U.S. officials tell NBC News they believe North Korea does have the capability to put a nuclear weapon on a missile and that they have missile deliverable nukes. Those missiles, however, cannot go more than 1000 miles. NBC's Richard Engel reports. By Alastair Jamieson, Jim Miklaszewski and Courtney Kube, NBC NewsAn advanced anti-ballistic missile system will be sent to Guam to protect American military sites, U.S. defense officials said as North Korea escalated its threats and warned “the moment of explosion is approaching fast.”
The Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense system is expected to arrive at the U.S. territory in the Pacific within two weeks.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said the rogue state’s provocations are "a real and clear danger and threat" (http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/04/03/17580610-north-korea-warns-its-military-allowed-to-wage-nuke-strikes-against-us?lite)to U.S. interests and Washington is taking them seriously.
"We are doing everything we can ... to defuse that situation on the peninsula," Hagel said after a speech Wednesday at the National Defense University at Fort McNair in Washington, D.C.
"I hope the North will ratchet this very dangerous rhetoric down," he said, adding that there is a pathway to peace but only if Pyongyang decides to be "a responsible member of the world community."
North Korea escalated its warlike rhetoric earlier Thursday, warning that its military is authorized to wage "cutting-edge smaller, lighter and diversified" nuclear strikes to protect against the United States.
"The moment of explosion is approaching fast. No one can say a war will break out in Korea or not and whether it will break out today or tomorrow," read the statement of an unnamed military spokesman.
The statement, which was carried by the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) (http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/24/16676455-north-koreas-poets-of-propaganda-stay-true-to-their-muse-despite-worlds-laughter?lite), informs the White House and the Pentagon that "the merciless operation of its revolutionary armed forces in this regard has been finally examined and ratified."
It also made reference to U.S. jet sorties over the Korean Peninsula (http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/03/28/17498063-nuclear-capable-stealth-bombers-sent-to-south-korea-amid-kim-jong-uns-threats?lite), which Pentagon officials said are routine joint military drills with South Korea.If North Korea were to employ nuclear weapons, it would impact U.S. troops and pressure Japan and South Korea to also consider obtaining nuclear weapons – something that could lead to an all-out arms race. NBC's Andrea Mitchell reports. "The U.S. high-handed hostile policy toward the DPRK aimed to encroach upon its sovereignty and the dignity of its supreme leadership and bring down its social system is being implemented through actual military actions without hesitation," the North’s statement read.
Meanwhile, a former UN official who visited North Korea last year reported that officials there said they could re-start the Yongbyon reactor in three months (http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/04/02/17561087-north-korea-to-restart-yongbyon-nuclear-reactor?lite).
That is a lot shorter than many U.S. nuclear experts believe a re-start would take.
U.S. officials told NBC News that no matter what the timeline is, they don't believe the operation would be a huge engineering challenge. A re-start would, however, be significant, as it would give North Korea the capability to make weapons-grade plutonium again. The reactor was shut down in 2007.
"North Korea's assertion that it intends to bring Yongbyon back on line can't be easily written off as an insurmountable hurdle," one U.S. official said.
China expressed "serious concern" to U.S. diplomats on Tuesday over the worsening crisis, while Russia voiced fears about the North’s military apparatus, saying human error or technical malfunction might quickly cause the whole situation “to go out of control.”
NBC News' Marc Smith, Andrea Mitchell and Becky Bratu contributed to this report.
Related:
What happens if North Korea gets out of hand? Here are some scenarios (http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/04/04/17573693-what-happens-if-north-korea-gets-out-of-hand-here-are-some-scenarios)
NBC News' Jim Maceda responds to your questions on North Korea tensions (http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/04/03/17585672-jim-maceda-responds-to-reader-questions-on-north-korea-tensions?lite)
Full North Korea coverage from NBC News (http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/north-korea)
This story was originally published on Thu Apr 4, 2013 4:17 AM EDT
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