WASHINGTON -- North Korea is on the verge of developing ballistic missiles capable of hitting the continental United States, the director of central intelligence, George Tenet, told Congress on Tuesday.
North Korea's communist government appears to be working to produce nuclear weapons covertly and to extend the range of its ballistic missiles in ways that have surprised U.S. intelligence agencies, American officials have said.
In a review of threats to U.S. national security, Tenet told lawmakers that North Korea was working on a new generation of missiles that could soon "be able to deliver large payloads" to the continental United States.
North Korea's accelerated weapons programs comes against a backdrop of famine and increasing instability in the country, making its government's actions dangerously difficult to predict.
"I can hardly overstate my concern about North Korea," Tenet told the Senate Armed Services Committee. "In nearly all respects, the situation there has become more volatile and unpredictable."
Tenet's comments concerning the threat from North Korea caps a remarkable reversal by U.S. intelligence agencies in the last few months.
In July a bipartisan commission headed by former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld concluded that countries it described as rogue states could hit the United States with ballistic missiles with little or no warning.
The CIA publicly disputed that finding and stood by its earlier analysis that the threat was probably several years in the future.
But in August, soon after the debate over the Rumsfeld report, North Korea caught the CIA off guard by testing a three-stage missile, putting that country much closer to having an intercontinental ballistic missile, or ICBM in military lingo, than agency analysts had predicted.
In December, Robert Walpole, the national intelligence officer for strategic and nuclear programs, conceded in a Washington speech that the CIA had not anticipated North Korea's flight testing of a three-stage missile.
The third stage of the missile was not successful in the flight test. Yet the test forced the CIA's analysts to embrace the assessments of the Rumsfeld panel that they had just dismissed as alarmist.
That change in the intelligence outlook has encouraged the Clinton administration to set aside its longstanding doubts about anti-ballistic missile systems. Last month, the administration announced plans to spend $6.6 billion over five years for such a system.
Tenet's testimony was one of the few detailed accounts of the threat posed by North Korean ballistic missiles given to Congress in public session by a high-ranking Clinton administration official.
He said the August test of a three-stage Taepo Dong 1 ballistic missile had "demonstrated technology that with the resolution of some important technical issues would give North Korea the ability to deliver a very small payload to intercontinental ranges -- including parts of the United States -- although not very accurately."
But he said North Korea was also working on a more advanced two-stage missile, the Taepo Dong 2, which could deliver larger payloads as far as Alaska and Hawaii, and smaller payloads to the continental United States.
While the Taepo Dong 2 has not yet been flight-tested, it could deliver large payloads to the continental United States if North Korea is able to convert it into a three-stage rocket like the Taepo Dong-1 tested last summer.
"The proliferation implications of these missiles are obviously significant," Tenet observed.
Over the past year, the United States and North Korea have been negotiating over whether North Korea will allow inspections of a suspected underground nuclear facility.
The Clinton administration is hoping to salvage a 1994 agreement with North Korea that guaranteed international aid in return for a promise that North Korea would freeze its nuclear-weapons development efforts. Tenet's warning was in effect an admission that North Korea has failed to abide by the agreement.
He also warned Congress that Russia has been backsliding on its earlier commitments to the United States to curb the transfer of advanced missile technology to Iran.
For several years CIA officials have viewed the Russia-Iran connection as one of the most worrisome proliferation channels in the world. The Clinton administration has imposed sanctions on a range of Russian companies and other institutions since last year in order to curb the trade, but Tenet's testimony made clear that the sanctions policy is not working.
"There were some positive signs in Russia's performance early last year but, unfortunately, there has not been a sustained improvement," Tenet said. "Especially during the last six months, expertise and materiel from Russia has continued to assist the Iranian missile effort in areas ranging from training to testing to components.
"This assistance is continuing as we speak, and there is no doubt that it will play a crucial role in Iran's ability to develop more sophisticated and longer-range missiles."
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