North Korea Poised To Launch EMP Attack on US, Says Former CIA

Analyst

"US Defenseless Against North Korean EMP Threat," claims VOA News

by KELLS HETHERINGTON | VOA NEWS | AUGUST 22, 2014

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The electric grid in the United States remains largely unprotected, according to a longtime adviser to

Congress on national security issues.

Peter Vincent Pry told VOA he believes North Korea is ready to attempt a strike on the U.S.

electric grid using an Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP). Pry said North Korea practiced an EMP

strike against the U.S. last year when it orbited a satellite at the optimal altitude and trajectory

to carry out such an attack.

Pry is in the northern city of Minneapolis to brief the National Council of State Legislatures

this week on the EMP threat. He told VOA that three U.S. states – Arizona, Maine and

Virginia – have passed legislation trying to guard against a lengthy power outage following

an EMP.

Pry was a member of the former Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from

Electromagnetic Pulse Attack (2001-2008). He also is executive director of the Task Force on

National and Homeland Security, a congressional advisory board dedicated to achieving

protection of the United States from electromagnetic pulse and other threats.

An electromagnetic pulse (or disturbance) is a short burst of electromagnetic energy that can

be natural or man-made. EMP interference generated by lightning, for example, can damage

electronic equipment. At very high energy levels, an EMP can damage physical objects such

as trees, buildings and aircraft.

Pry said the North Korean test last year took place over the South Pole, which he called a

strategic move.

“We are blind from the south. We don’t have the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System or

interceptors to protect us from the south,” said Pry.

The congressional analyst said this was done after North Korea’s third illegal nuclear test in

February 2013 and after the country’s leader, Kim Jong Un, threatened to strike the United

States and its allies with a nuclear missile.

Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.) said, “I cannot speak to the motives of the North Korean

satellite experiment, but… we need to move with all deliberate speed to shore up our

infrastructure.”

A couple months later, a North Korean freighter, the Chong Chon Gang, was caught

attempting to move through the Panama Canal with a cargo of nuclear capable missiles on

their launchers. They were hidden under thousands of bags of sugar.

This was no mistake on the part of the North Koreans, Pry told VOA. He said he believes

Pyongyang was testing the United States to find out if it could traffic nuclear weapons

through the Gulf of Mexico and the Panama Canal without detection. He said had the North

Koreans gone the long way around South America, the U.S. never would have known what

North Korea was shipping.

He said it was just by chance they were caught because no one was looking for nuclear

missiles.

“We inspected the freighter not because anyone thought there were nuclear capable missiles

onboard, but because this freighter is notorious for doing trade with drug cartels and

terrorists, and so we were looking for illicit drugs that the freighter might be smuggling, and

they found the nuclear capable missiles,” said Pry.

Clarke, who is the ranking member on the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Emerging

Threats, Cybersecurity, Science and Technology, said “again, I cannot say whether it is a

deliberate attempt by the North Koreans to test out or test run the capabilities of approaching

the U.S.” with nuclear capable missiles, but “they are looking for ways to approach the

United States, and I am sure it is not for the sake of friendly trade, but to do our nation harm.”

Clarke, together with Rep. Trent Franks (R-A.Z.), tried to address the EMP threat in June

2013 when they introduced the Shield Act, which has stalled in the House Energy and

Commerce Committee.

According to Pry, near the end of the Cold War, the Russians developed the technology for a

super EMP. This is a class of nuclear weapon with a special design to produce a particularly

powerful EMP field. He says that in 2004 a delegation of Russian generals, including two of

their top EMP experts, met with the EMP commission.

“They told us proactively, ‘we have bad news. We developed this super EMP weapon, and

during the post-Cold War brain drain, some of our scientists went to North Korea,’” he said.

At the time, Pry said, the Russian generals thought that within a few years, North Korea

could develop a super EMP weapon.