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North Korea state media celebrates 'gift' to 'American bastards'
North Korea state media celebrates 'gift' to 'American bastards'
Story highlights
- North Korean media lauds launch of ICBM; says it can reach the US
- Analysts wary of trusting KCNA as source but some take cautious approach to dismissing claims
(CNN)North
Korean state media is lauding what the country's leader Kim Jong Un has
called a "package of gifts" for "American bastards" on their July 4
Independence Day holiday.
State
media said Kim supervised the launch of Pyongyang's first
intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) Tuesday, which it says is
powerful enough to reach the US mainland.
"With
a broad smile on his face," Kim called on officials to "frequently send
big and small 'gift packages' to the Yankees," KCNA reported, as it
listed the technical successes of the rocket, identified by the North
Koreans as a Hwasong-14.
The
report said the missile was able to carry a "large-sized heavy nuclear
warhead," and despite "extreme overload and vibration the nuclear
warhead detonation control device successfully worked."
Among
the elements being tested was a warhead tip "made of newly developed
domestic carbon compound material" designed to withstand the extreme
heat of re-entry to the Earth's atmosphere.
It added "the warhead accurately hit the targeted waters without any structural breakdown at the end of its flight."
North
Korea said the missile flew on a steep trajectory, going 2,800
kilometers (1,741 miles) above the Earth, before splashing down in sea
off the Korean Peninsula 930 kilometers (578 miles) from its launch
site.
The missile was launched Tuesday from Panghyon, in North Pyongan province, and landed in the sea off the Korean Peninsula.
How true are the claims?
Claims
of unbridled success by North Korea's state media need to be taken with
a pinch of salt, said Melissa Hanham, a senior research associate at
the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies.
"We
can never take KCNA exclusively as a source because its so prone to
embellishment, (and) the information it reports can never be confirmed.
"On
the other hand, it's not out of the realm of possibility... I think its
best to assume that they have successfully tested an ICBM. The reason
they're sharing this technical data (through state media) is to prove
that they have it," she said.
The Pentagon late Tuesday confirmed North Korea's test was of an ICBM,
and South Korea's intelligence services Wednesday confirmed the
suspicion that its hostile neighbor fired a missile with a range greater
than 5,500 kilometers -- the generally accepted lower limit of an
intercontinental ballistic missile.
Range growing by each test
Hanham
said analysts are now examining the images provided by North Korean
state media, to look for similarities to previously launched missiles.
The
Hwasong-14 tested on July 4 is similar to the Hwasong-12, which was
test-fired in May, but perhaps with a larger engine configuration and an
extra stage, a section of the missile that's released during flight. "The second stage looks like something we haven't seen before," she said.
While
the test seems to have indicated the missile's range was at least 6,000
kilometers, Hanham said its maximum potential could be even further.
"The scary thing is, (we don't know if) they even tested it to its full
range," she said.
Another class of missile, the KN-08, aka the Hwasong-13, which was displayed during a North Korean military parade in April could have even greater potential.
Based
on analysis of its visible fuel and oxidizer tanks, it could hit as far
away as Washington DC, though that class of missile is yet to be
tested, she said.
North
Korean leader Kim Jong-Un inspecting the test-fire of the
intercontinental ballistic missile Hwasong-14 at an undisclosed
location.
David
Wright, co-director and senior scientist at the global security program
with the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), said North Korean rocket
scientists seem to be making advances on multiple fronts.
"One
of the things that's interesting, watching from a technical point of
view, is that it has eight or nine different missiles in development in
parallel," he told CNN.
"They're making progress and they have a lot of things in the workshop that they're putting together."
Warhead that can fit on an ICBM
There is a growing consensus among analysts that North Korea has the ability to build a warhead that can fit onto a missile.
Five
nuclear tests over the past 11 years suggest that the regime has indeed
developed nuclear weaponry, and many analysts now believe that the
miniaturization process is progressing rapidly.
If
images released by KCNA in March 2016, showing Kim posing with what
appeared to be a nuclear warhead, are to be believed, progress has
indeed been made on this front.
This
undated picture released from KCNA on March 9, 2016 shows Kim meeting
with nuclear scientists and technicians at an undisclosed location.
The
UCS' Wright thinks that while they may not yet have succeeded in
producing a warhead capable of being attached to their new class of
ICBM, the clock is ticking.
"The
big question is whether or not they can build something that's both
small enough and rugged enough to withstand the flight of a long range
missile," Wright said.
"That could
be a year or so. It's hard to tell. But it's clear that unless
something changes that they're on their way to both a long range missile
and a warhead to put on it.
"And I
would argue that that's exactly why the United States needs to be
finding a way to talk to North Korea to basically put a cap on this
program."
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