Fox News reports exclusively that North Korea will respond to the upcoming UNSC resolution by conducting a nuclear test, launching a Taepodong-2 ballistic missile, and more. Apparently the DPRK could care less about what the UNSC condemns.
U.S. intelligence officials have warned President Obama and other senior American officials that North Korea intends to respond to the passage of a U.N. Security Council resolution this week — condemning the communist country for its recent nuclear and ballistic missile tests — with another nuclear test, FOX News has learned.
What’s more, Pyongyang’s next nuclear detonation is but one of four planned actions the Central Intelligence Agency has learned, through sources inside North Korea, that the regime of Kim Jong-Il intends to take — but not announce — once the Security Council resolution is officially passed, likely on Friday.
The other three actions include the reprocessing of all of the North’s spent plutonium fuel rods into weapons-grade plutonium; a major escalation in the North’s uranium-enrichment program; and the launching of another Taepodong-2 intercontinental ballistic missile from the Yunsong military complex on the west coast of North Korea. The North last launched a Taepodong-2 on April 5; it conducted its second nuclear test in the last three years on Memorial Day.
The intelligence community only learned of North Korea’s plans this week, prompting CIA to alert senior officials. Asked who would be briefed on this kind of data, a source told FOX News: “The top people: POTUS, DNI.” “POTUS” is acronym for the president of the United States; “DNI” refers to the director of the Office of National Intelligence.
No doubt this provocation, sparked by a strongly-worded memo condemnding the previous provocation, will result in a strongly-worded memo from the UNSC, which will result in another provocation. Perhaps even a visit from Hans Blix (Content Warning) is in store for Kim.
Seriously though, this round-about has become so pathetic that it’s laughable. If President Obama wanted to show Kim how serious we are about stopping the North’s nuclear program, he might consider utilizing our Aegis systems to take out the ballistic missile mid-flight. But, as Ed Morrissey says, we’ll be lucky to get a strong statement of condemnation from the White House.
by Stephan Tawney on Thu, Jun 11, 2009