Obama says he doesn't believe North Korea has nuclear missile

(CNN) -- President Barack Obama has said he doesn't believe North Korea can fit a nuclear warhead on a missile, casting strong doubt on an alarming assessment disclosed last week by the Pentagon's intelligence arm.

 

And he warned the young North Korean leader Kim Jong Un that weeks of threats against the United States and South Korea had only served to isolate the regime further.

 

Asked in an NBC News interview whether North Korea could put a nuclear weapon on a ballistic missile, Obama said, "Based on our current intelligence assessments, we do not think that they have that capacity."

 

According to a snippet of a document read out by a congressman at a House Armed Services Committee hearing last week, the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency believes "with moderate confidence" that the North has developed nuclear weapons it could deliver on a ballistic missile, although with low reliability.

U.S. defense and intelligence officials sought to qualify the DIA's words soon after they were made public, saying North Korea hadn't "fully" demonstrated the capabilities mentioned. But Obama's comments in the NBC interview, which was recorded Monday and broadcast Tuesday, appear to be the strongest dismissal of the assessment yet.

 

Obama cautioned, though, that amid North Korea's recent dramatic threats, the United States has to "make sure that we are dealing with every contingency out there."

 

"That's why I've repositioned missile defense systems to guard against any miscalculation on their part," he said, an apparent reference to the recent decision to move missile defenses to Guam, a Western Pacific territory that is home to U.S. naval and air bases that the North has cited as possible targets for attack.

 

View the whole article here: http://edition.cnn.com/2013/04/17/world/asia/koreas-tensions/index.html