North Korea's Missile Threat

This should not come as a surprise to anyone, we have covered this missile before. I wrote on the test failure of the Taep'o dong-2 when it occurred. At the time I said "this is not a long term setback for the North Koreans".

NKorea capable of building a missile that can hit the US: US intel

North Korea is technically capable of building a long-range missile that can hit the United States despite a test failure last year, a senior US military intelligence official said Tuesday.

Lieutenant General Michael Maples, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said North Korea has probably learned from the failure of its Taepodong-2 missile during a test in July, and made changes to its other missiles.

"I believe they have the technical capability, as we saw by the Taepodong, but they have not successfully tested it yet," he told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Asked how long before North Korea would have a missile capable of reaching the United States, he said, "I would probably estimate it's not a matter of years."

They do not yet have the technology to reduce the size of a nuclear warhead sufficiently to put it on a missile, but they will figure that out as well.