North Korea Can Miniaturize a Nuclear Weapon, and use on ICBM.

North Korea Can Miniaturize a Nuclear Weapon, and use on ICBM.(Fortuna)

North Korea has deployed its new road-mobile KN-08 intercontinental ballistic missile and is capable of mounting a miniaturized nuclear warhead on it, the U.S.’s top homeland security commander said.

“Our assessment is that they have the ability to put a nuclear weapon on a KN-08 and shoot it at the homeland,” Admiral William Gortney, the head of the U.S. Northern Command, told reporters Tuesday at the Pentagon. “We have not seen them do that” and “we haven’t seen them test the KN-08.”

He said “yes sir” when asked if the U.S. thinks North Korea has succeeded in the complicated task of miniaturizing a warhead for use on such a missile. North Korea has conducted three nuclear tests since 2006.

Gortney’s remarks are the strongest to date by a U.S. military official about the status of the KN-O8 missile and North Korea’s progress in making a nuclear weapon small enough to put on it, although they reflected the customary caution about what’s going on in the insular country.

Gortney said in congressional testimony last month that the KN-08’s mobility “will complicate our ability to provide warning and defense against an attack.” On Tuesday, he said that if North Korea were to fire a missile at the U.S., “I am confident we can knock it down.”

North Korea probably needs to improve the reliability and accuracy of its intercontinental ballistic missile, “hurdles that even more advanced industrialized countries would find challenging,” Schilling and Kan wrote.

“North Korea is seriously pursuing the deployment of more capable, longer-range, more survivable weapons,” they wrote. “In short, North Korea has already achieved a level of delivery system development that will allow it to establish itself as a small nuclear power in the coming years.” Hmmmm.......What worries me is how much of this technology have they shared with their buddy Iran? Read the full story here.