“North Korea Considers Nuclear Arms a Guarantee of Survival”

Lowell Jacoby, the director of the U.S. Defense Information Agency (DIA), forecasted on March 17 that North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Il, wouldn’t completely abandon nuclear armament-related technology in order to maintain the North’s deterrent capability against the South and the U.S.

Jacoby stated the above-mentioned matter at a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee, saying that the North Korea government considers nuclear weapons to be a decisive deterrent for its survival, as shown in its recent (February 10) declaration that it has nuclear weapons.

He added that Kim Jong Il had been in negotiations on the development of nuclear weapons before, and that there was no way to tell if North Korea would sell its nuclear armaments or other weapons technology to others.

Jacoby further stated that North Korea would raise foreign currency by selling its nuclear arms or other weapons-related technology, and that it would continue to develop its ballistic missiles for its self-defense.

He also emphasized the DIA’s evaluation, saying that the North might have finished its launch test of the Daepodong-2 missile that is capable of delivering a nuclear warhead.

Meanwhile, Porter Goss, the head of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), who attended the hearing with Jacoby, said in response to the question of whether North Korea was trying to make the outside world believe its possession of nuclear arms was to maximize its deterrent capability from fear of an attack from the U.S. military that North Korea could be doing so.

When asked about the amounts of North Korean nuclear weapons and its ability to attach nuclear arms to missiles in the form of a nuclear warhead, CIA director Goss only said that he would testify on that question not openly, as the matter was confidential.

Seung-Ryun Kim srkim@donga.com