By Jamie Crawford, with reporting from Pam Benson, Deirdre Walsh, Chris Lawrence and Barbara Starr
The Pentagon was caught by surprise Thursday when sensitive information about North Korea's nuclear program from a classified March 2013 report was "mistakenly" declassified and discussed during an open hearing on Capitol Hill, raising questions about how such a significant error could have occurred.
In a hearing by the House Armed Services Committee to discuss the Pentagon's budget, Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colorado, read from what he said was an unclassified sentence in an otherwise classified report by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA).
"DIA assess with moderate confidence the North currently has nuclear weapons capable of delivery by ballistic missiles, however, the reliability will be low," Lamborn read before posing a question about its significance to Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey.
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By Larry Shaughnessy
The general at the center of a military and legal controversy is telling his side of the story for the first time since throwing out the sexual assault conviction of an Air Force officer.
Lt. Colonel James Wilkerson III was found guilty last year by a jury of Air Force officers of sexually assaulting a woman at his home outside Aviano Air Base in Italy.
He spent four months in a Navy brig before Lt. General Craig Franklin, the convening authority in the case, threw out the verdict.
Franklin was the officer who ordered Wilkerson's court martial at Ramstein Air Base in Germany. But military law allowed him to have the final say.
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By Jill Dougherty
The Obama administration says China is increasingly frustrated by the provocative actions of North Korea and Secretary of State John Kerry will try to convince leaders in Beijing that Pyongyang is, as one senior administration official said, "putting China's own interests at risk."
Briefing reporters on Kerry's plane as he flew from London to the first stop on his four-day Asian tour, that official and a senior State Department official said the administration is urging China to use its leverage with the North "otherwise it is very destabilizing."
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By Sudip Bhattacharya, CNN
A video from 2011 has resurfaced showing American-raised al Qaeda spokesman Adam Gadahn discussing how easy it is to buy guns in the United States and urging fellow radicals to do so.
In the video, the California said militants should arm themselves for attacks on Western governments.
"America is absolutely awash with easily obtainable firearms," said Gadahn, "You can go down to a gun show at the local convention center and come away with a fully automatic assault rifle, without a background check, and most likely without having to show an identification card. So what are you waiting for?"
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By Jill Dougherty
Secretary of State John Kerry embarks on his Asian trip at a critical time, flying to South Korea just as North Korea is threatening to launch missiles. When he arrives in Seoul on Friday, he will be only 30 miles from the demilitarized zone that separates the two countries.
Kerry already has warned the North on what he calls leader Kim Jong Un's "provocative ... dangerous, reckless" rhetoric and actions. Since that comment more than a week ago, he has said little in public, however. The first part of this 10-day international trip - to Turkey and Israel - was focused on the Middle East peace process and Syria.
Even if those are complex, thorny issues, they are subjects with which Kerry is more familiar. As a senator and the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he did not travel extensively in Asia and does not have the extensive list of friends among Asian leaders that he has in Europe and the Middle East.
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From CNN's Barbara Starr
North Korea raised at least one Musudan missile into its upright firing position Wednesday, raising concerns that a launch was imminent, a U.S. official told CNN Thursday. It's not known by the U.S. why the regime did not fire the missile. The official cautioned that the raising of the missile could have been just a trial run to ensure the equipment worked or an effort to "mess" with the United States and its allies, who are watching for a launch at any time. The official declined to specify what type of intelligence led the United States to conclude the missile was in a firing position.