N. Korean missile
can strike U.S. mainland

It remains untested, but an earlier
version that could reach Hawaii
may be closer to operational status

---

Associated Press

WASHINGTON >> North Korea has an untested ballistic missile capable of reaching the western United States, intelligence officials said today.

The North Korean missile is a three-stage version of the Taepo Dong 2, said Vice Adm. Lowell Jacoby, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency.

It has not been flight-tested, Jacoby said, leaving some questions about the North Korea's capability to successfully launch the missile.

A 2001 U.S. government report said a three-stage Taepo Dong could deliver a several-hundred-pound payload from North Korea to targets about 9,300 miles distant -- sufficient to strike all of North America.

A two-stage Taepo Dong 2, which would be easier to use successfully, may be able to reach Alaska or Hawaii, it said.

CIA Director George Tenet, who joined Jacoby in briefing the Senate Armed Services Committee, also acknowledged the North Koreans have the capability to reach the western United States with a long-range missile.

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said he was unfamiliar with the testimony but said: "Technology and time means regimes like North Korea will increasingly have the ability to strike at the United States."

He said that is why President Bush supports building an anti-missile shield.

"We do have concerns ... about North Korea's missile development programs," Fleischer told reporters.

The revelation was certain to raise questions about Bush's priorities -- and whether North Korea or Iraq pose a greater threat to the United States. Baghdad does not possess weapons that can strike America, officials have said.

Fleischer said diplomacy has failed to curb Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction program for more than a decade, thus Bush made military action a front-and-center option. "That's not the case with North Korea," he said.

Tenet said North Korea probably has one or two nuclear weapons.

North Korea has held to a voluntary moratorium on flight tests of its long-range missiles, although officials in Pyongyang likely will conduct new tests.