Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said Tuesday North Korea has made good on earlier threats to expand its Yongbyon uranium enrichment facility as well as its graphite-moderated plutonium production reactor.
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Director of National Intelligence James Clapper also warned the growth of terror groups into nations such as Libya will make it more hard to prevent such attacks.
The launch came weeks after Pyongyang carried out its fourth nuclear test. Beijing has in the past proved reluctant to support biting multilateral sanctions against North Korea, for fear of destabilising a regime on China’s border. US-based experts have estimated that North Korea may have about 10 bombs, but that could grow to between 20 and 100 by 2020.
The DPRK said Sunday that it had successfully launched a Kwangmyongsong-4 Earth observation satellite into orbit, about a month after Pyongyang claimed that it had successfully tested its first hydrogen bomb.
Speaking of the North’s missile program, the intelligence chief said that Pyongyang is also committed to developing “a long-range, nuclear-armed missile that is capable of posing a direct threat” to the USA, and has publicly displayed its KN-08 road-mobile intercontinental ballistic missile on many occasions.
Stewart added that cyber-attacks by state actors such as Russian Federation and China target USA defense personnel, networks, supply chains and critical structural information.
In addition, the nation’s cyber infrastructure remains vulnerable to attack by terrorists such as ISIL, as well as by states such as Russia, China, Iran and North Korea, Clapper said. In particular, his statements offered little assurance that Iran is acting as an honest actor with the US and the other states involved in last year’s negotiations, or that the nuclear deal will stop Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. And Iran still has the largest inventory of ballistic missiles in the Middle East. Nuclear proliferation was only one of a long list of threats Clapper raised, from failing states and the migration crisis to terrorist plots by the Islamic State and potential cyberattacks. “We may be able to begin the campaign, do some isolation operations around Mosul”, he said.
Russia’s neighboring states, including America’s North Atlantic Treaty Organisation allies, also feel some “anxiety” over Russia’s meddling in Ukraine and its “willingness to covertly use military and paramilitary forces in a neighboring states”, Clapper said in the report.
Indeed, Clapper conceded that the missile defense is a threat to Russia’s “great power status” because it would “neuter” their nuclear arsenal.
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Taking Back Mosul: Stewart said he was not optimistic about taking Mosul from ISIS in the near term, saying it’s unlike to happen in the next year. “He certainly is in a much stronger negotiating position than he was just six months ago”, Stewart said. “Pyongyang continues to produce fissile material and develop a submarine-launched ballistic missile”, Clapper said.
