[Nonetheless, outside experts said that the report’s conclusions could explain why Mr. Hagel has announced in recent weeks that the Pentagon was bolstering long-range antimissile defenses in Alaska and California, intended to protect the West Coast, and rushing another antimissile system, originally not set for deployment until 2015, to Guam.]
By Thom Shanker, David E. Sanger and Eric Schmitt
 |
Mark Wilson/Getty Images
From left, Robert S. Mueller III of the F.B.I.; James R.
Clapper Jr. of national intelligence;
and John O. Brennan of the C.I.A.
appeared before a House intelligence committee
on Thursday on Capitol Hill. |
WASHINGTON —
A new assessment by the Pentagon’s intelligence arm has concluded for the first
time, with “moderate confidence,” that North Korea has
learned how to make a nuclear weapon small enough to be delivered by a
ballistic missile.
The assessment by the Defense Intelligence Agency,
which has been distributed to senior administration officials and members of
Congress, cautions that the weapon’s “reliability will be low,” apparently a
reference to the North’s difficulty in developing accurate missiles or,
perhaps, to the huge technical challenges of designing a warhead that can
survive the rigors of flight and detonate on a specific target.
The assessment’s
existence was disclosed Thursday by Representative Doug Lamborn, Republican of
Colorado, three hours into a budget hearing of the House Armed Services
Committee with Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and the chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin E. Dempsey. General Dempsey declined to comment on
the assessment because of classification issues.
But late Thursday, the
director of national intelligence, James R. Clapper Jr., released a statement
saying that the assessment did not represent a consensus of the nation’s
intelligence community and that “North Korea has not yet demonstrated the full
range of capabilities necessary for a nuclear armed missile.”
In another sign of the
administration’s deep concern over the release of the assessment, the Pentagon
press secretary, George Little, issued a statement that sought to qualify the
conclusion from the Defense Intelligence Agency, which has primary
responsibility for monitoring the missile capabilities of adversary nations but
which a decade ago was among those that argued most vociferously — and
incorrectly — that Iraq had nuclear weapons.
“It would be inaccurate
to suggest that the North Korean regime has fully tested, developed or
demonstrated the kinds of nuclear capabilities referenced in the passage,” Mr.
Little said.
A spokesman for the
South Korean Defense Ministry, Kim Min-seok, said early Friday that despite
various assessments. “we have doubt that North Korea has reached the stage of
miniaturization.”
Nonetheless, outside
experts said that the report’s conclusions could explain why Mr. Hagel has
announced in recent weeks that the Pentagon was bolstering long-range
antimissile defenses in Alaska and California, intended to protect the West
Coast, and rushing another antimissile system, originally not set for
deployment until 2015, to Guam.
Also Thursday, Mr.
Clapper sought to tamp down fears that North Korean rhetoric could lead to an
armed clash with the United States, South Korea and regional allies, and a high
South Korean official called for dialogue with North Korea.
Mr. Clapper told a
hearing of the House Intelligence Committee that in his experience, two other
confrontations with the North — the seizure of the Navy spy ship Pueblo in 1968
and the death of two military officers in a tree-cutting episode in the
demilitarized zone in 1976 — stoked much greater tensions between the two
countries. The statement by the South Korean official, Unification Minister
Ryoo Kihl-jae, was televised nationally, and it represented a considerable
softening in tone by President Park Geun-hye’s government.
Secretary of State John
Kerry, meanwhile, was scheduled to arrive in Seoul on Friday and to travel to
China and Japan after that. He has two principal goals on the last leg of a
six-nation trip: to encourage China to use its influence to persuade North
Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program while reassuring South Korea and
Japan that the United States remains committed to their defense.
The report issued by the
Defense Intelligence Agency last month was titled “Dynamic Threat Assessment 8099:
North Korea Nuclear Weapons Program.” Its executive summary reads: “D.I.A.
assesses with moderate confidence the North currently has nuclear weapons
capable of delivery by ballistic missiles; however the reliability will be
low.”
A spokesman for Mr. Lamborn,
Catherine Mortensen, said the material he quoted during the hearing was
unclassified. Pentagon officials said later that while the report remained
classified, the one-paragraph finding had been declassified but not released.
Republicans in Congress have led efforts to increase money for missile defense,
and Mr. Lamborn has been critical of the Obama administration for failing to
finance it adequately.
North Korea has
conducted three nuclear tests, including one this year, and shot a ballistic
missile as far as the Philippines in December. American and South Korean
intelligence agencies believe that another test — perhaps of a midrange missile
called the Musudan that can reach Japan, South Korea and almost as far as Guam
— may be conducted in the coming days, to celebrate the birth of Kim Il-sung,
the country’s founder. At the Pentagon, there is particular concern about
another missile, yet untested, called the KN-08, which may have significantly
longer range.
“North Korea has already
demonstrated capabilities that threaten the United States and the security
environment in East Asia,” Mr. Clapper told the House Intelligence Committee.
He added that “we
believe Pyongyang has already taken initial steps” toward fielding what he
called a “road-mobile intercontinental ballistic missile.” He appeared to be
referring to the KN-08, provided to North Korea by a Russian company and based
on the design of a Russian submarine-launched nuclear missile.
Mr. Clapper referred to
“extremely belligerent, aggressive public rhetoric towards the United States
and South Korea” by the North’s young president, Kim Jong-un. And he made it clear that
getting inside Mr. Kim’s head, and understanding his goals, had been
particularly frustrating.
He suggested that while
Mr. Kim’s grandfather and father had clear motives — to periodically threaten
the world with nuclear crises, then wait to get paid in cash, food or equipment
to lower the rhetoric — the younger Mr. Kim apparently intended to demonstrate
both to North Koreans and to the international community that North Korea
deserves respect as a nuclear power.
“His primary objective
is to consolidate, affirm his power,” Mr. Clapper told the House committee,
adding that “the belligerent rhetoric of late, I think, is designed for both an
internal and an external audience.”
Asked if the North
Korean leader had an “endgame,” Mr. Clapper said, “I don’t think, really, he
has much of an endgame other than to somehow elicit recognition from the world
and specifically, most importantly, the United States, of North Korea as a
rival on an international scene, as a nuclear power, and that that entitles him
to negotiation and to accommodation, and presumably for aid.”
Other officials have
said, in background interviews, that Mr. Kim is trying to get North Korea into
the same position as Pakistan: an acknowledged nuclear power that the West has
given up hopes of disarming.
Mr. Clapper appeared
with the heads of several other intelligence agencies, including Lt. Gen.
Michael T. Flynn of the Defense Intelligence Agency; the F.B.I. director,
Robert S. Mueller III; and the C.I.A. director, John O. Brennan, to present
their annual assessment of the threats facing the nation. The same officials
briefed the Senate Intelligence Committee last month.
Even as they sought to
explain the North Korean leader’s recent bellicose threats, which have prompted
American and South Korean troops to increase alert levels, Mr. Clapper and
other top intelligence officials acknowledged that United States spy agencies
do not know much about Mr. Kim.
“Kim Jong-un has not
been in power all that long, so we don’t have an extended track record for him
like we did with his father and grandfather,” Mr. Brennan said. “That’s why we
are watching this very closely and to see whether or not what he is doing is
consistent with past patterns of North Korean behavior.”
Mr. Clapper added that
with such little information on Mr. Kim, “there’s no telling how he’s going to
behave.”
“He impresses me as
impetuous, not as inhibited as his father became about taking aggressive
action,” he added. “The pattern with his father was to be provocative and then
to sort of back off. We haven’t seen that yet with Kim Jong-un.”
As for what might change
the North’s posture, Mr. Clapper pointed to China’s new leadership. “I think
probably if anyone has real leverage over the North Koreans, it is China,” he
said.
Michael R. Gordon contributed reporting from
Manas, Kyrgyzstan, and Choe Sang-hun from Seoul.
