North Korea has the means to strike the west coast of the US with missiles and may already have developed nuclear payloads, the director of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has warned.
George Tenet told a Senate armed services committee hearing that the Stalinist state probably had 鈥渙ne or two鈥� nuclear warheads.
Vice Admiral Lowell Jacoby, director of the Defence Intelligence Agency, told the same senate hearing that North Korea has a Taepodong-2 missile that could reach the US, but said this weapon had yet to be tested. The last flight test of a missile conducted by North Korea was in 1998, when a Taepodong-1 was fired over Japan.
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The distance from the North Korean capital Pyongyang to Los Angeles is about 9500 kilometres. The CIA estimates the Taepodong-2鈥檚 maximum range to be about 10,000 km. But, according to reports of South Korean military information, the two or three stage missile has a maximum range of 6700 km.
Heavy load
Jacoby said a Taepodong-2 could 鈥渢arget parts of the US with a nuclear weapon-sized payload in the two-stage configuration, and has the range to target all of North America if a third stage was used鈥�.
The disclosure came just hours after North Korea was officially reported to the United Nations Security Council by the International Atomic Energy Agency for violating international nuclear non-proliferation agreements.
But not all defence experts are convinced that North Korea has the capabilities suggested by the CIA. Ben Sheppard, a defence analyst with Jane鈥檚 Information Group told New Scientist: 鈥淚t鈥檚 technically possible for them to develop a missile that could reach the US, but whether it could carry a nuclear payload is somewhat questionable.鈥�
A first generation nuclear warhead could weigh as much as 1000 kilograms, he says, which a Taepodong-2 would be unable to carry so far. Sheppard adds that it is also not clear that North Korea has successfully harnessed its nuclear energy programme for the production of nuclear weapons.
Inspectors expelled
The current international crisis began when the North Korea restarted a nuclear reactor that could be used to make weapons-grade plutonium in October 2002. The state then expelled IAEA inspectors on 31 December and withdrew from the international Non-Proliferation Treaty in January.
In 1993, North Korea signed a nuclear safeguards agreement officially declaring the extent of its nuclear weapons to the IAEA. Mark Gwozdecky, IAEA spokesman, was unwilling to speculate on North Korea鈥檚 current nuclear weapons capabilities but told New Scientist: 鈥淚n the early 90鈥檚 our inspectors discovered discrepancies in North Korea鈥檚 declaration. We knew that they had produced more plutonium than they had declared to us, but we were never able to determine how much more.鈥�
Gwozdecky says the IAEA would like to see North Korea allow inspectors to return to the country to continue their work.
The US, which has accelerated its controversial plans to construct a missile defence system shield, has named North Korea as a threat. North Korea has said any economic sanctions imposed in response to its renewed nuclear programme would be viewed as an act of war.