Obama Doubts That North Korea Can Make a Nuclear Warhead

www.nytimes.com...

WASHINGTON — President Obama said in an interview broadcast Tuesday that he did not believe that North Korea yet had the ability to miniaturize a nuclear weapon to fit atop a missile, and he said nothing would shake him from a strategy of refusing to “reward” the kind of provocative behavior exhibited by Kim Jong-un, the North’s leader.

Mr. Obama, speaking in an interview with Savannah Guthrie of NBC News that was recorded just before the bombings in Boston on Monday, implicitly dismissed a conclusion by the Defense Intelligence Agency, which said in a report last month that it had “moderate confidence” that the North already had mastered the technology of building a weapon that could fit into a missile warhead. After the conclusion became public at a Congressional hearing on Thursday, the director of national intelligence, James R. Clapper Jr., issued a statement saying that the agency’s position did not reflect the consensus view of the 15 other intelligence agencies.

So there is still doubt, but the general consensus is no.

The best part of this report is this: President Obama said.....

Since I came into office, the one thing I was clear about was, we’re not going to reward this kind of provocative behavior. You don’t get to bang your — your spoon on the table and somehow you get your way.”

Nice, old Kim is getting his knickers in a twist about bits of cardboard being burnt in Seoul and now this.

Basically being branded a baby by a higher power has gotta hurt huh?

More dummy spitting to come no doubt.

Not a "consensus"? So 15 other agencies don't know what this 1 agency knows... and somehow that negates that "someone" knows? And is trying to share? But... huh?

reply to post by Heliophant


Basically yeah, it seems that way.

reply to post by CaptainBeno


North Korea depends on food, fuel, & more from China and anyone else who will donate to them, even South Korea. Not only are the civilians starving and dying in the streets but their soldiers are also going hungry. The country is bass-ackwards and is clearly looney tune ville. So I'm with Obama that NoKo can't build a nuke to fit a top a missile that is capable of going anywhere. But then again, didn't they send a satellite into space?

Either way, if they nuke anyone they're going to be nuked back, end of story. So unless they all want to die they won't go through with this suicide mission.

Considering the U.S. intelligence community's track record on WMD's, I'll take Obama's statement with a grain of salt.

reply to post by Swills


Yep, you're right of course and I 95% agree with you.

Can't help thinking the stupid little jumped up dick head will do something totally stupid to make a point.

After all, now he has beat his chest he:

A: Will not be able to save face and go ahead and do something really stupid

or

B: Look at A

reply to post by CaptainBeno

Wow, he (Obummer) finally said something that makes sense.

reply to post by CaptainBeno


Cat is already out of the bag. Last week or so, a DIA official stated they did believe NK had the capability. That is a complete game changer. This is quite a major "mistake" to make, and that is what we are supposed to believe. True, analysts have said for years they didn't have the capability, but once you officially state they do, you can't stuff that cat back in the bag..... No Indian giving, no takesies backsies.

Reply to another:

Not only are the civilians starving and dying in the streets but their soldiers are also going hungry.

Know what happens when soldiers go hungry or aren't paid? Can you say revolution? Knew you could. No wonder we are playing the waiting game....

Obama is actually doing something that I agree with for once, not letting NK provoke us into a full scale war. NK has painted themselves into a corner and are now lashing out at the US and SK to get themselves out of this predicament without ruining their newly painted floor.

To be honest, we shouldn't even be reporting KJU's constant whinefests to the public every 1 or 2 days. We are just giving him a soap box to cry out on. Just ignore them and eventually the populace will either die off (unfortunate but nothing we can do) or revolt and overthrow him (and most likely install a new maniacal dictator in his place but still not our problem).