From CBS News:
CBS NEWS - The U.S. intelligence community now believes North Korea could have a reliable intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of carrying a nuclear warhead by sometime next year, U.S. intelligence officials tell CBS News.
The military's Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) draws the stark conclusion in a new classified report for the government, as first reported Tuesday by The Washington Post. The new assessment shortens the predicted timescale of dictator Kim Jong Un's quest for a nuclear weapon capable of reaching the United States by two years.
While not speaking directly of the classified report, an official from the office of the Director of National Intelligence acknowledged to CBS News that North Korea's recent successful ICBM test launch represented "one of the milestones that we have expected would help refine our timeline and judgments on the threats that Kim Jong Un poses to the continental United States."
"This test, and its impact on our assessments, highlight the threat that North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile programs pose to the United States, to our allies in the region, and to the whole world," the DNI's National Intelligence Manager for East Asia, Scott Bray, told CBS News on Tuesday, adding that the U.S. intelligence community was "closely monitoring the expanding threat from North Korea."
While South Korea has cast doubt on one of the North's key claims from the test firing, the Hwasong-14 rocket launched on July 4 is believed to be capable of reaching most of Alaska and possibly deeper into U.S. territory.
The biggest question remaining about North Korea's aggressive nuclear weapons program is when the rogue state will be able to build a nuclear warhead small enough to fit onto an ICBM -- and make an ICBM that can not only fly far enough, but also deliver its payload back into the Earth's atmosphere without incinerating.
Pyongyang claims to have proven the latter technology with the July 4th test, saying the Hwasong-14 demonstrated the vital "re-entry" ability, but there has been no proof. A member of the South Korean legislature's intelligence committee said just a week after the launch that his country did not believe the test had, in fact, demonstrated a re-entry capability.
Click for more on the story courtesy of CBS News.