Whoops! Pentagon accidentally reveals that North Korea may have a nuclear missile

Things are looking worse.
Things are looking worse.
Image: AP
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Just when you though the standoff with North Korea couldn’t get any more nerve-wracking, the US disclosed that the Pentagon has concluded “with reasonable confidence” that the Kim Jong-un regime has the ability to put a nuclear warhead onto a missile.

The US Defense Intelligence Agency cautioned that the weapon’s “reliability would be low”—a not especially comforting thing to hear about a nuclear missile that could conceivably be aimed at South Korea, Japan, or the US territory of Guam. Even worse, red-faced Pentagon officials admitted that the assessment was never meant for public consumption—it was accidentally declassified and read in an open congressional hearing.

US Secretary of State John Kerry is due to visit Seoul on Friday. Both the US and South Korea are on guard for a possible North Korean missile test.