North Korea appears to have crossed the red line that separates the “haves” from the nuclear ‘you must have nots,” according to a report published Tuesday by The Washington Post.
Speaking the same day at an event taking place at his golf course in New Jersey, however, President Donald Trump warned that North Korea will “be met with fire and fury, and frankly power the likes of which this world has never seen before” if its threats continue.
President Trump vows America will respond to North Korean threats with "fire & fury" in a warning to the rogue nation pic.twitter.com/UaE2rPkZ6f
— FOX & friends (@foxandfriends) August 9, 2017
“My first order as President was to renovate and modernize our nuclear arsenal,” Trump told reporters. “It is now far stronger and more powerful than ever before. Hopefully we will never have to use this power, but there will never be a time that we are not the most powerful nation in the world!”
According to a confidential assessment last month by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, North Korea has succeeded in producing a miniaturized nuclear warhead that fits inside its missiles — making it entirely possible for Pyongyang to launch a nuclear attack on the continental United States within the next year.
The nuclear and missile technological achievement was reported Tuesday, as was a second intelligence assessment that estimated DPRK leader Kim Jong Un already controls up to 60 nuclear weapons.
Top North Korean officials are wrapping up a 10-day visit to Tehran, where they are immersed in talks with Defense and Foreign Ministry officials and newly inaugurated President Hassan Rouhani, who has just begun to serve his second term in office.
Iran remains committed to annihilating the State of Israel, along with its regional proxy groups, Hamas, Hezbollah and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. All three held working meetings with an Iranian foreign ministry official in Beirut prior to Rouhani’s inauguration last week; Hamas officials also attended the inauguration in Tehran and stayed for meetings afterwards with Iranian government officials as well.
Two U.S. Air Force B-1B bombers under the command of the U.S. Pacific Air Forces joined their Japanese and South Korean counterparts on Monday in flying 10-hour strategic bilateral missions from Guam’s Andersen Air Force Base, with American fighter pilots “ready to fight tonight.”
Meanwhile, the response to Trump’s declaration from Pyongyang was swift:
“The KPA Strategic Force is now carefully examining the operational plan for making an enveloping fire at the areas around Guam with medium-to-long-range strategic ballistic rocket Hwasong-12,” the Korean Central News Agency reported.
Pyongyang complained about the Trump administration’s “military provocation” presented by the military drill with South Korea and Japan.
“The U.S. imperialists … had better not provoke the DPRK any more, mindful of its deplorable fate on the verge of ruin,” North Korea warned in a series of statements, each more intense than the last.
The rhetoric between North Korea and Washington continued to escalate, with a spokesperson for the Korean People’s Army warning in a statement reported by KCNA late Tuesday, “U.S. war hysteria will only bring a miserable end of the American empire.
“We do not hide that we already have in full readiness the diversified strategic nuclear strike means which have the U.S. mainland in our striking range.
“Preemptive strike is no longer the monopoly of the U.S.”