Former U.S. National Security Council Member Victor Cha

VICTOR CHA: So, the first step would be a comprehensive declaration, an inventory of everything related to their WMD programs and their ballistic missile programs. That would be the first step because you can’t denuclearize that which you don’t know or that which they don’t admit. So, that’s the first step. And thus far, they have not taken that step.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Is there any — do you hear — I mean, you’re really plugged in. Do you hear that the administration thinks it will? I mean, is the trajectory positive or is it negative? We said certain big high-level talks have been called off.

CHA: Sure. I mean, I think the administration is hopeful that because of this high-level, you know, leader of the leader interaction, we’ve never seen, as you said, in 25, 30 years of negotiations, even negotiations I’ve participated in 10 years ago, we never have that sort of interaction. So, there’s a hope that if they speak leader to leader, they can get Kim to commit to this declaration. Instead, what the North Koreans are doing is providing piecemeal confidence building measures, saying, “You can look at this nuclear test site or you can look at this satellite launch site,” but not really getting at the heart of the program, which has to start with a declaration.

AMANPOUR: OK. But still, as you say, what they’re doing is better than what they used to do, which was test ballistic missiles test, nuclear devices, which they haven’t been doing since before the Seoul Olympics, the South Korea Olympics. So, now, let’s get to President Trump and his claims and what you’ve discovered. What exactly new is it that you’ve put on the table with this satellite imagery? What have you discovered that we didn’t know before?

CHA: So, I think — so, for the general public, what we’ve discovered are there are three belts of operational missile bases, a raid on the northern side of the peninsula that can fire at anything from scud missiles to medium range ballistic missiles that have never been a topic of discussion in any of our negotiations with North Korea. In part, because it’s always been focused on the nuclear program. But now, their ballistic missile program has developed tremendously over the last 10 years, particularly in the last year. And so, our point is simply to say, “Look, these bases are there, they are operational, they are not potential or developmental bases, these are operational bases —

AMANPOUR: Still today?

CHA: — still today.” They have been working on it. The imagery that we had was from March, it was before the Singapore summit but they were still working on these bases. I’m sure if we saw images today, we had another pass of the commercial satellite, if we saw images today they still be working on, because these are untouched by any discussion right now.

AMANPOUR: And I are you sure, because as, you know, people have said, well, the administration has said, “Hang on a second, this stuff that Victor Cha and the think tank are putting out, this was two months before the summit or more,” and this is what the president had said in a tweet, this story, of course, it was picked up by the “New York Times” concerning North Korea developing missile bases is inaccurate. “We fully knew about the sites being discussed, nothing new, nothing happened out of the normal.” And again, he goes on, “Just more fake news. I’ll be the first to let you know if things go bad.” So, address that, nothing new, we knew it.