International security

Mattis says North Korea isn't capable of striking the US

Secretary of Defense James Mattis said Friday he does not believe that North Korea's current intercontinental ballistic missiles are capable of hitting the continental US.

North Korea's November ICBM "has not yet shown to be a capable threat against us right now," Mattis said during an off-camera briefing with reporters at the Pentagon on Friday. He added that the United States is still assessing the situation. "We are still examining the forensics, we're still doing the forensics analysis, it takes a while," he said.

Pyongyang tested a new missile on November 28 that flew higher and farther than any previous launch, and bragged afterward that its new Hwasong-15 could deliver nuclear warheads anywhere in the US.

At the time, Mattis noted that the launch showed that North Korea was working on a research and development program that could produce a missile capable of hitting "everywhere in the world" and reflected "a continued effort to build a threat -- a ballistic missile threat that endangers world peace, regional peace and certainly, the United States."