Be Afraid, Very Afraid (North Korea Has Nukes, Long-range Missles)

When you testify to Congress in measured tones, what you say doesn't always get the attention it deserves.

That's the lesson from Robert Walpole's March 11th testimony before a Senate subcommittee. Walpole is the National Intelligence Officer for Strategic and Nuclear Programs for the CIA and was there to update senators on the National Intelligence Estimate.

He calmly delivered the following blockbuster: "The Intelligence Community judged in the mid-1990s that North Korea had produced one, possibly two, nuclear weapons."

Just last Sunday, the Washington Post reported, "North Korea may have enough fissile material for one or two nuclear weapons, U.S. analysts say."

Also according to Walpole, the North Korean "multiple-stage Taepo Dong-2, which is capable of reaching the United States with a nuclear-weapon-sized payload, may be ready for flight testing."

The conventional wisdom also previously held that Iran could probably achieve an ICBM capability within 15 years.

Walpole reports, "All agencies agree that Iran could attempt to launch an ICBM about mid-decade." That could, then, be in three or five years so. (He went on to say, "[the agencies] believe Iran is likely to take until the last half of the decade to do so. One agency further judges that Iran is unlikely to achieve a successful test of an ICBM before 2015.")

It is clear that Iran has been overachieving when it comes to nuclear and ballistic-missile technology.

Walpole again: "The Intelligence Community judges that Iran does not yet have a nuclear weapon. Most agencies assess that Tehran could have one by the end of the decade, although one agency judges it will take longer. All agree that Iran could reduce this time frame by several years with foreign assistance."

If it bought the right engines, according to Walpole, Iraq "could test an ICBM within about five years of the acquisition."

And if it slipped out from various U.N. prohibitions, "Iraq would be likely to test an ICBM probably masked as an SLV [space launch vehicle] before 2015, possibly before 2010 with significant foreign assistance."

The bottom line, according to Walpole: "All this leads us to assess that the probability that a missile with a weapon of mass destruction will be used against U.S. forces or interests is higher today than during most of the Cold War, and it will continue to grow as the capabilities of potential adversaries mature."

It is worth noting that all this was occurring before the Bush administration pursued missile defense and thought about designing a low-yield nuke to deter rogues from developing and using weapons of mass destruction.

So, the administration's critics have it backwards — Bush isn't creating a threatening international environment, he's reacting to one.

Unless the New York Times and others will now consider North Korea just another mature, responsible country — since, after all, it may already have joined the nuclear "club."

Rev. Moon" is an opportunist. He has a long history of cultivating relations with the North Korean regime and it is very well-documents. Here's on example. Unification Church launches auto venture in North Korea.

Well, I see that Rev. Moon has been trying to pursue detente with the DPRK since 1991 which is a flawed policy at best, but one that is entirely understandable given the fact that he is a South Korean and one of his greatest hopes in life must be to see his country united after nearly 60 years of being divided along Cold War lines. Obviously, Moon has bought into the idiotic "Sunshine policy" of ailing ROK President Kim Dae Jong that was initiated as part of the Clinton-Carter Framework Agreement of 1994 in which the US agreed to support the construction of two modern nuclear reactors capable of building 60 nukes a year for the DPRK. Many of South Korea's policymakers have gone really wacky since 1994 when the President of the South Korea expressed grave concern at Clinton's appeasement deal with the North. However, you cannot call Rev. Moon "an opportunist" when after a lifetime of selfless service in the fight against global Communism, he mellows in his old age and warms to the Communist dictator of the North in the hopes that a peaceful reunification of the Korean peninsula might soon follow. Barry Goldwater went really wacky in his old age too endorsing abortion and gays after a lifetime in the service of the conservative cause, but do we call him "an opportunist" for so doing? No, we call him senile. This is most likely the case with Rev. Moon as well.

What is with your continuing assault against anti-Commuist heroes and icons anyway? Are you a paid agent of disinformation in the service of the Russian FSB? I really must say that I do not understand where all of your pent-up hatred against the anti-Communist cause is coming from given your reputation as an alleged "conspiracy theorist" who one would think would view the Communists rather than the anti-Communists as what they are--the greatest conspiracy of all time. You would do better to train your guns on the agents of globalism and internationalist Communism rather than attack poor old senile anti-Communist icons like Rev. Moon and anti-Communist heroes like Dr. Jonas Savimbi. If you were consistent, you would be attacking Reagan for trying to build up the Communist Chinese military with the latest and greatest US military technology of his time under his badly misnamed "Peace Pearl" program.

As to your final point, I agree with you that the Bush Administration is heavily compromised by pro-Communist Chinese business interests though I think you would be hard-pressed to say that Rumsfeld is part of some North Korean appeasement "racket" given his very public hardline view against Clinton's 1994 nuclear appeasement deal with the DPRK. You cannot always blame a man for the duplicity of his business associates. Every man should be evaluated based upon his own merits and on this basis, a national security hard-liner like Rumsfeld is a breath of fresh air which has gone far to balance out the power of Commie-appeaser Colin Powell, who the President should have fired long ago as a menace to our national security.

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