By the end of the week, however, other U.S. officials played down the threat. Two counter proliferation officials, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitive subject matter, noted that intelligence agencies believe that although North Korea has the material to build eight or more nuclear bombs, there is no indication that Kim’s regime has tested a nuclear device. Nor is there evidence that North Korean scientists have figured out how to build a nuclear warhead small enough to load into the nose cone of a missile. A European diplomat, who also asked for anonymity because of intelligence sensitivities, said the missiles were built using decades-old Soviet technology and that they are powered by primitive liquid-fuel systems. By late last week, Vice President Dick Cheney was reassuring CNN that “North Korean missile capabilities are fairly rudimentary.”
A round of purported new revelations about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq followed a similar trajectory. Two GOP legislators, House intelligence committee chair Pete Hoekstra, and Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, cited an intel report that the administration declassified at their request as evidence that Iraq had chemical weapons before the U.S. invasion in 2003.
At a subsequent background briefing for journalists, however, several intelligence officials offered a far less dramatic explanation of what the declassified document meant. The officials said that since 2003, U.S. forces had discovered about 500 chemical-weapons shells, some containing mustard agent, some the nerve gas sarin. But the officials, who also requested anonymity because of the sensitive subject matter, said all the shells were manufactured before the first gulf war in 1991.
