Posted on 03/14/2002 8:04:12 AM PST by My Identity
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."
That means North Korea may already be a nuclear-weapon state. This is news.
Just last Sunday, the Washington Post reported, "North Korea may have enough fissile material for one or two nuclear weapons, U.S. analysts say."
But this conventional wisdom appears to be outdated.
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."
Feeling secure yet?
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."
Foreign assistance is the great friend of rogues generally.
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."
Feeling secure yet?
What me worry? As soon as they launch the first missle they will be on the receiving end of total obliteration.
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North Korea threatened to review all agreements with the United States over a reported US nuclear strategy which targets seven countries -- including the communist state -- for possible attacks.
The North's foreign ministry warned in a statement late Wednesday that the Stalinist country would have "no option but to take a substantial countermeasure" against the United States.
"We are compelled to examine all the agreements with the United States in case the US plan for a nuclear attack on the DPRK (North Korea) turns out to be true," the ministry said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
According to leaks to the US media, the US Defense Department's Nuclear Policy Review calls for a shift away from the Cold War posture of using the US nuclear arsenal to deter a nuclear strike from the former Soviet Union.
It sees China, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Russia and Syria as potential targets for US nuclear strikes, according to the Los Angeles Times report.
US officials have tried to allay international fears saying the report merely listed options at the disposal of US authorities.
The North slammed the reported US strategy as "a daydream of the reckless persons who do not hesitate to stifle" the communist country by using nuclear weapons.
In a separate statement aired by by state radio stations, the North's foreign ministry inisted that Pyongyang had "faithfully" implemented agreements signed with Washington in 1993 and 1994.
The Cold War enemies issued a joint statement in 1993 to defuse a nuclear crisis triggered by the North's withdrawl from an international nuclear safeguard accord.
In 1994, they signed a landmark agreement under which the North froze its suspected nuclear weapons program. In return, the United States pledged diplomatic and economic incentives.
The 1994 Agreed Framework set the stage for a string of rapprochemment talks between North Korea and the United States.
But the North has threatened to end the 1994 aggreement slamming what it calls a "hostile" policy of US President George W. Bush. It has also rejected Bush's demand for a full inspection of North Korean nuclear facilities.
The North has denounced the United States for delaying a 4.6-billion-dollar project to build two nuclear energy reactors that produce less weapons-grade plutonium.
The reactor project was due to be completed by 2003, but delays have pushed back the finish until at least 2008.
US officials have warned that the construction might suffer further delays if the North refuses to allow checks on its nuclear activities.
The Korean peninsula remains the world's last Cold War frontier after its division into the pro-Western South and the Stalinist North in 1945.
The South is home to some 37,000 US troops. The US has maintained a presence there since the 1950-53 Korean War to deter any attack from the North.
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