the late 1980’s or early 1990’s.

North Korea, unlike Iraq, has made no secret of its plan to develop nuclear weapons. Now, administration officials say they fear that the North is on the verge of producing five or six new weapons, some of which might be miniaturized.

“This would give them the range they never had before, and the chance to spread their threat far beyond South Korea,” said a senior Asian official, noting that about 60,000 American troops are based in Japan.

The new intelligence estimates provided to Asian allies, however, left it unclear how quickly the North could produce the small warheads. The worst-case estimate, officials say, is less than a year.

If the New York Times story is accurate, the Bush Administration was saying one thing to allies and another in the US press. Clinton caught Admiral Jacoby—never really regarded as the sharpest shovel in the shed—between those two stories.

Update: In responses to unclassified Questions for the Record from the 2003 Worldwide Threat hearing, the CIA offered some detail about North Korea’s nuclear designs:

We assess that North Korea has produced one or two simple fission-type nuclear weapons and has validated the designs without conducting yield-producing nuclear tests. Press reports indicate North Korea has been conducting nuclear weapon-related high explosive tests since the 1980s in order to validate its weapons design(s). With such tests, we assess North Korea would not require nuclear tests to validate simple fission weapons.

Keeping in mind that alleged Pakistani design assistance focused on HEU designs, I am skeptical that North Korea’s “one or two simple fission-type nuclear weapons” utilizing Pu would be small enough for the Taepo Dong 2’s 700 kg payload.

And, on another note, David Wright outlines some of the challenges that North Korea would face in making the Taepo Dongs 1 and 2 into operational weapons.

For a review of North Korea’s ballistic missile programs, see Arms Control Wonk on 13 February 2005

Yet another update: A US official told the Financial Times that Jacoby “was not trying to make a new assessment or say that the US believes that North Korea currently has the capability to put a nuclear warhead on a functioning Taepo-dong 2 missile which would have the capacity to reach the United States.”

He may not have been trying, but that is what he said.

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Chimo

Anon

Chem weapons and BMs do not work well together. It's a matter of fuzing really.

Roughly 90% of the chem payload is typically destroyed in the dispersion explosion.

Confed999

Sweet...

ChrisF202

Well thats one peice of good news. Bill Clinton was perhaps the biggest snake to ever hold the office of President of the United States , the Democrats are FAR WORSE then the Republicans and they are also better at hiding and covering things up.