Anchor: While keeping the dialogue track open with North Korea, the U.S. is also closely watching North Korean missile threats. American lawmakers on Wednesday held a hearing with key missile defense officials. Along with Russian and Chinese threats, military officials discussed North Korea's growing missile capacity. The audio footage of the senate hearing is courtesy of the U.S. Defense Department. 
Kim Bum-soo has more. 
 
Report: U.S. missile defense officials expressed concerns over evolving North Korean missile threats. 

During a hearing with the Senate Armed Services Committee’s strategic forces subcommittee on Wednesday, U.S. Missile Defense Agency Director Samuel Greaves said North Korea could be developing faster intercontinental missiles.  

[Sound bite: Air Force Lt. Gen. Samuel A. Greaves - Director, Missile Defense Agency] 
(Sen. Angus Stanley King Jr.: "Is North Korea doing any work on hypersonics or is it just China and Russia?")
"I will need to discuss this in a classified forum but the concern is potential if not likely proliferation."

While arguing for beefing up the U.S. missile defense shield, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy John Rood also discussed North Korea's submarine-launched ballistic missiles capabilities. 

[Sound bite: Undersecretary of Defense for Policy John C. Rood]
(Sen. Angus Stanley King Jr.: Do we know if the North Koreans are developing its submarine-launch missile capacity?)
"Yes, Senator. They are."
(Sen. Angus Stanley King Jr.: So that changes this calculation again. If they are launching missiles from North Korea, that's one thing but if they are launching them from the Bering Strait or somewhere in the North Pacific, that's a different problem... ")
"It changes defense equation in terms of where the origin could be and what are other anti-submarine capabilities are in the potential conflict... "

Gen. Terrence J. O’Shaughnessy of the North American Aerospace Defense Command told senators that North Korea is nearing combat deployment of inter-continental ballistic missiles.

[Sound bite: Air Force Gen. Terrence J. O’Shaughnessy - Commander,  N. American Aerospace Defense Command]
  
The testimonies came as North Korea rebuilds one of its key rocket launch test sites after dismantling the facility in the wake of a series of inter-Korean and Washington-Pyongyang talks last year. 

The South Korean Defense Intelligence Agency and the South Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command told the National Assembly on Wednesday that the latest restoration work at the Dongchang-ri missile test site is aimed at increasing Pyongyang’s leverage in nuclear negotiations with the U.S. 
Kim Bum-soo, KBS World Radio News.

[Photo : YONHAP News]