NK About to Launch Rocket Into Space

The chief U.S. intelligence official said Tuesday that he believes that North Korea is about to launch a rocket into space as North Koreans insisted, Yonhap News Agency reported.

The remark by National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair is the first by any U.S. official amid conflicting reports about the nature of the rocket Pyongyang is threatening to launch.

U.S. officials have said that the North's claim to shoot a communications satellite into space is a cover to test a ballistic missile capable of reaching the mainland U.S.

"It is a space-launch vehicle that North Korea launches," Blair told a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing. "The technology is indistinguishable from intercontinental ballistic missile, and if a three-stage, space-launch vehicle works, then that could reach not only Alaska, Hawaii, but also part of the, part of what the Hawaiians call 'the Mainland,' and what the Alaskans call 'the Lower 48.'"

He said he "tended to believe that the North Koreans announced that they were going to do a space launch, and I believe that that's what they intend. I could be wrong, but that would be my estimate."

North Korea has recently said it will launch a communications satellite as part of its space development program.

The U.S. and its allies have warned that any launch of a satellite or missile will bring sanctions under a United Nations resolution banning any ballistic missile activity, although China and Russia have not been clear on whether they will join such a move.

Defense Intelligence Agency Director Michael Maples also told the hearing that after a failed July 2006 test launch, "North Korea has continued development of the Taepodong 2, which could be used for space launch or as an ICBM," noting that North Korea "announced in late February they intend to launch a communications satellite, Kwangmyongsong-2."

North Korea's launch of a ballistic missile in 2006 is widely believed to be a failure due to its flight time of less than one minute, but its previous version flew over Japan and fell into the Pacific.