The assessment by the
Defense Intelligence Agency,
which has been distributed to senior administration officials and
members of Congress, cautions that the weapon’s “reliability will be
low,” apparently a reference to the North’s difficulty in developing
accurate missiles or, perhaps, to the huge technical challenges of
designing a warhead that can survive the rigors of flight and detonate
on a specific target.
The assessment’s existence was disclosed Thursday by Representative Doug
Lamborn, Republican of Colorado, three hours into a budget hearing of
the House Armed Services Committee with Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel
and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin E. Dempsey.
General Dempsey declined to comment on the assessment because of
classification issues.
But late Thursday, the director of national intelligence, James R.
Clapper Jr., released a statement saying that the assessment did not
represent a consensus of the nation’s intelligence community and that
“North Korea has not yet demonstrated the full range of capabilities
necessary for a nuclear armed missile.”
In another sign of the administration’s deep concern over the release of
the assessment, the Pentagon press secretary, George Little, issued a
statement that sought to qualify the conclusion from the Defense
Intelligence Agency, which has primary responsibility for monitoring the
missile capabilities of adversary nations but which a decade ago was
among those that argued most vociferously — and incorrectly — that Iraq
had
nuclear weapons.
“It would be inaccurate to suggest that the North Korean regime has
fully tested, developed or demonstrated the kinds of nuclear
capabilities referenced in the passage,” Mr. Little said.
A spokesman for the South Korean Defense Ministry, Kim Min-seok, said
early Friday that despite various assessments. “we have doubt that North
Korea has reached the stage of miniaturization.”
Nonetheless, outside experts said that the report’s conclusions could
explain why Mr. Hagel has announced in recent weeks that the Pentagon
was bolstering long-range antimissile defenses in Alaska and California,
intended to protect the West Coast, and rushing another antimissile
system, originally not set for deployment until 2015, to Guam.
Also Thursday, Mr. Clapper sought to tamp down fears that North Korean
rhetoric could lead to an armed clash with the United States, South
Korea and regional allies, and a high South Korean official called for
dialogue with North Korea.
Mr. Clapper told a hearing of the House Intelligence Committee that in
his experience, two other confrontations with the North — the seizure of
the Navy spy ship Pueblo in 1968 and the death of two military officers
in a tree-cutting episode in the demilitarized zone in 1976 — stoked
much greater tensions between the two countries. The statement by the
South Korean official, Unification Minister Ryoo Kihl-jae, was televised
nationally, and it represented a considerable softening in tone by
President Park Geun-hye’s government.
Secretary of State John Kerry, meanwhile, was scheduled to arrive in
Seoul on Friday and to travel to China and Japan after that. He has two
principal goals on the last leg of a six-nation trip: to encourage China
to use its influence to persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear
weapons program while reassuring South Korea and Japan that the United
States remains committed to their defense.
The report issued by the Defense Intelligence Agency last month was
titled “Dynamic Threat Assessment 8099: North Korea Nuclear Weapons
Program.” Its executive summary reads: “D.I.A. assesses with moderate
confidence the North currently has nuclear weapons capable of delivery
by ballistic missiles; however the reliability will be low.”
A spokesman for Mr. Lamborn, Catherine Mortensen, said the material he
quoted during the hearing was unclassified. Pentagon officials said
later that while the report remained classified, the one-paragraph
finding had been declassified but not released. Republicans in Congress
have led efforts to increase money for missile defense, and Mr. Lamborn
has been critical of the Obama administration for failing to finance it
adequately.
North Korea has conducted three nuclear tests, including one this year,
and shot a ballistic missile as far as the Philippines in December.
American and South Korean intelligence agencies believe that another
test — perhaps of a midrange missile called the Musudan that can reach
Japan, South Korea and almost as far as Guam — may be conducted in the
coming days, to celebrate the birth of Kim Il-sung, the country’s
founder. At the Pentagon, there is particular concern about another
missile, yet untested, called the KN-08, which may have significantly
longer range.
“North Korea has already demonstrated capabilities that threaten the
United States and the security environment in East Asia,” Mr. Clapper
told the House Intelligence Committee.
He added that “we believe Pyongyang has already taken initial steps”
toward fielding what he called a “road-mobile intercontinental ballistic
missile.” He appeared to be referring to the KN-08, provided to North
Korea by a Russian company and based on the design of a Russian
submarine-launched nuclear missile.
Mr. Clapper referred to “extremely belligerent, aggressive public
rhetoric towards the United States and South Korea” by the North’s young
president,
Kim Jong-un.
And he made it clear that getting inside Mr. Kim’s head, and
understanding his goals, had been particularly frustrating.
He suggested that while Mr. Kim’s grandfather and father had clear
motives — to periodically threaten the world with nuclear crises, then
wait to get paid in cash, food or equipment to lower the rhetoric — the
younger Mr. Kim apparently intended to demonstrate both to North Koreans
and to the international community that North Korea deserves respect as
a nuclear power.
“His primary objective is to consolidate, affirm his power,” Mr. Clapper
told the House committee, adding that “the belligerent rhetoric of
late, I think, is designed for both an internal and an external
audience.”
Asked if the North Korean leader had an “endgame,” Mr. Clapper said, “I
don’t think, really, he has much of an endgame other than to somehow
elicit recognition from the world and specifically, most importantly,
the United States, of North Korea as a rival on an international scene,
as a nuclear power, and that that entitles him to negotiation and to
accommodation, and presumably for aid.”
Other officials have said, in background interviews, that Mr. Kim is
trying to get North Korea into the same position as Pakistan: an
acknowledged nuclear power that the West has given up hopes of
disarming.
Mr. Clapper appeared with the heads of several other intelligence
agencies, including Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn of the Defense
Intelligence Agency; the F.B.I. director, Robert S. Mueller III; and the
C.I.A. director, John O. Brennan, to present their annual assessment of
the threats facing the nation. The same officials briefed the Senate
Intelligence Committee last month.
Even as they sought to explain the North Korean leader’s recent
bellicose threats, which have prompted American and South Korean troops
to increase alert levels, Mr. Clapper and other top intelligence
officials acknowledged that United States spy agencies do not know much
about Mr. Kim.
“Kim Jong-un has not been in power all that long, so we don’t have an
extended track record for him like we did with his father and
grandfather,” Mr. Brennan said. “That’s why we are watching this very
closely and to see whether or not what he is doing is consistent with
past patterns of North Korean behavior.”
Mr. Clapper added that with such little information on Mr. Kim, “there’s no telling how he’s going to behave.”
“He impresses me as impetuous, not as inhibited as his father became
about taking aggressive action,” he added. “The pattern with his father
was to be provocative and then to sort of back off. We haven’t seen that
yet with Kim Jong-un.”
As for what might change the North’s posture, Mr. Clapper pointed to
China’s new leadership. “I think probably if anyone has real leverage
over the North Koreans, it is China,” he said.
Michael R. Gordon contributed reporting from Manas, Kyrgyzstan, and Choe Sang-hun from Seoul.
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