The head of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, Vice Admiral James Syring, said on Wednesday that technological advances demonstrated by North Korea in its ballistic missile program in the past six months had caused him “great concern.”
Syring told a hearing of the U.S. House Armed Services Committee that it was incumbent on his agency to assume that North Korea today could “range” the United States with an intercontinental ballistic missile carrying a nuclear warhead.
“I would not say we are comfortably ahead of the threat; I would say we are addressing the threat that we know today,” Syring said.
“The advancements in the last six months have caused great concern to me and others, in the advancement of and demonstration of technology of ballistic missiles from North Korea.
