CBS:
The top commander of U.S. nuclear forces said Thursday he assumes the Sept. 3 nuclear test by North Korea was a hydrogen bomb, suggesting a heightened U.S. concern that the North has advanced to a new level of nuclear firepower, even as it launched yet another ballistic missile over Japan into the Pacific Ocean.
Air Force Gen. John E. Hyten, commander of Strategic Command, told reporters that while he was not in a position to confirm it, he assumes from the size of the underground explosion and other factors that it was a hydrogen bomb — which is a leap beyond the fission, or atomic, bombs North Korea has previously tested.
Just moments after Hyten spoke at his headquarters near Omaha, word spread that North Korea had launched a mid-range ballistic missile over Japan. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, who was with Hyten at Strategic Command headquarters at the time of the launch, said afterward that it was a reckless act.
“It was fired over Japan and put millions of Japanese in the duck-and-cover,” he told a small group of reporters. “Landed out in the Pacific.”
