New Images of North Korea Buildup Confront Trump's Hopes for Disarmament
By David E. Sanger and William J. Broad
March 9, 2019
WASHINGTON — President Trump was forced to publicly acknowledge this past week what American intelligence officials said they had long been telling the White House: Even during eight months of blossoming diplomacy, Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, was steadily adding to his weapons arsenal and nuclear infrastructure.
Three times, Mr. Trump told reporters that he would be “very disappointed” if North Korea was preparing to launch a space rocket that intelligence officials believe could help Mr. Kim perfect the means to heave a nuclear warhead across the ocean. Satellite imagery taken Friday, and analyzed by the Beyond Parallel program of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, shows that the North has “continued preparations” on the launching pad at Sohae consistent with readying for “the delivery of a rocket.”
American officials said the reconstruction there began long before Mr. Trump left Washington in late February for a summit meeting with Mr. Kim in Hanoi, Vietnam, where talks abruptly ended.
The rebuilding at Sohae was not the only work underway.
While North Korea blew up the entrances to its major underground testing site at Punggye-ri in May, it never allowed in inspectors, as promised, to determine whether the facility had actually been destroyed. Commercial satellite photographs suggest the buildings containing the control rooms and computers used to trigger and study the explosions were carefully mothballed.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/09/world/asia/trump-north-korea-negotiations.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
