North Korea has the ability hit the United States with a nuclear weapon, according to a former CIA deputy bureau chief for Korea.
In comments that raise new worries about North Korea's recent testing of four ballistic missiles, the official told Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson, "I think North Korea already has, or we have to assume they have for claiming purposes, the ability to hit the United States today with a nuclear weapon."
Interviewed for the Sunday news magazine show, Bruce Klingner said, "There's grave concern about North Korea's growing nuclear missile capabilities."
He added, "Many experts think they already have a nuclear warhead for the medium range missile which can range South Korea and Japan, putting those two countries, our two allies, under a nuclear threat today."
The comments follow this week's testing of four ballistic missiles which landed in the Sea of Japan, short of that country's borders.
Klingner suggested that the U.S. take steps to bring more pressure on North Korea by putting it back on the lists of terrorist states. The former Bush administration too it off the list in a bid to better relations with the country.
He said: "I think [there's] actually been a really a long list of actions by North Korea since they were removed from the list in 2008, which I believe qualifies them for that. There's been shipments of conventional arms to terrorist groups, Hezbollah and Hamas. There have been attempted assassinations, or successful assassinations of North Korean defectors in South Korea and Russia and China and now Malaysia, so a number of these actions were intended to influence the government or the population. Also, you know, if we think back to when North Korea conducted the cyber-attack on the Sony Studio, not only was it the hacking, it was the threats of 9/11 styled attacks on any theater and theatergoers that went to see the movie, The Interview. That's, that's a threat of a terrorist act."
The show appears on Sinclair stations and is streamed live on Sundays at 9:30 a.m.
