An American nuclear scientist who visited a secret nuclear complex in Yongbyon, North Korea, claims that Kim Jong Un’s regime is not bluffing when it comes to the dictatorship’s nuclear weapons capabilities.

As he recounted in an interview with “60 Minutes” that aired Sunday on CBS, Sig Hecker — who was once in charge of helping design nuclear weapons for the U.S. — was invited to North Korea and shown evidence of the country’s nuclear capabilities.

Hecker was at one time the director of Los Alamos National Laboratory, which is known as the “birthplace of the American atomic bomb,” according to CBS.

Hecker described his shock at being invited to North Korea, and said he was also shocked when the U.S. government allowed him to travel to the infamously hostile nation.

“I was immensely surprised by how much they showed me and with the openness with which they showed and explained that to me,” he said.

“There’s no way in the world they’re going to let me in. By the way, I also thought the U.S. government wouldn’t let me go but it turns out I was wrong on both accounts.”

Hecker first visited Yongbyon in 2004. At that point, the North Koreans were believed to be operating a small nuclear reactor.

While describing the facility as “primitive,” Hecker pointed out he thought it was functional.

“I would call it primitive but functional. And in fact, all of the instrumentation sort of reminded me when I first got to Los Alamos in 1965 you know, no modern electronics or anything of that nature,” he said.

“This is a reactor that was not very good for producing electricity, but it was very good for making plutonium.”

Indeed, the North Korean officials would go on to prove just that.

After seeing the reactor, Hecker said he was taken to a building where the North Koreans claimed to be turning used fuel from the reactor into weapons-grade plutonium.

“They just showed me the facility and basically said, ‘Look, you have to believe us, we extracted the plutonium,’” Hecker said.

CBS’ David Martin then asked, “Did you believe them?”

“The answer was yes, but I didn’t let them think that I believed them,” Hecker responded.

Hecker went on to say that the complex’s director offered to show him plutonium.

“You know plutonium when you see it,” Martin said.

“Plutonium by itself is sort of a silvery color if it’s not oxidized,” Hecker replied. “If it rusts, oxidizes a little bit, it sort of turns gray and black and this stuff was gray and black.”

Hecker elaborated on the weight and heat of the plutonium, further indicating that the product was legitimate.

“So I said … I’d like to hold the jar with the metal in it. And they allowed me to hold it. So what do I learn from holding? Well, first of all plutonium is dense. … It ought to be heavy. It was. The other thing plutonium is radioactive. So it … Glass jar ought to be warm and it was warm.”

The question remains, though — Why would the North Korean regime want to confirm the news of its nuclear capabilities to the U.S.?

“They wanted to show Sig that they really did have plutonium,” said CBS consultant Robert Carlin, a former intelligence analyst for the CIA and State Department.

When Martin asked Carlin why any country would so willingly hand over what would surely be one of the regime’s most guarded military secrets, Carlin simply asserted that it was the only way anyone would believe North Korea.

“Nobody would believe them otherwise, right? People would say, ‘Oh, they’re just posturing. Oh, it’s propaganda.’ So how are you going to convince the Americans?” Carlin said.

“You get an expert who knows plutonium when he sees it and you, you hand it to him. You say, ‘Here it is. What do you think?’”

Hecker returned to North Korea in 2010. At that time, a different part of the base was revealed to him, where 2,000 centrifuges were on display.

According to The U.K. Daily Mail, it was suspected that uranium was being manifested for use in another type of chemical bomb.

CBS reported that U.S. intelligence experts believe North Korea may currently posses enough material for 60 weapons.

However, that number is much larger than an estimate from David Albright, the director of the Institute for Science and International Security. Albright suspects the North Koreans have between 13 and 30 nuclear weapons.

But as Hecker pointed out, its less about how many they have, but rather how small North Korean scientists can make the weapons.

During his interview with Martin, the pair are shown viewing a television monitor. Looking at a spherical object on the screen, Hecker hypothesized that the object was a “spherical fission bomb” — also known as an atomic bomb.

“It looks like a simple bomb. However, what I found most important about this is the size of it. It looks to be about 60 centimeters,” Hecker said.

Sixty centimeters is small enough to fit on some of North Korea’s missiles, according to CBS.

Hecker acknowledged that the North Koreans must be taken seriously.

“They’re going to get there, you know, that’s, that’s one thing you can count on. We’ve tried to sanction them into submission. They’ve not submitted. They just keep testing and keep evolving.” (For more from the author of “A US Scientist Reveals Findings After Inspecting North Korea’s Nuclear Facilities” please click HERE)

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By Fox News. North Korea’s nuclear program has long triggered condemnation – including the U.N. Security Council’s recent decision to apply some of the toughest sanctions in history – but is something far more lethal lurking in the Hermit Kingdom’s arsenal?

“They have a large stockpile of chemical weapons, but the one that gets the least attention, and that I worry most about, is their biological weapons program,” said Andrew Weber, the former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear Chemical and Biological Defense Programs from 2009-2014.

When it comes to biological weapons, Weber said, just a tiny amount can bring incredibly lethal results. “Ounces or pounds would be enough. You can have millions of lethal doses of anthrax in a several-pound quantity… With smallpox, maybe just a few grams.”

One of the biggest concerns when it comes to chemical or biological warfare – a concern that Weber and the White House seem to share – is the fact that these incredibly lethal attacks can easily be “cloaked in deniability,” and difficult to trace back to the perpetrator. Weber pointed out that “it takes just one or two people to covertly deliver a strategic biological weapons attack.”

North Korea has been accused of using chemical weapons in an apparent assassination earlier this year, one that unfolded beyond its borders. Kim Jong Nam, the half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, was killed with the use of the nerve agent VX in the Kuala Lumpur International Airport last February 13. (Read more from “North Korea’s Other Weapons: Nukes Aren’t Biggest Concern” HERE)

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Ralph Peters on North Korea: Kim ‘Betting It All on One Hand of Poker’

By Fox News Insider. Colonel Ralph Peters [Ret.] said North Korea is suffering from a “degenerative disease of state” and predicted the Kim regime’s insistence on strengthening its nuclear capability is their All-In “poker hand” as a standing government.

North Korean state television ripped the recent unanimous U.N. vote to deliver stronger sanctions against Kim Jong Un as “rigged up by the U.S. and its followers [and a] grave infringement upon the sovereignty of our republic.”

The North Koreans also called western hopes of an end to Pyongyang’s nuclear program a “pipe dream.” . . .

He said the country is suffering from a “degenerative disease of state” – in that their standing military is “rotting away” and pointed to increased defections to South Korea.

“The North Korean regime and Kim Jong Un have bet everything on one hand of poker… [their] intertwined nuclear and strategic missile program,” he said. (Read more from “Ralph Peters on North Korea: Kim ‘Betting It All on One Hand of Poker'” HERE)

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Anthrax Antibodies have been found in a North Korean soldier’s bloodstream after he defected to South Korea, the U.K. Daily Mail reported.

The soldier would have been exposed to or vaccinated against anthrax before he fled to South Korea.

This discovery comes after reports last week that Kim Jong Un has been testing the use of anthrax-laden warheads on ballistic missiles.

Japan’s Asahi newspaper said that the experiments were being conducted to see if bacteria could survive the high temperatures that occur during a warhead’s re-entry from space.

Anthrax is a disease that can be used as a weapon by placing it on missiles or rockets or using a plane to spray it over large areas.

Once present, anthrax spores can remain dormant for years. The initial phase of the disease is flu-like symptoms lasting for one to three days, followed by a high fever, chest pains, breathing problems and shock.

Death follows within two days of the second phase.

The U.S. government is aware of these tests, according to Asahi.

North Korea has denied the allegations that it is developing biological weapons and said it would “take revenge” on the U.S. for saying it had, according to the Daily Mail.

As a party to the Biological Weapons Convention, North Korea said in a statement via the state Korean Central News Agency it “maintains its consistent stand to oppose development, manufacture, stockpiling and possession of biological weapons.”

The KCNA continued, “The more the U.S. clings to the anti-(North Korea) stifling move…the more hardened the determination of our entire military and people to take revenge will be,” the U.K. Independent reported.

There are two possibilities regarding the identity of the unknown defector.

One is a soldier, Oh Chong Song, who was shot four times as he ran across the border in November of this year. His escape was caught on camera and he was shot by his fellow soldiers.

Song is believed to be an army staff sergeant stationed near the United Nations truce village of Panmunjom, according to South Korean ruling party lawmaker Kim Byung-kee.

Hepatitis B and parasites were found in his body, which indicate nutrition and hygiene problems in North Korea, according to the Daily Mail.

Another possible identity is a soldier who defected on Dec. 21 through a thick fog that covered the Demilitarized Zone.

International sanctions over North Korea’s missile and nuclear tests have been increased this year. In September, the United Nations Security Council adopted harsh sanctions against the country with a U.S.-drafted resolution.

The Western Journal reported the development of biological weapons in North Korea earlier this month, quoting a 2006 congressional report that stated “North Korea has the scientists and facilities for producing biological products and microorganisms, and has the ability to produce traditional infectious biological warfare agents or toxins.”

The first use of the anthrax spores as a weapon was from 1932 to 1945 during the Japanese occupation of China.

The Daily Mail reported a World Health Organization estimate of 250,000 cases of anthrax would occur in a population of 5 million people if 50 kg were released. (For more from the author of “Anthrax Antibodies Discovered in Bloodstream of North Korean Defector” please click HERE)

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