Political Quotes

“while we are waiting on Senator Peters to be here, I wanted to go through some of the history relative to the North Korean program. I think sometimes there has been so much focus on other countries' programs--I know Senator Gardner alluded to some aspects of it in his comments--but North Korea's nuclear program actually dates back to the 1950s, when they pursued nuclear energy cooperation with the Soviet Union. In ensuing years, North Korea acquired a full nuclear fuel cycle, including plutonium, reprocessing, and uranium enrichment capabilities. So this goes back to the 1950s, but in 2003 North Korea announced its withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and conducted four nuclear weapons tests in 2006, 2009, 2013, and 2016. Experts believe the first two nuclear tests were plutonium based, and analysts assess the third nuclear test may have used highly enriched uranium. So they are on a two-track route. On January 6, 2016, North Korea announced that it successfully tested its first hydrogen bomb. We don't have verification of that. We don't have intelligence back that would verify that was the type of test that took place. Today North Korea possesses nuclear weapons, a longstanding plutonium nuclear program at Yougbyon, and a uranium enrichment capability which it revealed in 2010 after years of denials.…”