What if they’re not bluffing?

I think it’s fair to say most of us have been underwhelmed by North Korea’s bluster – despite the Hitlerian delivery of their lead anchorwoman.

We’ve dismissed it as the Mouse that Roared. Tourists in South Korea go about their business.

Now it turns out that the Obama Administration has been withholding information that might change that assessment.
It came from Congressman Doug Lamborne during a hearing on the Defense Budget, “This is unclassified, so I can make it public. DIA (Defense Intelligent Agency) assesses, with moderate confidence: The North currently has nuclear weapons capable of delivery by ballistic missiles, however, the reliability will be low.”

That’s a big deal, because the North Korea experts – at least the ones I’ve talked to – have been assuring us that North Korea is a long way for having a nuclear weapon that it could actually use against anybody.

But this would change that.

It would explain North Korea’s escalating series of warnings.

Nothing is quite as frustrating as having a working nuclear missile that no one believes you have, and is therefore not afraid of.

Of course, we’re only moderately confident they have one which means according to CBS correspondent David Martin, “Well it means there is no smoking gun, but there is credible evidence to make a plausible case that the North Koreans have figured out how to put a warhead on top of a missile.”

So it’s like when the two of you go to dinner without the kids, and are moderately confident that your teenage son knows how to drive and knows where the keys are. Of course he’d never dream of actually…

Uh oh.