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Subscribe to RSSChina has offered a rare criticism of Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea, after the country fired a long-range rocket that has been described by U.S. officials as a weapons test. NBC's Andrea Mitchell reports.
North Korea does not appear to be making preparations for a nuclear weapons test following Tuesday’s test of a space launch vehicle, which was believed to be cover for a long-range missile test, U.S. intelligence analysts told NBC News.
South Korean and Japanese officials had feared that a nuclear weapons test — its third after previous detonations in in October 2006 and May 2009 — would quickly follow the launch.
But word that the North isn’t thought to be preparing for a test is providing little solace for Seoul or Tokyo, mainly because recent intelligence suggests that the North has made significant advances in its nuclear weapons program.
According to a recent analysis, North Korea has a weapon stockpile that could threaten both countries and, in longer term, the United States. Some of the weapons have already been deployed, say U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity. Moreover, the North has begun research into more advanced and dangerous weapons, possibly even thermonuclear weapons, they say.
At the high end of the stockpile range, U.S. officials and other researchers said North Korea may already have up to "a few dozen" nuclear weapons that could be fitted atop its vast fleet of ballistic missiles. Those missiles are limited to an intermediate range, capable of hitting targets in Japan, South Korea or elsewhere in the northern Pacific, including U.S. military bases as far south as Guam, the officials believe.
South Korean Defense Ministry / Yonhap via AP
South Korean navy sailors carry debris from a rocket launched by North Korea, in the Yellow Sea, off Gunsan, South Korea on Wednesday. The debris is believed to be a fuel container of the first stage rocket. Defense officials said South Korea has no plans to return it to North Korea because the launch violated U.N. council resolutions.
'Highly provocative'
The U.S. believes the space launch test is part of a development plan for an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of reaching the continental United States with a payload of several hundred kilotons — 10 to 20 times the size of the bombs that destroyed the Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland hinted about that Wednesday, calling the launch "highly provocative" and a "threat" to regional security. The U.S. is "concerned that all of this launching is about a weapons program and is not about peaceful uses of space," she added.
More North Korea coverage from NBC News
For the past several years, the U.S. also has been monitoring North Korean research into thermonuclear weapons — hydrogen bombs and bombs known as boosted fission weapons, in which plutonium and uranium are combined for a higher energy yield. (The problem is that if the North conducted a test and claimed that it was thermonuclear, the U.S. would have difficulty determining if the North was telling the truth. The test site at Kilchu is far enough inland that the U.S. would not have access to the particulate matter needed to make an accurate determination, experts say. )
David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, or ISIS, a nonpartisan nuclear arms research group, said earlier this year that any tests in the future may also be about ensuring the reliability of North Korea's current weapons design.
There was anger, dismay and some surprise as North Korea launched a rocket in defiance of its critics abroad. NBC's Ian Williams reports from Beijing.
"Once you get beyond a dozen, it makes sense to test type and reliability of your weapons," he said. Albright said then that his group's estimate of North Korea's weapons stockpile is a bit less than those provided by the U.S. officials, but that ISIS, too, believes Pyongyang has "missile-deliverable weapons."
The design of the weapons is believed to be based on Chinese models (as were the first generation Pakistani nuclear weapons). The design is basic, and was developed in the 1960s with help from the Soviet Union, which used it to produce a whole line of nuclear warheads.
ANALYSIS: 'Spoiled child' North Korea snubs key ally China with rocket test
While some analysts suggest that the North is using its space rocket launch to gain attention ahead of next week’s presidential election in South Korea -- and possibly to force talks with the U.S. — some in the U.S. non-proliferation community think otherwise. They expect that once the North feels comfortable with its ICBM technology, it will deploy the missiles. They point to the Musudan intermediate range missile which was tested in middle of the last decade, then deployed — presumably with nuclear warheads — and aimed at Japan.
Once the North has confidence in the long-range missile based on the space rocket, U.S. officials believe they will deploy it as well, making North Korea the third nation to have nuclear weapons targeted at the United States, after Russia and China.
Many in the Obama administration see that as a more frightening prospect than Iran gaining nuclear weapons, believing that Tehran is a rational actor that will serve its own national interest and preserve the regime, compared to successive generations of North Korean leaders who have shown that they are unpredictable and erratic.
David Guttenfelder / AP
In this March 9, 2011 photo, a girl plays the piano inside the Changgwang Elementary School in Pyongyang, North Korea. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
But would it force the U.S. turn to conduct face-to-face talks with the North? Nuland said Wednesday that the North has a better option.
Speaking of the North’s 27-year-old leader Kim Jong Un, Nuland said: "He can plot a way forward that ends the isolation, that brings relief and a different way of life and progress to his people, or he can further isolate them with steps like this. He can spend his time and his money shooting off missiles, or he can feed his people, but he can't have both."
Robert Windrem is a senior investigative producer for NBC News.
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The Chinese have a greater stake in this than we do --this might also be a ploy by the pENTAGON TO KEEP THE LARGESE FLOWING TO THEM while the cities in this usa country die on the vine. No one seems to know too much about the rocket--other than the Janpanese and South Koreans --whats that about. The American people continued to get fleeced with the "fear factor"
And we expected??? Glad they decided to spend money on rockets to try and extort money from us instead of just giving up and feeding the people. Great bunch over there. When will Hillary and Obama be visiting to snuggle up?
Like Dick Cheney said, America's friends cannot trust the US and our enemies do not fear us. Obuma is more interested in destroting America than our enemies. Forward for 4 more years of incompetence.
Obama thinks they just want to get a rise out of him. So he won't play their game. He will just keep his mouth shut & act like it never happened. He will show them, by not playing their games. He is a very clever man. As soon as they figure out that he won't do or say anything about it, they will stop with their little fear mongering games. That Obama is one COOL Dude.
NK got nuclear weapons when Bush was in office. Americans did not seem to care than, so why all of a sudden do you care now?
From Texas with love
I don't remember NK shooting off any long range rockets up untill now. So NK perfecting a way to reach all over the Globe with a Nuclear Warhead should not bother anyone? At what point should it bother you, right after it is launched?
They didn’t want to make the same mistake that Sodom made under the Bush adim and not have any WMD to back up their boasting
Pretty much was if NK blew themself up no biggy but now the can reach out with it
From texas did you vote for Obama I guessing you did people can tell you anything and you follow right.
Baaaaa, no I didn’t, but I'm still eating their Grass
The bad news is that the rocket worked, the good news it can reach California.
Niki-440757
If NK hits California with a rocket, that will really piss the Mexican Government off.
quick we need scale down Missle Defence it's not need , if need we can recall them back too duty.
Oh now come on people. All Obama has to do is give him one of his "warnings" and the problems done with. The sea's shall part.
Obama doesn't have a foreign policy. He has a prayer rug and a big grin.
The danger to America is not Barack Obama, but a citizenry capable of entrusting a man like him with the Presidency. It will be far easier to limit and undo the follies of an Obama presidency than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to a depraved electorate willing to have such a man for their president. The problem is much deeper and far more serious than Mr. Obama, who is a mere symptom of what ails America . Blaming the prince of the fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools that made him their prince. The Republic can survive a Barack Obama, who is, after all, 'merely a fool'. It is far less likely to survive a multitude of fools, such as those who made him their President.
You are truly perceptive and wise my friend.
Hitler was pretty foolish when he attack Russia and started two side war but he still had followers till the very end. People need too get back too reading history for them self there is reason too read, so you can learn from screw ups in the past.
Everybody might want too read about the fall of Roman Empire since our government was build on that model and see how much we have in common now with their fall.
stop sending these folks foreign aid
wake up...we are the dumbest sumbitches in the world
We don't send foreign aid to NORTH Korea.
Maybe we should start it worked for Rome when Vikings came up river they fill their boats with Gold and they went home Right?
I still can not understand why we send any aid anywhere as long as we can't pay our bills and feed all our children (JUST THE CHILDREN)
tell you what everybody go next door and give them 2000 dollars, If you will not do for one that you live next too why to strangers over seas?
The irony of this issue is that the entire world loses in a nuclear exchange. If North Korea ever used a nuke it would be committing national suicide ; it would cease to exist. So they can pretty much just blow it out their sphincter orifice. The ultimate suicide bombing.
The same applies: :Bombs don't kill people, People kill people."
So North Korea has Nukes, don't we have any?? Or did Obama get rid of our Nukes already like he wants to? Don't we have Subs with nukes? Land based Missles with Nukes? Drones that could deliver a Nuke in the "Dear Leaders" Bedroom?? What the Hell are we worried about unless our Governmet won't use OUR Nukes because of "Political Correctness". Which in my mind is probably what will happen.
well to be honest Obama scraped a large % of ours.
Beside even if attacked with nuke you really can't fire one back not ICBM's too large payload and you cook everybody around them.
Boy don't you feel safe knowing that the North Koreans can now strike Calilfornia with it's nukes. China will use them to strike us! and Russia will use Iran to strike Isreal which is a psuedo US state. Once again our leaders have been fat dumb and stupid for the last 30 years! Hope you all have weapons and a plan for when America collapses. It's coming sooner rather than later. The rest of the world has been plotting America's destruction and are executing a plan. First attack has been launch against the dollar and our middle class wealth and it's been very successful. Americans need to wake up from our slumber!
what we did too USSR is just being done too us by china
Tarzan7
" Or did Obama get rid of our Nukes already like he wants to?"
How far up your a$$ did you have to go to dig that up?
Question for all you Obama haters; what exactly would you have him do about this?
golfsleft
He could go on Pimp with a Limp & tell us what type of Jello Pudding Pops he likes. You know something important like that. As long as he doesn't play the word game with NK, they will go away.
Hiroshima ..Little Boy 16 Kilotons
Nagasaki..Fat Man 21 kilotons
Obama should go back to the Bush/Cheney color coded terror alert system that Dumb FUX NEWS opinion entertainers were so impressed with...
Today is code ORANGE!
Time to lower taxes on the rich and invade Vietnam...
P.S. Go shopping everyone! it's the most patriotic thing you can do for your country...
yeah I'm going too go shopping and by all that China crap so the can loan it back too our government
Who's rattled? Not me. North Korea will never launch a nuke at the U.S. They would not survive long enough to see it impact, IF it impacted at all. Our submarines would obliterate Pyongyang in under 4 minutes. The era of airborne nuclear weapons is not the concern. The era of the "carry on" weapon of mass destruction is the real problem. While every country likes to boast about these weapons, they have proven over the last 70 years to be a useless expenditure of resources in the pursuit of detente. It's not the missiles from silos that keep the peace, they are missiles from forward operating bases and mobile deployments that actually deliver detente. In that respect, the United States is the hands down winner - at a cost of $700 billion a year.
They are sicko and had help from other sicko's so we HAVE two problems not just one bunch of sickass people.The big Q. WHAT DO WE PLAN TO DO..
You people need to listen to yourselves, you sound like a bunch of idiots. There is a reason we don't attack North Korea, and it does not matter which party is in control. Neither one has been able to come up with an answer because the casualties from an invasion of North Korea would be staggering. Our military is not big enough to sustain a ground invasion of that country. Using Nukes would endanger Japan, China and Russia which would endanger America. I stood that ground for more than 2 years, the North Koreans would eventually lose, but who would really lose? Us! The downfall of that country has to come from within, not the out side. Finding weapons of mass destruction has been used as an excuse before, of course NK has them and believe me they will use them, which means we would have to also. Everyone here in favor of attacking or going into that country needs to go down to the recruiting offices of which ever branch of the military you choose and sign up now because we will need plenty of canon fodder if we go to war with North Korea. Believe me it will not matter which Party is in control it is the military who will have the final word in this and with Gods help they are thinking with the heads on their shoulders and not the other one. Sergeant Major!
EXACTLY!!!!!
That why if nothing eles all aid that we sent in past needs too stop.That is also same problem with Iran , don't think the don't go over and over our ops in Iraq too learn and train.
Well here is my 2 cents.....some say we we invade Iraq and not North Korea. 2 big reasons. 1st..Sadam was an allie of the us for a very short time. He was fighting Iran. Regan sold him some good weapons. Seron gas tech to kill Iran military. Too bad he used them on the Kurds. and well we can't have someone using our weapons to kill a people we don't want to be killed. it would look bad. And 2 is China. last time we were fighting in Korea we won we killed off all the north Korean solders the war was over. But in china they did not like the idea of the us in there back yard Mao saw an opportunity to kill 2 birds with 1 stone. Send the generals and other high ranking officers who opposed him in the revolution at the time and get the us away from china.....we did not see this cumming. there were more Chinese solders than we had bullets. and that is were you see things stand in Korea now. If we invade Korea again china will most likely get involved again....this would get very very ugly. make the last war over there look like the 4 of July. The only thing we may be able to do is to bolster anti missile defence. Any thing else would piss off too many people.
Fools. The are not going to launch anything. They are going to give devices to Iran and have them placed in countries. Hey mr VP they do have a delivery system; it's called UPS or better yet USPS. If it fits it ships! Whats going to happen first people: The sun burns out or we blow ourselves up?
Seriously???
North Korea has managed to catch up with Hobby Lobby and now has a multi-stage rocket??
Albeit a slightly larger version, North Korea has attained what any 10 yo old in America has
had for TOYS for the past 30 years???
Give me a break, We are NOT going to stop technology in other nations regardless of how
much revenue is lost when they manage to set their own satellites into stable orbits.
As far as nukes? Get real, LOL We have 100 multi-warhead nukes dedicated to North Korea
and anti-missle deployment all across the Pacific
Ignore the ignorance and the fearmongers, Try some,,,,,,,,,,Logic
So, your idea is to let them build nukes and shoot them off into space and back to earth, or cruising along the ocean, or way up in the atmosphere because we can "probably" shoot them down, and besides, if they do we can shoot a bunch more back at them? Great plan there.
And you suggest??? LOL
Do you REALLY want to panic that badly??
They couldn't even stabilize the orbit of a satellite and you think their going
to attack our West coast? North Koreans may be nuts, But their not stupid
enough to attack a bear with a flyswatter
"they may be nuts, but not stupid...". Ok, that makes a lot of sense. Ya, the satellite is tumbling, but it made it to orbit...
No, no panic, just stop them before anything happens. And ya, after spending my year over there on the border... I think any bunch of people who would starve its own people by the hundreds of thousands would be happy to push the little red buttons.
Time for Hillary to go over and scare them with a stern warning... or just show up and let them have a look at her. Maybe some cool UN economic sanctions for a few years... ya....lets starve all the poor people more than they already are. Thats the ticket! Or California may be in danger... ok, leave them alone to their missles.
Crazy and crazy arrogant.! Don't they know the US has been a powder keg since three years into Duhbya. Worse now with the fiscal cliff. An outside threat would direct our seething anger away from each other and onto N.Korea, and from what I heard on the news this morning, their buddies, Iran. Hell have no furry like unhinged Americans.
Regan was on to something with the star wars defense if America had a offensive laser that could shoot these missiles down before they came out of the silo’s or onto the launching pad everyone would disassembling these missiles faster than they assembled them, and they would be a weapon of the past! We just haven’t had a president as smart as him since then! They’ve all been stupid next to him!