North Korea Could Have an Intercontinental Nuclear Missile as Early as Next Year, Report Says
July 26, 2017 by admin
Filed under Choosing Lingerie
The Time for Negotiations With North Korea Is Now
Thornberry, who is pushing for a $2.5 billion increase to the Pentagon’s missile defense budget, said Congress and the Trump administration need “to take forceful, swift steps to see that the U.S. and our allies are protected.”
In what it calls an effort to stay ahead of the North Korean missile threat, the Pentagon is expanding its arsenal of anti-missile weapons based at Ft. Greely, Alaska, from 32 to 40 ground-based interceptors. That is in addition to four based in California. The interceptors are designed to destroy an ICBM outside the earth’s atmosphere by slamming into it during flight. They are the only element of U.S. missile defenses that are designed specifically to stop ICBMs from reaching U.S. territory.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which oversees all 17 U.S. intelligence agencies, declined to comment on any change in classified assessments.
Scott Bray, the ODNI’s national intelligence manager for East Asia, said North Korea’s recent test of an intercontinental-range ballistic missile was not a surprise.
“This test and its impact on our assessments highlight the threat that North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs pose to the United States, to our allies in the region and to the whole world,” Bray said.
At a conference in Aspen, Colorado, last week, CIA Director Mike Pompeo said he couldn’t disclose specifics about how North Korea has been able to develop its missile program. He said North Korea has had lots of outside partners, suppliers, engineers and talented physicists who have helped them climb the “learning curve faster than one might do if you just simply did it internally.”
Also at the conference, National Intelligence Director Dan Coats, was asked if North Korea is now a member of the club of nations with nuclear weapons.
Coats said: “Well, they’ve got some work to do to, I think, get through the club door, but they are very persistent in achieving that goal and we see a lot of research probably gained by each launch that they do whether it fails or succeeds.”
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Associated Press writer Robert Burns contributed to this report.
