A top U.S. military official suggested Tuesday that North Korea manipulated a video of its recent test of a submarine-launched ballistic missile to exaggerate progress in its SLBM development.
"Just a few weeks ago, we saw Pyongyang raving about a test of its submarine-launched ballistic missile capability. Fortunately, they've not gone as far as their clever video editors and spinmeisters would have us believe," Adm. James A. Winnefeld Jr., vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said during a discussion at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
"They are many years away from developing this capability," he said.
The North claimed earlier this month that leader Kim Jong-un oversaw a successful underwater test-launch of a "strategic submarine ballistic missile." The test, if confirmed, would represent a significant step forward in the North's missile technology.
But last week, Joseph Bermudez, a top North Korea military expert, claimed that the North is believed to have test-fired the missile from a submerged barge, not from a submarine, and that the North appears to have "photoshopped" images of the test to exaggerate progress.
South Korean officials said they believe the North's imagery was not manipulated.
Winnefeld stressed a North Koren SLBM, if fully developed, would be a serious threat.
Should North Korea eventually develop the capability, it will present a hard-to-detect danger for Japan, South Korea as well as our servicemembers stationed in the region. This only reinforces the importance of regional ballistic missile defense," he said.
Winnefeld said the U.S. is interested in using the THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) missile defense system to help defend South Korea from North Korean threats, but emphasized that it is up to the host nation to decide whether to accept the system.
"Of course, we are interested in the potential for using this system to augment the defense of this important ally, including our own troops who are there to help defend the ROK from attack from the North. It's a good system. It will not pose a threat to any other nation in the region," the admiral said.
He stressed that the two countries have not yet engaged in formal negotiations or discussions about the possibility of a THAAD deployment and the U.S. is "respectful of our host nation's concerns" and won't put the system there unless Seoul wants the system.
"So, I'll leave it to the diplomats and the negotiators and the like, but I just want to emphasize one more time, we have not opened up any kind of discussion formally with South Korea on this particular topic," Winnefeld said.
"When it's ripe I'm sure we'll get into that, but we're approaching this very cautiously because we have such great respect for our partners," he said.
In Seoul, South Korean military officials dismissed speculation that the imagery of the North's SLBM test was bogus.
"South Korean and U.S. intelligence authorities agree that North Korea succeeded in the shoot-out test of SLBM itself," a Defense Ministry official said. "It has been confirmed to be true that an SLBM was fired from a submarine and soared out of the water to fly around 150 meters."
The remarks by the U.S. admiral seem to emphasize that the North's SLBM technology still falls short of what it wanted to show off.
"It seems like what he meant is that North Korea's SLBM capability is not at a worrisome level yet," the official said, requesting anonymity. (Yonhap)
