WASHINGTON: US intelligence analysts believe a recent military parade in North Korea “probably oversells” the threat its inter-continental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) pose to the United States, according to a leaked document purportedly from the US government.
Reuters has reviewed more than 50 of the documents, labelled “Secret” and “Top Secret”, that first appeared on social media sites in March and supposedly reveal details of military capabilities of some US allies and adversaries.
Reuters has not independently verified the documents’ authenticity.
While the Pentagon has not vouched for the authenticity of each of the documents, it said on Monday there appeared to have been an “unauthorised disclosure of classified material”. It said that photos appear to show documents similar in format to those used to provide daily updates to senior leaders, though some appear altered.
A brief, one-paragraph observation in one of the documents marked “Secret” and seen by Reuters noted that North Korea had paraded an unprecedented number of ICBM-class launchers at an event on Feb 8 that were “most likely carrying nonoperational systems”.
The Pentagon and North Korea’s mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to requests for comment about the North Korea part of the documents.
The document said the North Korean aim was “probably to portray a maturing nuclear threat to the US”.
“The North paraded these nonoperational systems to portray a larger, more capable missile force than it possesses and to mitigate the risk of damage to its real missiles,” the document said.