Posted on 11/10/2006 6:34:55 PM PST by PghBaldy
North Korea has the ability to put a nuclear warhead onto a medium-range missile and threaten its regional neighbors, especially Japan, some U.S. experts believe.
With North Korea preparing to return to six-party talks on its nuclear program, scientists and other analysts stress that few facts are known about the reclusive country's capabilities and conclusions depend largely on circumstantial evidence.
U.S. intelligence officials say there is no evidence that North Korea has physically "mated" a warhead to a medium-range Rodong missile, let alone has nuclear-armed Rodongs ready for launch. Some officials believe Pyongyang has yet to meet the engineering challenge of arming a missile.
But word that the North Koreans tested a relatively small nuclear device on Oct. 9 is bolstering assertions that Pyongyang has moved directly to a warhead for its medium-range arsenal.
"We've assessed that North Korea can put a warhead on a Rodong," said physicist David Albright, who heads the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington.
"What you're trying to do is reduce the diameter to fit inside a re-entry vehicle. You can do that with a crude nuclear weapons design," he added.
John Pike, director of the Alexandria, Virginia, online think tank GlobalSecurity.org, agrees.
"I have never been able to understand why there would be any doubt about North Korea's capacity to put a nuclear weapon on a medium-range ballistic missile. They've had it for several years," Pike said.
The Rodong has a range of 870 miles (1,400 km), which could hit most of Japan and all of South Korea.
Richard Garwin of the IBM Research Center and Princeton professor Frank von Hippel also suggest North Korea could be aiming for a warhead small enough for the Rodong or even its shorter-range Scud missiles.
MISSILE SPECULATION
Until recently, speculation about Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions has concentrated on the long-range multi-stage Taepodong-2 missile, which analysts believe could some day be capable of reaching the U.S. mainland.
But the Taepodong-2 exploded just after launch during its first test flight on July 5.
Pyongyang would most likely use nuclear-tipped Rodongs to threaten Japan as a means of deterring any U.S. military action against North Korea, experts say.
"Even if there's only a 10 percent probability that they've produced a few warheads and put them on Rodong missiles, that could still be enough to deter the United States because the possible effect on Japan is catastrophic," said Daniel Pinkston, Korea expert at the Monterey, California-based Center for Nonproliferation Studies.
But some experts say Pyongyang would be unlikely to use nuclear weapons against fellow Koreans in the South.
Conservative estimates suggest North Korea, which has more than 200 Rodongs and over 600 Scuds, has enough fissile material for six to eight nuclear weapons, though some analysts say the number could top one-dozen.
U.S. intelligence determined over a decade ago that Pyongyang was trying to develop a warhead for its medium-range arsenal but had yet to overcome the engineering obstacles.
Albright and Pike said those hurdles appear now to have been surpassed.
North Korea would have to conduct test a Rodong with a simulated warhead, before deploying a credible medium-range nuclear threat, U.S. intelligence officials said.
Albright and Pike said Pyongyang may have done just that on July 5, when it test-fired seven missiles including Rodongs.
NK can put warhead on mid-range missile-experts
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Cool.. we can place a nuclear tipped tomahawk on the tip of a gnat's arse..
ping
I would hate to be a midrange missile expert in North Korea right about now.
Who cares?
Damn Chia Pet getting frisky
Gata have a bomb that works and a missile that goes the distance to be a threat!!
Paging Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reed.
Tokyo: here today, gone tomorrow.
"Paging Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reed."
I would be quite happy if they kept out of this.
Send Jimmy Carter. He can fix anything. He's got a Nobel Peace Prize.
This is typical wire service filler copy. Once in a while, North Korea can manage to hit the Sea of Japan and once it detonated something with a yield of 550 tons of TNT. Maybe it was 550 tons of TNT, perhaps it was 23 million North Koreans jumping up and down simultenously saying, "Some Rice Please." If they could summon the strength.
Yeah, this inference came from the assessment that the medium range missile can carry 1-ton payload. I am not sure the warhead can explode properly though. Still, it could certainly be an effective dirty bomb. They can lob it onto the Yongsan Garrison, and panic will effectively kill a lot of people in the city.
It was nuclear. We found traces of radioactive evidence.
I shouldn'have tminimized the seriousness of the situation with humor, but this is what I understand: The nuclear folks can identify the source of any fissionable material frm any reactor in the world down to the section and probabgle date. After destroying 30,000-40,000 nuclear warheads since 1991, the U.S. had 7,600 wareheads last time I looked. The typical yield is 300 KT, not 0.55 KT. Japan, South Korea and Taiwan may have nuclear wareheads. Nobody knows. The Japanese certainly wouldn't have to test a warhead to be nuclear-capable. If North Korea transfered fissionable material, let alone attacked any country in the world, it would be blown away. That is U.S. policy articulated by numerous Presidents of both parties. The North Korean state is collapsing. Kim Il Jong's missile/nuclear program has been a highly successful extortion game. They're being watched carefully. We have far more to worry about from the Paks, Russians and Chinese. The Russians actually have 8,000 warheads and 20,000-30,000 in store that are targeted on the U.S. or could be in a brief time. The Paks have 40-65 (nobody knows) in a one-bullet regime. The Chinese have 200. Their last vice chief of staff threatened to vaporize Los Angeles. So while North Korea is not the least important proliferator, it's not the most important.
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