Missile Threat to U.S. ‘Serious,’ Report Warns

WASHINGTON —  The U.S. intelligence community warned Thursday that proliferation of medium-range ballistic missiles, driven primarily by sales from North Korea, presents an “immediate, serious and growing threat” to U.S. forces and allies in the Middle East and Asia and has “significantly altered” the strategic balances there.

The unexpectedly dire assessment by the National Intelligence Council also warns for the first time that “rogue” nations developing ballistic missiles will seek to build systems to jam, evade or overwhelm potential U.S. antimissile defense systems. It adds that Russia and China “probably” will sell their own countermeasure technology to other countries.

The report thus provides strong ammunition to both sides in the contentious political debate over whether the U.S. should build national or regional antimissile systems. Missile-defense supporters cite the threat from North Korea as justification, while critics predict that the systems will never work and could spark a new arms race.

Although the number of nuclear-armed missiles capable of striking the United States has decreased since the Cold War, the report says the world has grown less secure because missile technology has spread to unpredictable regimes such as North Korea and Iran. Such states may threaten to use missiles as a means of diplomatic blackmail, rather than for warfare.

“It feels more dangerous because there are so many more factors,” a senior intelligence official said during a briefing at CIA headquarters, where a 16-page unclassified version of the report was released Thursday. He said the probability that a missile armed with a nuclear, chemical or biological weapon will be used against U.S. forces or interests is “higher today than during most of the Cold War.”

The report concludes that the United States will “most likely” face ballistic missile threats over the next 15 years from Russia, China and North Korea, “probably” from Iran and “possibly” from Iraq.

It said Russia, which now has about 1,000 strategic ballistic missiles and 4,500 nuclear warheads, “will continue to be the most robust and lethal” threat. But it said Russia’s nuclear force is expected to decrease dramatically, far below limitations set by arms control treaties, because of severe budgetary constraints.

China, which now has about 20 intercontinental ballistic missiles, is expected to have “tens of missiles” capable of targeting the United States by 2015.

The intelligence official said there is no evidence, despite China’s first test last month of the solid-fueled, mobile DF-31 intercontinental missile, that Beijing is seeking a first-strike capability. Chinese policy calls for a nuclear force that could survive a nuclear strike and launch a counterattack, thus serving as a deterrent.

The report said Iran could test a missile able to deliver a payload of several hundred kilograms to the United States in the last half of the next decade using Russian technology and assistance, but most analysts believe that it could test a less powerful, less accurate missile in the next few years.

The Stalinist regime in North Korea, however, remains the greatest concern. Pakistan and Iran have tested new missiles in the past 14 months that were based on North Korean designs, assistance or technology.

The report acknowledges that North Korea’s launch of a three-stage rocket that flew over Japan in August 1998 was “completely unexpected” by U.S. intelligence agencies. The rocket, which failed to put a satellite into orbit, could easily be modified to carry a warhead.

More immediately, U.S. negotiators attending talks this week in Berlin are trying to persuade North Korea not to test a new intercontinental ballistic missile, called the Taepodong 2, that is deemed ready for launch. Washington wants North Korea to freeze or phase out its ballistic missile development, testing and sales.

Overall, the report is more alarmist in tone than the last official intelligence assessment of the ballistic missile threat to the United States, issued in March 1998.

Four months later, a bipartisan congressional panel led by former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld warned that North Korea and Iran could strike U.S. territory with “little or no warning” and criticized the intelligence community for being too complacent.

The new report follows Rumsfeld’s lead, for the first time presenting ominous scenarios of what potential enemies could do over the next 15 years, as opposed to offering only what analysts deem them most likely to do.

Joseph Cirincione, director of the nonproliferation project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said the new assessment is less helpful to policymakers.

“After the Rumsfeld report, all the intelligence officials are hedging their bets,” Cirincione said. “They’re now telling us of the threats that conceivably may appear, rather than threats they honestly think will appear. So they’re less useful to policymakers, although they’re more useful for political campaigns.”

During the Cold War, he said, Brazil, Argentina, Libya, Egypt and South Africa were all developing their own missile systems--efforts that since have been abandoned.

The report also warns that the U.S. is highly vulnerable to attacks by short-range missiles, if a terrorist or hostile nation launches one from an offshore ship or from an aircraft outside U.S. airspace.