Northwest Indiana Discussion

U.S Delays Missile Test So As Not To Be “Misperceived” By North Koreans

Yes, Barry is catering to their nonsense.

La Cucaracha (Mexican Cockroach Song)

NORFOLK, VA. — The Air Force is grounding about a third of its active-duty combat aircraft because of automatic spending cuts.

The Department of Defense overall faces a $487 billion reduction in projected spending over the next decade and possibly tens of billions more as tea partyers and other fiscal conservatives embrace automatic spending cuts as the best means to reduce the government’s trillion-dollar deficit.

North Korea likely has nuclear weapons that can be delivered by ballistic weapons, according to a classified report by the Defense Intelligence Agency. The assessment comes amid escalating rhetoric by Kim Jong-un threatening nuclear strikes on the United States. It’s the clearest statement yet that the boy leader poses a legitimate and imminent nuclear threat.

According to the report, “DIA assesses with moderate confidence the North currently has nuclear weapons capable of delivery by ballistic missiles however the reliability will be low.” That line was read aloud by Rep. Doug Lamborn, a Republican from Colorado, on Thursday during a House Armed Services Committee hearing. Lamborn was questioning Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who seemed taken aback and declined to answer the question, saying, “I haven’t seen it and you said it’s not publicly released, so I choose not to comment on it.”

The conclusion from the DIA plays into a larger debate within the U.S. intelligence community about North Korea’s ability to launch a nuclear missile. While North Korea has conducted three underground nuclear tests since 2006, the U.S. has been divided for years on whether the country’s engineers can place a nuclear warhead atop a ballistic missile. The DIA report now shows that the military’s most important intelligence agency believes, albeit with “moderate confidence,” that North Korea has mastered the technology.

Yongbyon nuclear facilities, have kept the crisis simmering, and laid the basis for reported splits within the Bush administration over the best strategy for dealing with Pyongyang. Seemingly replaying debates marking the lead-up to the war with Iraq, newspaper analyses portray the State Department under Secretary of State Colin Powell pressing for diplomacy and efforts to reassure the North Koreans that the U.S. was not seeking regime change.

NORTH KOREA has warned Japan that Tokyo would be the first target in the event of a war on the Korean Peninsula, as it increased threats of an attack.

In a commentary carried by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), the communist country lashed out at Tokyo’s standing orders to destroy any missile heading toward Japan, threatening such actions will result in a nuclear attack against the island nation.

If Japan executes its threat to shoot down any North Korean missile, such a “provocative” intervention would see Tokyo — an enormous conurbation of 30 million people — “consumed in nuclear flames”, KCNA warned.

“Japan is always in the cross-hairs of our revolutionary army and if Japan makes a slightest move, the spark of war will touch Japan first,” the report added.