"The North Koreans announced that they were going to do a space launch and I believe that that’s what they intend," Dennis Blair said in a hearing in the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee. "There's a space launch vehicle that North Korea launches, the technology is indistinguishable from intercontinental ballistic missiles. And if a three-stage space launch vehicle works, then that could reach not only Alaska, Hawaii but also part of what the Hawaiians call 'the Mainland' and what the Alaskans call 'the Lower 48.'"

It is the first time a senior U.S. official made a public statement about North Korea's concrete preparations. If Blair's opinion becomes the official U.S. position, it seems to accept North Korea's claim that it is to launch a satellite, not a missile, and the controversy surrounding a possible missile launch is likely to die down. If the intelligence agency has concluded that North Korea is preparing to launch a satellite, the chances that the U.S. will shoot it down are slim.

But Lt. Gen. Michael Maples, the director of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, in a written report to the hearing said additional missile launches or nuclear experiment could be included in the North Korean scenario.

Maples said North Korea may have a number of nuclear weapons made of plutonium from its main facility at Yongbyon, and it seems that Pyongyang at least sought a uranium enrichment program to produce nuclear weapons in the past.

North Korea expanded and developed technologies related to producing nuclear weapons, and it may have succeeded in making nuclear warheads for ballistic missiles, Maples added.

(englishnews@chosun.com )