US sees North Korea becoming direct threat, eyes ICBMs

North Korea is becoming a direct threat to the United States and could develop an inter-continental ballistic missile within five years, US Secretary of Defence Robert Gates said on Tuesday. The threat was first publicised by the US intelligence community in 2001, but experts said Gates' comments could reflect progress North Korea had made in recent test launches.
Gates detailed the new US assessment of Pyongyang's capabilities during a visit to Beijing, where he praised Chinese efforts to reduce tension on the Korean peninsula but also stressed the urgency to rein-in the reclusive state. China is North Korea's top diplomatic and economic backer, and Gates said North Korea would likely come up in talks between Chinese President Hu Jintao and US President Barack Obama in Washington next week.
"With the North Koreans' continuing development of nuclear weapons and their development of inter-continental ballistic missiles, North Korea is becoming a direct threat to the United States," Gates told reporters after talks with Hu. Gates said he did not believe North Korea was an immediate threat, but added it was also not a "five-year threat."
"I think that North Korea will have developed an inter-continental ballistic missile within that time - not that they will have huge numbers or anything like that," Gates said. "But they will have, I believe they will have a very limited capability."
Analysts said Gates' assessment was identified in the 2001 US National Intelligence Estimate, which projected that during the next 15 years the United States "most likely" would face ICBM threats from North Korea and Iran. "Those who follow North Korea know that this has been a threat long in the works," said Bruce Klingner, a Korea expert at the Heritage Foundation in Washington.
But he said Gates can be assumed to be working from current intelligence, which could reflect that the long-range "Taepodong 2 test launch (in 2009), which though was seen as a failure, actually doubled the effective range of that missile." North Korea's arsenal already includes intermediate-range missiles that can hit targets at up to 3,000 km (1,860 miles) away, the Yonhap news agency quoted a South Korean official as saying last year. Those missiles could hit all of Japan and put US military bases in Guam at risk.
North Korea has also been seeking to develop long-range missiles for over a decade. Tests of its Taepodong-2, with an estimated range of 6,700 km (4,160 miles), suggested it was still a long way off from producing the complete weapon, however. In a 2006 test, it fizzled out after a few seconds in the air. A second test in 2009 was seen as a technical failure, although it stayed airborne longer.