[USFK Forums] US not certain N. Korea has nuclear weapons [Reuters]

[C. Y. Lee]

Uploaded by C. Y. Lee on Wednesday, March 1, 2006

US not certain North Korea has nuclear weapons

Wednesday, March 1, 2006
By David Morgan1 hour, 38 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States cannot say for certain that North Korea possesses any nuclear weapons but believes Pyongyang has continued to produce plutonium from its 5-megawatt Yongbyon reactor, top intelligence officials said on Tuesday.

In a marked departure from precedent, U.S. intelligence chief John Negroponte declined to estimate the number of nuclear devices North Korea might have assembled, despite repeated questioning by Democrats at a hearing by the Senate Committee on Armed Services.

"I've been very reluctant to get into numbers," Negroponte told the panel's annual public hearing on worldwide threats."We assess that they probably have nuclear weapons, as they claim that they do. But we don't know for a fact that they've got such weapons ... So to then say with precision the number they've got, I think, would be difficult to do with our level of knowledge," he added. "But there's no question that there's a potential there for a number of weapons," Negroponte said.

The acknowledgment that U.S. intelligence has been unable to confirm North Korea's status as a declared nuclear power came as Pyongyang said it has successfully made nuclear weapons with its own technology and cash.

U.S. intelligence agencies have been criticized by some experts for failing to penetrate so-called "hard targets" including the nuclear programs of North Korea and Iran.

But analysts suggested Negroponte's openness on North Korea stemmed from a new intelligence emphasis on certainty following the debacle over faulty prewar intelligence on Iraq. "They're really trying to tell Congress that they're playing straight with them," said Daniel Byman of the Brookings Institution.

The U.S. government said in a declassified intelligence estimate in 2002 that it believed North Korea possessed one and possibly two nuclear weapons. Pyongyang officially announced that it had nuclear arms a year ago, and private analysts since then have said its arsenal could contain up to 12 nuclear devices. But North Korea has not produced tangible evidence of nuclear arms by testing a weapon.

Meanwhile, six-party talks on ending North Korea's nuclear weapons programs have hit a snag over a U.S. crackdown on firms it suspects of helping Pyongyang in illicit activities such as counterfeiting and money laundering.

Army Lt. Gen. Michael Maples, director of the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency, agreed that there was no proof Pyongyang possesses nuclear weapons but said the country could soon have the missile capability to strike the United States.

"We assess that they are in the process of developing an intercontinental ballistic missile that would be capable of delivering a nuclear warhead, but they have not done so yet, nor have they tested it," Maples told the Senate hearing.

Maples said U.S. intelligence believes North Korea continued to produce plutonium for its nuclear weapons program last year from its 5-megawatt reactor in Yongbyon, where a larger 50-megawatt reactor is under construction.

"Activity at the Yongbyon 50-megawatt reactor suggests Pyongyang is seeking to convince Washington it will follow through on threats to resume construction on this unfinished nuclear reactor, adding another source for weapons-grade plutonium," the DIA director said in a prepared statement submitted to the committee.



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