U.S. Defense Intelligence officials believe that North Korea might be able to launch a nuclear weapon on a missile, the first such admission about Pyongyang’s capabilities.

The revelation came at a congressional hearing today, in which a conservative republican lawmaker spoke about a bit of information that has not been released to the public before.

Representative Doug Lamborn of Colorado was questioning Joint Chiefs Chairman General Martin Dempsey about the Pentagon spy agency’s latest intelligence estimate..

Lamborn stated, "Quoting from the unclassified portion, which I believe has not yet been made public, they say, quote, 'DIA assesses with moderate confidence the North currently has nuclear weapons capable of delivering by ballistic missiles.  However, the reliability will be low.`"

Dempsey was caught on his heels, replying, "Well, I haven't seen it, and you said it's not publicly released, so I -- I choose not to comment on it."

The Defense Intelligence Agency is just one of 16 American spy agencies.  And UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon played down the assessment saying that he has no information to verify the US military report.