U.S. says ready to defend against North Korean nuclear threat

October 8, 2015

Reuters:

The U.S. government believes North Korea has the capability to launch a nuclear weapon against the U.S. homeland and stands ready to defend against any such attacks, a high-level U.S. military official said on Wednesday.

Admiral Bill Gortney, commander of U.S. Northern Command and the North American Aerospace Defense Command, said he agreed with U.S. intelligence assessments that North Korea had nuclear weapons, as well as the ability to miniaturize them and put them on a rocket that could reach the United States.

“We assess that they have the capability to reach the homeland with a nuclear weapon from a rocket,” Gortney told an event hosted by the Atlantic Council think tank.

Gortney said it was very difficult to predict the behavior of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un but the U.S. military was prepared to respond if he were to use a nuclear weapon…

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