Agency Says North Korea Able to Mount Warheads on Missiles

[quaoar]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/28/politics/28cnd-korea.html?hp&ex=1114747200&en=deaa74eba55d91d1&ei=5094&partner=homepage

By DAVID S. CLOUD and DAVID E. SANGER

WASHINGTON, April 28 - The head of the Defense Intelligence Agency said today that American intelligence agencies believe North Korea has mastered the technology for mounting a nuclear warhead on its missiles, an assessment that, if correct, means the country could build weapons to threaten Japan and perhaps the western United States.

The conclusion was part of a total reassessment of North Korea's capabilities that the D.I.A.'s chief, Vice Adm. Lowell E. Jacoby, said was still under way. While Admiral Jacoby said North Korea was judged to have the capability to put a nuclear weapon atop its missiles, he stopped well short of saying they have already done so, or even that they had assembled warheads small enough for the purpose. Nor did he give any evidence to back up his view during the public session of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

But he appeared to be putting a final conclusion on a study the intelligence community has had under way for at least two years. 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, when detonated, could compress a plutonium core and set off a compact nuclear explosion.

Since then, American investigators have been pressing Pakistan for details of what kind of technology North Korean engineers might have been given in visits they made to Pakistani nuclear sites. North Korea supplied Pakistan with many of the missiles Pakistan uses for its own nuclear arsenal.

[cliss]

1. Now, as we read this grim news......

think about that loose cannon, Kim Jong Il, upset and frustrated that the US "is pushing N. Korea" into a corner. Now, think about how the U.S. has turned their backs on him, letting him come to his own desperate conclusions.

This is brinkmanship at its worst. For all of us on the West Coast, I hope they come to their senses....and I DO MEAN Washington.

[AndyTiedye]

3. Boosh** WANTS The West Coast to get Nuked

Nothing but blue states out here. Dems with money too. THEY HATE THAT.

[quaoar]

4. The biggest danger

is that North Korea decides to earn hard currency by selling ICBMs.

get ready for Kim's Discount Missile Mall.

[ugarte]

2. U.S. Intelligence= an oxymoron

nt

[teryang]

5. "Nor did he give any evidence"

A key phrase in American propaganda announcements.

This regime doesn't press the Pakistan dictatorship for anything, they support the dictatorship. It's part of their support for drug trafficking, terrorism and proliferation in Asia. Without the cooperation of destabilizing corrupt regimes like the one in Pakistan, the Pentagon's defense contractors' bottom line would go red. Pakistan was a major co-conspirator in the 911 debacle.