U.S. Agency Says N.Korea Can Mount Warhead on Missile

[onthebottom]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -
North Korea has the ability to mount a nuclear missile on a long-range missile and the communist state could hit U.S. territory, the head of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency said on Thursday.

The agency played down the statement by its director, Vice Admiral Lowell Jacoby, which appeared to break new ground, and said he was speaking theoretically, but it prompted expressions of deep concern from Democrats.

President Bush, asked about the assessment at a White House news conference, said it was not certain whether Kim Jong-il, President of the reclusive communist state, had developed the ability to arm missiles with a nuclear weapon.

But he said: "There is concern about his capability to deliver a nuclear weapon. We don't know if he can or not but I think it's best, when you're dealing with a tyrant like Kim Jong-il, to assume he can."

Bush did not set a deadline for North Korea to return to the currently stalled six-nation talks aimed at resolving the crisis over North Korea's nuclear weapons programs.

He said "a potential option" was to refer Pyongyang to the U.N. Security Council, but he suggested a decision to do so would depend on reaching a consensus among the other nations in the talks -- the United States, Russia,
South Korea, China and Japan.

"How far we let it go on is dependent upon our consensus among ourselves," Bush said. "After all, some of the parties in the process have got the capacity to veto a U.N. Security Council resolution."

"It seems counterproductive to have five of us working together and then all of a sudden one of us say, 'Well, we're not going to work together,"' Bush said later.

Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice indicated it was not the definitive conclusion of the Bush administration that the reclusive communist state had the ability to arm a missile with a nuclear warhead.

"The North Koreans are doing all kinds of things. We have different assessments of what they may or may not be doing," Rice said when asked about Jacoby's comments by reporters during a visit to Chile.

NUCLEAR ARMS

Democrats seized on Jacoby's statement, made at a Senate Armed Services Committee meeting, as evidence that the Bush administration was pursuing a failed policy toward North Korea, which formally announced in February that it had nuclear arms.

"For the first time, we had a U.S. government official publicly saying that North Korea has the technology to marry a nuclear device to a missile. That's something new we've never heard before in a public forum," said a congressional official who asked not to be identified.

Jacoby was asked at the hearing by Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York if he assessed that "North Korea has the ability to arm a missile with a nuclear device?"

He replied, "The assessment is that they have the capability to do that, yes, ma'am."

He went on to say that North Korea was also capable of operating a two-stage missile that could hit U.S. territories in the Pacific as well as Hawaii, Alaska and the northwestern sections of the U.S. mainland.

"So the two-stage you are testifying is already within their operational capacity?" the senator asked the admiral.

"Assessed to be within their capacity, yes," he said.

That appeared to be a repeat of testimony to Congress earlier this year by Jacoby in which he said North Korea's Taepo Dong missile could deliver a nuclear warhead to parts of the United States in a two-stage variant and to all of North America in a three-stage variant.

The DIA issued a statement later on Thursday saying Jacoby was only repeating his earlier testimony.

"He also stated before the (committee) this morning, 'it's a theoretical capability in the sense that those missiles have not been tested'," the statement added.

Jacoby's words prompted an emotional and critical response from Clinton herself.

"It is troubling beyond words that we have testimony like that at this time," she told the committee.

"There is that old saying, you know, if you're in a hole, quit digging. And this administration just keeps getting bigger shovels, and it bothers me greatly," she said.

Perhaps it will just fall short

OTB

 

[Truncador]

"There is concern about his capability to deliver a nuclear weapon. We don't know if he can or not but I think it's best, when you're dealing with a tyrant like Kim Jong-il, to assume he can."

What he said.

A highly advanced culture, which places a premium on order and social discipline, together with the fact that the territory would be re-incorporated into a nation whose economic and political conditions are already on a par with Western Europe, makes North Korea an ideal candidate for rehab. Hopefully a regime change will be in the cards for the future.

 

[Asterix]

A highly advanced culture, which places a premium on order and social discipline, together with the fact that the territory would be re-incorporated into a nation whose economic and political conditions are already on a par with Western Europe, makes North Korea an ideal candidate for rehab. Hopefully a regime change will be in the cards for the future.

Traditionally a very highly advanced culture indeed; unfortunately for the past 60 years they have been the poster boy country for Orwellian society. The brainwashing they have been subjected to, and their ignorance of the outside world, may take decades to be rectified. A classic example of how a a society that places a premium on order and social discipline, can be turned against itself. Personally, I like living in a country where the people haven't entirely lost their rebel spirit.

 

[Truncador]

The brainwashing they have been subjected to, and their ignorance of the outside world, may take decades to be rectified.

Judging by past experiences with similar cultures (Germany, Japan), they'd probably forget about it almost as soon as the despot was removed.

 

[Asterix]

I don't think even Nazi Germany or Japan in the last century were as indoctrinated, and certainly nowhere near as islolated from the world, as North Korea is today. Their situation in recent history is unique.

 

[LifeSucks]

Big fucking deal.

So the US now says that the madman in Pyongyang is ready to mount nuclear warhead on its primitive delivery vehicle. Big fucking deal. The last time I checked, the US has thousands upon thousands of thermonuclear warheads ready to wipe all of us out from the face of the earth, and then wipe our out remaining corpses again till kingdom come. Kim Jong-il isn't stupid. If deterrence has worked for Uncle Joe and Chairman Mao, why the hell wouldn't it work with Kim? Let's not forget that Stalin and Mao were also considered to be madmen. While at it, let's also not forget what the same intelligence dimwits were saying about Saddam Hussein and his illusive weapons of mass destruction.

All that Pyongyang wants in exchange for giving up its nuclear weapons program is a peace treaty to finally end the Korean War for good and the establishment of normal diplomatic relations. Is that too much to ask? Bush bombed the shit out of Iraq, only to find no weapons of mass destruction, lose over a thousand American lives, sacrifice tens of thousands of Iraqi lives, and waste $160 billion and still counting. It's long past due that the neocons should get their heads out of their asses and face the reality.

Besides, since North Korea is already believed to have a few nuclear bombs, what the hell is the US going to do? The singe most important permissive condition that alllowed the US to invade Iraq was the fact that Saddam didn't have any weapons of mass destruction. Washington knows, or at least is dead sure, that unlike Saddam Kim does have a couple of bombs to throw, and that is why the Bush administration is so clueless as to what to do about it. Washington can't bomb N. Korea for the fear that it might retaliate with a nice nuclear explosion somewhere in S. Korea or Japan (fat chance the Dear Leader can actually send one all the way to the US with any accuracy), and yet is too arrogant to admit this. There is no other option. Sit down, give N. Korea what it wants, and hope that eventually internal changes will lead to regime change. It may seem completely bizarre, but Pyongyang is trying to blackmail Washington into signing a peace treaty--and some cash would come nice too. Hell, Americans are already spending over $400 billion a year on defense; why not spare a few billion bucks and solve the damn problem?

 

[Asterix]

Kim Jong-il isn't stupid.

Maybe not, but listening to what he has said, there is a distinct possibility he's a paranoid little nut case.

 

[Truncador]

Sit down, give N. Korea what it wants, and hope that eventually internal changes will lead to regime change.

Given their history, this may take a few centuries or so...

Pyongyang is trying to blackmail Washington into signing a peace treaty--and some cash would come nice too. Hell, Americans are already spending over $400 billion a year on defense; why not spare a few billion bucks and solve the damn problem?

Because they might use that money to build even more WMDs than they (may or may not) have already ?

 

[LifeSucks]

Maybe not, but listening to what he has said, there is a distinct possibility he's a paranoid little nut case.

He is fat, short, ugly, vain, and an all around jackass by all accounts, but he is not a nut case. Every official who ever met him, from the former S. Korean President Kim Dae Jung to the Japanese PM Koizumi and the former Sec. of State Albright, agrees that the guy is smart and rational enough to do business. In fact, the guy is a smartass, and that's the problem. He played his nuclear card beautifully with the 1994 Framework Agreement, then another blackmail with an underground facility that turned out to be empty (and cost Americans $300 million to verify, if my memory serve me correctly).

If you are facing nearly 40,000 American troops across the border, another 600,000 S. Korean troops, all armed to teeth with the latest killing machine (not to mention the hundreds of tactical nuclear weapons that the US had stationed in S. Korea until recently), and watched on CNN Baghdad getting bombed to shit and the poor bastard Saddam getting dragged out of his rat hole, what would be the rational thing to do? If you were in Kim's shoes, and want to ensure your survival and avoid Saddam's fate, you would want to get your hands on a few of those nuclear bombs, especially since you know you can't possibly compete against the US, let alone S. Korea for that matter, on conventional arms. Nuclear weapons are poor nations' great equalizer. They cost a whole lot less, and are guaranteed to level the playing field. Kim is got this thing figured out like the back of his mistress' ass: he can wiggle out concessions from the US with his bombs to ensure the continuation of his regime, or, if that doesn't fan out, he can keep the bombs and use them as his deterrence. That's a brilliant strategy, if you ask me.

There is a method to Kim's apparent madness; in fact, Foreign Affairs and even National Interest are filled with eggheads picking on his brinkmanship, many of whom happen to be awestruck, despite hating his guts. So a jerk, yes; eccentric, yes; poor taste in fashion, guilty as charged; should probably watch his diet and lose a few pounds, yes, before heart attack kills him like his father; but a madman? Not likely.

 

[markham]

attack..

What are the Americans and Britishs waiting for !!!
ATTACK !!!!!! North Korea has weapons of mass destruction...ATTACK !!!!!

we don't need credibilty or confirmation on this...Its only another 100 billion a year, so what!, raise taxes and have a military draft..what are we waiting for.....

USA needs more war....

 

[LifeSucks]

Given their history, this may take a few centuries or so...



Because they might use that money to build even more WMDs than they (may or may not) have already ?

But regime change is not at issue here; at issue here is Kim's nuclear program, and what to do about it. Washington doesn't give a fiddling ass what kind of gulag Kim is got running up there.

As for the money, it's true that Pyongyang broke the Framework Agreement, but the story that you rarely hear in the Western media is how the US also broke the Agreement in bad faith. When the 1994 deal was struck, Washington basically assumed that the regime won't survive long enough to see the implementation of the biggest ticket items at its end of the bargain, which were the lightwater nuclear reactor promised to replace N. Korea's plutonium-generating facility, and a movement toward normalizing diplomatic relations. Both sides played dirty; one went around the back and pursued a uranium-based weapons program, and the other dragged on its feet hoping the N. Korean regime would collapse long before it could get its hands on the cookie jar.

Further to the point, the US demand for the so-called "CIVD" (complete, verifiable, and irreversible dismantlement) is not the problem, at least in principle, but the spoiler has more to do with its timing and conditions. It makes little sense to just insist on Pyongyang to dismantle its nuclear programs for only vague promises; if the dismantlement is going to be CIVD, so should the US concessions be CIVD.

At any rate, I personally find it laughable that the US is so pissed off at N. Korea for daring to develop a few nuclear bombs, when it has more than enough doomsday machines itself. While the Non-proliferation Treaty binds non-nuclear members not to go nuclear, the treaty also obligates existing nuclear powers to dismantle their weapons. But hey, we don't hear about the US, France, China, Russia, and so forth breaking the NPT by continuing to horde their nuclear arms. To add insult to injury, now the Bush administration is thinking of starting a new nuclear weapons program to replacing what it considers to be old, "unreliable" warheads. Then there is the US Senate, bless the pithy souls there, that refused to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. So it's ok for Washington to develop new, even more deadly nuclear weapons, and test them all it wants, but it's a global security threat when Pyongyang tries to follow in its footstep.

Life is not fair, of course, and so I don't expect any moral high grounds from anyone. But I do expect the American government to be smarter than the jackasses running the Bush administration. It's been dragging the whole mess for the past five years, at first showering disdain on its predecessor's North Korea policy and refusing to talk at all with Pyongyang for the first three years, and then scrambling back to the table in panic when Kim gets pissed enough to publicly declare his toys, and now still insisting on unrealistic conditions. What has Bush achieved with all this? Absolutely nothing, nada, zilch. All this time that Bush was talking tough, dissing N. Korea as one of the axes of evil, and proudly stating that he doesn't negotiate with tyrants, the good old clock kept ticking, and lo and behold, it's now anyone's guess what the N. Koreans are doing with those plutonium that they pulled out as a DIRECT RESULT of the Bush administration refusing to come to the negotiating table. Before the dumbasses at the White House stuck their heads into the sand refusing to acknowledge the reality, we at least knew where the spent-fuels were located--inside a site that was monitored 24 hours a day--and that, most imporantly, they weren't removed elsewhere to be turned into nice little nuclear bombs. Now there is no inspector left in N. Korea, the video camera is gone, and all that we know from the satellite spying is that the fuel rods have defintively been removed and shipped somewhere else. So the grand achievement of the past five years of Bush's thickheaded North Korea policy comes to this: more time for Kim to play around with his weapons-grade plutonium to come up with even more toys. The irony is, the Bush administration is back to exactly where it refused to be, at the negotiating table shaking hands with Kim's delegates and smiling for camera. So much wasted time only to be back to square zero, but does Dubya learn anything from all this? No, he still thinks he can huff and puff and the house would somehow get blown. Really, what other choice does he think he has? Impose embargo on a country that has already cut itself off from the rest of the world with its delusionary juche ideology? Bomb North Korea back to the stone age at the risk of pulverizing Seoul or Tokyo--maybe even Seattle, if the incompetent dorks at the Pentagon deserve any merit at all?

 

[papasmerf]

<YAWN>

Sounds like the sleeping tick and not the sleeping giant. Has one of you maxists ever thought that the only thing that stopped N. Korea from being free was the whitehouse at the time?

Oh yea you want to debate free? you can't in N. Korea.

 

[Truncador]

So it's ok for Washington to develop new, even more deadly nuclear weapons, and test them all it wants, but it's a global security threat when Pyongyang tries to follow in its footstep.

Yes. In America, power is regulated by laws and exercised for the good of the people, and Humanity in general. In North Korea, power is exercised solely for the edification of Dear Leader, and regulated only by his perception of his self-interest- but even this only up to the inevitable point where his reason will be overwhelmed in a spasm of bravado and he'll decide to go out in a blaze of glory (as all such dictators do sooner or later).

 

[Asterix]

... but even this only up to the inevitable point where his reason will be overwhelmed in a spasm of bravado and he'll decide to go out in a blaze of glory (as all such dictators do sooner or later).

Oh, I don't know. Dictators are usually cowards, and history is full of those that chose to exit by the back door when the shit hit the fan. Witness Saddam.

 

[Don]

What are the Americans and Britishs waiting for !!!
ATTACK !!!!!! North Korea has weapons of mass destruction...ATTACK !!!!!

we don't need credibilty or confirmation on this...Its only another 100 billion a year, so what!, raise taxes and have a military draft..what are we waiting for.....

USA needs more war....

While the sarcasm is clear in your post, I honestly wouldn't oppose such action. I always felt the US went after the wrong country (Iraq) for the wrong reasons (revenge/etc...).

 

[Asterix]

He is fat, short, ugly, vain, and an all around jackass by all accounts, but he is not a nut case.

Any leader who would allow upwards of two million of his people to starve to death without concern is a full blown sociopath, if not psychotic. A link that describes Kim Jong's current policy of ethnic cleansing.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/mai...3.xml&sSheet=/portal/2003/10/23/ixportal.html

 

[LifeSucks]

Any leader who would allow upwards of two million of his people to starve to death without concern is a full blown sociopath, if not psychotic. A link that describes Kim Jong's current policy of ethnic cleansing.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/mai...3.xml&sSheet=/portal/2003/10/23/ixportal.html

Mao's Giant Leap Forward left 20 million Chinese starved to death, but this didn't prevent the US from dumping Taiwan and getting into bed with China to balance against the Soviet Union. In fact, when fissures began to develop between the USSR and China, it was the Soviets who feared that Mao was a nutcase and ceased their techinical support for his nuclear program. The reason? The Chinese Communist Party lambasted the Soviets for not being tough enough in its Eastern European Policy, not to mention Khrushchev's handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Even worse, Mao himself said that while the Soviet Union was too chicken to play the doomsday game, he could afford to lose a few dozen million Chinese lives to make a stand against the US. But Nixon was smart enough and far-sighted enough, despite his other shortcomings, to see beyond this veneer of madness to approach the Chinese, reach a mutual understanding, and get the Soviets worried to sick contemplating an all-out war against their former comrades. The problem with Bush isn't his morality; it's his stupidity.

 

[onthebottom]

I think Bush is doing the only thing he can do, which is work with China, Japan, Russia and SK to bring the little nutjob to his senses and take the cash. All the other options (sanctions/blockade, invasion, airstrick) just suck.

I worry that deterance won't work with Dear Leader or that he sells one of these nukes to someone who will use it. If he sells one to AQ and they pop it off who do we nuke?

A sticky wicket as the PoMEs would say.

OTB

 

[LifeSucks]

Yes. In America, power is regulated by laws and exercised for the good of the people, and Humanity in general. In North Korea, power is exercised solely for the edification of Dear Leader, and regulated only by his perception of his self-interest- but even this only up to the inevitable point where his reason will be overwhelmed in a spasm of bravado and he'll decide to go out in a blaze of glory (as all such dictators do sooner or later).

I won't even touch that comment on American democracy, lest I open another can of warms. But really, what does the type of government have anything to do with nuclear armament? Remember the Soviet Union? China? South Africa under Apartheid? Pakistan? Does any of these country sound like a democracy to you, where "power is regulated by laws and exercised for the good of the people, and Humanity in general"?

Name one dictator who went out in a blaze of glory in the past century, and I'll name dozens of dictators who fled like rats on a sinking ship, most of whom retired comfortably in some nice and toasty place drawing out chunky pension funds from a Swiss account. You don't commit suicide out of magalomania; you commit it out of clinical depression, and the last time I read about Kim, he was still partying like hell, enjoying the good life, and fucking his harlem like a pro.

But hey, if you are afraid that Kim Jongil might go out in a blaze of glory, why the hell would anybody want to kindle the fire for him by pushing him to a corner, particularly when he is got a nice A-bomb or two to really go out with a big bang? You don't sit down with jackasses like Kim and talk because you like them, but you sit down and talk because you have to. Think about it. If the US gives N. Korea what it wants, which essentially boils down to the continued survival of Kim's regime, why on earth would Kim decide to go out in a blaze of glory? If, on the other hand, the US plays hard to get and attempts to remove him, Kim will have every reason to indeed go in bravado and kick some American ass before kicking the bucket himself. Hell, what's the point of having those bombs around, when his miserable life is about to end? As some American nuclear strategists used to say during the Cold War, you use it or lose it.

No one loves Kim. I'll be the first to sing Hallelujah when his miserable kingdom collapses. But that's not gonna happen anytime soon, short of risking a nuclear war, and so you have to find a way to live with him. Whether you like it or not, he is here to stay, and unless you are willing to risk Seattle going up in a nuclear mushroom--and God forbid, Vancouver, given how N. Koreans can't even make a fucking tractor to work properly--calling North Korea an outpost of tyranny, as Condie did, isn't gonna get us anywhere close to solving the problem.

 

[Don]

calling North Korea an outpost of tyranny, as Condie did, isn't gonna get us anywhere close to solving the problem.

History has proven that N. Korea will only listen to a show of strength (remember 66, 78, etc). N. Korea only takes advantage of shows of goodwill. Calling them a part of the axis of evil did not help relations but sadly it is probably more effective then attempting to bargin with them peacefully.