"DIA assesses with moderate confidence the North currently has nuclear weapons capable of delivery by ballistic missiles, however the reliability will be low."
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Well, it's not quite 16 words, but this sure created a ruckus.
During an April 11 hearing of the House Armed Services Committee, Rep. Doug Lamborn, a Colorado Republican, quoted this mistakenly unclassified passage from a March 2013 report by the Defense Intelligence Agency entitled Dynamic Threat Assessment 8099: North Korea Nuclear Weapons Program.
"Dynamic Threat Assessment" is a silly name for an intelligence product. (Can you imagine a "static" threat assessment?) Essentially, the Defense Department has a number of contingency plans -- the DIA generates these threat assessments to support the planning process.
In theory, these assessments are coordinated through the intelligence community, but DIA is the author. As Director of National Intelligence James Clapper has pointed out, others do not agree with what the DIA wrote.
Let me walk you through the language and explain what I think this argument is about. (I've also posted a Guide for the Perplexed at ArmsControlWonk.com.)
Let's start with the term "moderate confidence." Moderate confidence, according to a handy chart published with the 2007 National Intelligence Assessment on Iran, "generally means that the information is credibly sourced and plausible but not of sufficient quality or corroborated to warrant a higher level of confidence." In other words, if the North Koreans, and perhaps a defector or two, say so, and it is not impossible, that's moderate confidence.
The two important phrases are "capable of delivery by ballistic missiles" and "reliability will be low."
"Capable of delivery" refers to size -- the mass and dimensions of the warhead. I presume this means the DIA believes North Korea's warheads are small enough, which is not a surprise. In 1999, the DIA believed that North Korea could manufacture a warhead as light as 750 kilograms. That's about the weight that a Nodong missile could carry, although it's still pretty heavy for an ICBM, especially given the need for a couple hundred kilograms of heat shielding. Still, it's far below the 6,000-kilogram device we dropped on Nagasaki.
The issue of reliability refers to whether the warhead will work, particularly after being subjected to the very bumpy ride of missile delivery. In other words, the warheads are small enough, but they may not be tough enough to survive the trip.
It seems that this is where the disagreement lies. General Clapper explained that difference in confidence concerns "the actual ability of the North Koreans to make a weapon that will work in a missile...[N]either we nor the North Koreans know whether they have such capability. D.I.A. has a higher confidence level than the rest of the community on that capability. That's the difference."
At issue seems to be a view that unless the North Koreans prove it to us, we aren't buying it. Statements by both the Pentagon and DNI emphasize that North Korea has not "fully" demonstrated a nuclear-armed ICBM:
Pentagon: "[I]t would be inaccurate to suggest that the North Korean regime has fully tested, developed, or demonstrated the kinds of nuclear capabilities referenced in the passage."
Director of National Intelligence: "North Korea has not yet demonstrated the full range of capabilities necessary for a nuclear armed missile."
SUBJECTS:
