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North Korea has effective nuclear weapons: CIA
Washington, Nov 09: North Korea has one or two nuclear weapons similar to the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, the US central intelligence agency has concluded.
Washington, Nov 09: North Korea has one or two
nuclear weapons similar to the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, the
US central intelligence agency has concluded.
North Korea has been able to validate its nuclear weapons
designs without a nuclear test, CIA told Congress, according
to an unclassified letter to the senate select committee on
intelligence in August.
The CIA believes, according to the letter, that conventional explosives tests conducted by North Korea since the eighties, have allowed the country to verify that their nuclear designs would work.
It believes that North Korea has one or two nuclear weapons similar to what America dropped on Hiroshima, Japan during the Second World War. A minority of us intelligence analysts believe North Korea may already have made more.
The relatively simple fission weapons North Korea is believed to have produced would presumably detonate a precisely built shell of conventional high explosives around a plutonium core, and the tests may have involved the designs for that shell.
The CIA has not publicised its communication to congress but it was obtained by the Federation of American Scientists which has now released the information. A CIA spokesman declined to expand on the agency's conclusions.
Bureau Report
The CIA believes, according to the letter, that conventional explosives tests conducted by North Korea since the eighties, have allowed the country to verify that their nuclear designs would work.
It believes that North Korea has one or two nuclear weapons similar to what America dropped on Hiroshima, Japan during the Second World War. A minority of us intelligence analysts believe North Korea may already have made more.
The relatively simple fission weapons North Korea is believed to have produced would presumably detonate a precisely built shell of conventional high explosives around a plutonium core, and the tests may have involved the designs for that shell.
The CIA has not publicised its communication to congress but it was obtained by the Federation of American Scientists which has now released the information. A CIA spokesman declined to expand on the agency's conclusions.
Bureau Report