SECRET MISSILE BASES, A GREAT DECEPTION
US intelligence officials say that the North’s production of nuclear material, new weapons and missiles at secret bases in the mountains has continued, write
NORTH Korea is moving ahead with its ballistic missile programme at 16 hidden bases that have been identified in new commercial satellite images, a network long known to United States intelligence agencies, but left undiscussed as President Donald Trump claims to have neutralised the North’s nuclear threat.
The satellite images suggest that the North has been engaged in a great deception: it has offered to dismantle a major launching site — a step it began, then halted — while continuing to make improvements at more than a dozen others that would bolster launches of conventional and nuclear warheads.
The existence of the ballistic missile bases, which North Korea has never acknowledged, contradicts Trump’s assertion that his landmark diplomacy is leading to the elimination of a nuclear and missile programme that the North had warned could devastate the US.
“We are in no rush,” Trump said of talks with the North at a news conference last week, after Republicans lost control of the House.
“The sanctions are on. The missiles have stopped. The rockets have stopped. The hostages are home.”
His statement was true in just one sense. Trump appeared to be referring to the halt of missile flight tests, which have not occurred in nearly a year. But US intelligence officials say that the North’s production of nuclear material, of new nuclear weapons and of missiles that can be placed on mobile launchers and hidden in mountains at the secret bases has continued.
And the sanctions are collapsing, in part because North Korea has leveraged its new, softersounding relationship with Washington, and its stated commitment to eventual denuclearisation, to resume trade with Russia and China.
Moreover, a US programme to track those mobile missiles with a new generation of small, inexpensive satellites, disclosed by The New York Times more than a year ago, is stalled.
The Pentagon once hoped to have the first satellites over North Korea by now, giving it early warning if the mobile missiles are rolled out of mountain tunnels and prepared for launch.
But because of a series of budget and bureaucratic disputes, the early warning system, begun by the Obama administration and handed off to the Trump administration, has yet to go into operation.
Current and former officials, who said they could not publicly discuss the program because it is heavily classified, said there was still hope of launching the satellites, but they offered no timeline.
The secret ballistic missile bases were identified in a detailed study and was published on Monday by the Beyond Parallel programme at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, a major think tank in Washington.
The programme, which focuses on the prospects of North-South integration, is led by Victor Cha, a prominent North Korea expert whom the Trump administration considered appointing as the ambassador to South Korea last year.
His name was pulled back when he objected to the White House strategy for dealing with Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader.
A State Department spokesman responded to the findings with a written statement suggesting that the government believed the sites must be dismantled: “President Trump has made clear that should chairman Kim follow through on his commitments, including complete denuclearisation and the elimination of ballistic missile programmes, a much brighter future lies ahead for North Korea and its people.”
A spokesman for the CIA declined comment.
The North Korea experts who have examined the images believe that the North’s motivations are fairly easy to interpret.
“It looks like they’re trying to maximise their capabilities,” Joseph S. Bermudez Jr., a co-author of the report and a veteran analyst of satellite images of North Korea, said in an interview. “Any missile at these bases can take a nuclear warhead.”
Weapons experts also say that North Korea, despite engaging in denuclearisation talks, continues to produce the fissile material that fuels nuclear arms.
The North is believed to have about 40 to 60 nuclear warheads.
If tensions rose, the report says, the missiles would be transported from the base to prearranged launching sites — often no more than a wide spot in a road.
The mobile launchers can move quickly — they can be ready to fire in under an hour — which is why the United States has been trying to get the small satellites into the sky for early warning. The satellites have a special kind of sensor using “synthetic aperture radar” that cuts through clouds.
The current, multibillion-dollar constellation of large satellites that keep an eye on North Korea is often out of position, and officials say the country’s ballistic missile sites are under surveillance less than 30 per cent of the time.
A map of North Korea in the report shows three belts of missile bases that run from shortrange tactical emplacements, to sites with midrange missiles that could strike most of South Korea, Japan and US bases in the Pacific, to strategic ones for missiles that threaten to reach American shores.
Weapons experts also say that North Korea, despite engaging in denuclearisation talks, continues to produce the fissile material that fuels nuclear arms. The North is believed to have about 40 to 60 nuclear warheads.