[But the differences between this case and Iraq are considerable. There is no argument that the North can build a modest bomb — its most recent test is believed to have yielded an explosion of 6 to 10 kilotons, less than what the United States dropped on Hiroshima. But there does not appear to be clear evidence of its work on miniaturizing that bomb.]
By David E. Sanger and Eric Schmitt
Those contrasting views are vying with one another in the
intelligence community, and a hint of those differences came into rare public
view on Thursday when an assessment by the Defense Intelligence Agency that it
has “moderate confidence” that North Korea has the ability to shrink a nuclear
weapon and fit it into a missile warhead surfaced at a Congressional hearing.
That conclusion was disputed by James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national
intelligence, who issued a statement later in the day saying that it did not
reflect “the consensus” of the nation’s intelligence community.
The contradictory statements and sudden round of
finger-pointing seemed to underscore once again the difficulty of obtaining
reliable information — and making educated guesses — about one of the world’s
most closed societies. But it also highlighted the sensitivity surrounding
intelligence estimates in the wake of the highly publicized intelligence
failures leading up to the Iraq war, and some subsequent failures involving
North Korea.
“The situation is that there is so little direct evidence
that I don’t think it’s possible to come to a firm conclusion on whether or not
they currently have a nuclear warhead that can be delivered by missile,” said
Gary Samore, who until early this year served as President Obama’s coordinator
for weapons of mass destruction, “or how far away they are from getting there.”
Mr. Samore, now at Harvard’s Belfer Center, added that when
it comes to arming the North’s Nodong missiles — which can hit South Korea and
American troops there, but not beyond — with a nuclear warhead, “the best you
can say is that they might have.”
A decade ago the Defense Intelligence Agency was among the
most aggressive in pressing the case that Iraq had an active nuclear
weapons program. It
was famously deceived by information provided by an insider code-named
“Curveball.”
But the differences between this case and Iraq are
considerable. There is no argument that the North can build a modest bomb — its
most recent test is believed to have yielded an explosion of 6 to 10 kilotons,
less than what the United States dropped on Hiroshima. But there does not
appear to be clear evidence of its work on miniaturizing that bomb.
An administration official said that including an
unclassified passage in a largely classified seven-page assessment of North
Korean capabilities by the Defense Intelligence Agency was “clearly a human
error.” But he would not describe how it happened, nor would Defense Department
officials say how that single conclusion ended up in the open, especially if it
lacked the context of much more detailed reports.
In his statement, the famously press-shy Mr. Clapper said,
“North Korea has not yet demonstrated the full range of capabilities necessary
for a nuclear armed missile.”
On Friday morning, a Republican member of Congress said
“demonstrated” was the crucial phrase: North Korea has never conducted a test
of a warhead, showing that it could be precisely targeted or that it could
survive the heat and forces of re-entry into the atmosphere. But he said that
there is “a consensus building” among rival intelligence agencies that “If they
are not there, they are close to there.” Differences among the assessments, he
added, “are not huge.”
The last time the differences among intelligence agencies
came into such sharp relief was 10 years ago this spring, when the Bush
administration sought to explain why it had dismissed the dissenting opinions
of parts of the intelligence community over Iraq’s nonconventional weapons.
The Defense Intelligence Agency’s conclusion was clearly an
assessment that the Obama administration was not eager to share with the world.
Officials said that at a moment when there were troubles with Iran and Syria,
to say nothing of the rest of the Arab world, there was little desire to
rekindle the North Korean crisis. That is especially true because North Korea
has not demonstrated any capability to place its weapons on a missile, meaning
that all the intelligence assessments were based on analysis, not discoveries.
But that effort came undone when a staff member on a House
Armed Services subcommittee that oversees nuclear issues read a copy of the
agency’s classified report, as part of his regular staff work, according to two
people briefed on the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to
describe the internal communications between Congress and the Pentagon.
The staff member noticed an important one-paragraph
conclusion that was labeled “unclassified,” and went to the Defense
Intelligence Agency’s legislative affairs liaison, who confirmed it. The staff
member then alerted an influential member of the subcommittee, Representative
Doug Lamborn, a fourth-term Republican of Colorado and a co-chairman of the
House’s missile defense caucus, who decided to ask Defense Secretary Chuck
Hagel and Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
about the report’s conclusion at a budget hearing on Thursday. “It’s important
to have all the facts on the table,” Mr. Lamborn said in a telephone interview
Friday, adding that he had no misgivings about asking his question in a public
hearing.
Republicans in Congress have led efforts to increase money
for missile defense, and Mr. Lamborn said that he raised the issue largely
because the Obama administration proposed this week in its annual budget
submission to reduce financing for missile defenses by more than $500 million.
Given the agency’s responsibility for protecting American
forces, it is not surprising that the Defense Intelligence Agency has been the
most aggressive in arguing that North Korea is on the verge of marrying the products
of its nuclear and missile programs. Two years ago, Lt. Gen. Ronald L. Burgess
Jr., then the head of the agency, edged up to a similar conclusion, but with
several caveats.
In testimony to Congress, he said, “The North may now have
several plutonium-based nuclear warheads that it can deliver by ballistic
missiles, and aircraft, as well as by unconventional means.” The last two in
his list were important: it would require no new technology to devise a weapon
to fit on a plane or a donkey cart.
The hardest task, experts say, would be for North Korea to
design a warhead for an intercontinental missile. That warhead would go through
the huge heat and stress of leaving, then re-entering the atmosphere. The North
would have to design a warhead durable enough to keep from burning up, or
breaking up, on re-entry. That is why other agencies are more skeptical.
