- WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Top
U.S. intelligence officials said on Wednesday North Korea had one or two
nuclear weapons and a missile that could carry one to the West Coast of
the United States.
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- "They probably have one or two plutonium-based devices
today," CIA Director George Tenet told a Senate Armed Services Committee
hearing. "I think one or two is a very good judgment," he said,
confirming earlier U.S. intelligence estimates.
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- Asked if North Korea had a missile that could hit the
U.S. West Coast, Tenet replied: "Yes, they could do that."
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- After the hearing, Vice Admiral Lowell Jacoby, director
of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said North Korea had a three-stage
Taepodong 2 missile that could reach the West Coast of the United States.
"It has not been tested," he said.
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- Tensions have risen sharply between the reclusive communist
state and the United States after the discovery last year that North Korea
had secretly pursued a nuclear weapons program in violation of a 1994 agreement.
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- Since December, North Korea expelled international nuclear
inspectors and withdrew from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Earlier
on Wednesday the governing board of the U.N. nuclear watchdog passed a
resolution declaring North Korea in breach of U.N. nuclear safeguards and
sent the issue to the U.N. Security Council.
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