Homeland Security Focus Areas

Weapons of Mass Destruction

July 22, 2003
President Takes a Softer Stance on North Korea
By DAVID E. SANGER

CRAWFORD, Tex., July 21 - President Bush appeared today to shrug off evidence that North Korea may have begun producing plutonium at a second, hidden nuclear facility, and avoided any hint of confrontation with the country as it races to expand its nuclear arsenal.
"The desire by the North Koreans to convince the world that they're in the process of developing a nuclear arsenal is nothing new," Mr. Bush said, striking a far more moderate tone than in March, when he declared that the United States would not tolerate a nuclear North Korea.
He insisted that cooperation with China on a diplomatic solution was moving forward and said American allies would work "to convince Kim Jong Il," the North Korean leader, "that his decision is an unwise decision."
Mr. Bush's remarks - which are in sharp contrast to his words and actions regarding Iraq - come at a time when American and Asian officials have said there is "worrisome" but not "conclusive" evidence that North Korea has constructed a second plant for producing weapons-grade plutonium.
Nearly two weeks ago, North Korean officials declared that they had completed reprocessing 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods, enough to make about a half dozen nuclear bombs. American officials, however, have not been able to verify that.
At a news conference today at his ranch with Italy's prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, Mr. Bush also revived charges against Iran and Syria, warning that they would be "held accountable" if they continued to aid terrorists in the Middle East or disrupted the occupation of Iraq.
He said both countries had harbored terrorists, and he called their behavior "unacceptable."
Administration officials said today that Mr. Bush's tough comments about Iran and Syria and his far more moderate tone about North Korea had been carefully calibrated. Even as they are focused on the Middle East peace effort, some administration officials have clearly concluded that North Korea may be on the verge of declaring itself a nuclear state, and that there is not much they can do to stop it.
"We're alert to the fact that this could be the summer surprise," a senior official said. "The president's words were intended to give diplomacy another chance."
Another senior Bush aide said on Sunday that the administration believed that it still had time to defuse the North Korean situation and that a confrontation might be exactly what North Korea was trying to provoke, to extract economic concessions from the West.
One result is a strategy that appears to be the opposite of the administration approach to Iraq: for each new North Korean declaration, Mr. Bush has responded with the equivalent of a shrug. Or, as Secretary of State Colin L. Powell once put it, the message to a starving North Korea will be, "You can't eat plutonium."
But privately, some administration officials worry that the strategy may not be sustainable if the North conducts a nuclear test to declare itself a nuclear power.
The North has demanded both economic aid and a nonaggression pact, and the Bush administration has said it will not negotiate under conditions of blackmail. However, administration officials have said they will consider formalizing the verbal guarantees Mr. Bush has made that the United States will not attack the North without provocation.
Chinese officials are pushing the administration to hold talks with North Korea in August in Beijing. Mr. Bush has insisted that South Korea and Japan must be part of any talks. Today, he said he wanted those nations to speak "with a single voice that says to Mr. Kim Jong Il, `A decision to develop a nuclear arsenal is one that will alienate you from the rest of the world.' "
On the Middle East, White House officials have said Mr. Bush will meet on Friday with Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian prime minister, and presidential aides fear that whatever hopes they have placed in his authority are being undermined by elements seeking to prevent him from making concessions.
Once again today Mr. Bush praised Mr. Abbas, saying he and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel "are showing leadership and courage" even as their talks appear stalemated. He sent a message today that neighboring states must help or keep their hands off.
"Now it is time for governments across the Middle East to support the efforts of these two men by fighting terror in all its forms," he said. He added that "this includes the governments of Syria and Iran," which "continue to harbor and assist terrorists."
Mr. Bush last discussed Syrian and Iranian interference shortly after the end of the Iraq war, in April. He did not address that issue today, other than to say: "There are people in Iraq who hate the thought of freedom. There are Saddam apologists who want to try to stay in power through terrorist activity."
Mr. Berlusconi's invitation to talks here was largely a political reward for Italy's support for the Iraq war, and a not-so-subtle slap at France and Germany, whose leaders have been conspicuously left off the Crawford invitation list.
Mr. Bush said he and Mr. Berlusconi had discussed how to entice other nations to help rebuild Iraq. There have been few volunteers to aid in peacekeeping, and many European nations believe the United States is reserving the most profitable reconstruction projects for Americans. Mr. Bush said reconstruction "shouldn't be viewed as a political exercise - it shouldn't be viewed as an international grab bag."

N. Korea's push tests China pull
A Chinese envoy met US officials this weekend as tests suggest Pyongyang is processing fuel rods at secret facility.
By Robert Marquand | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

BEIJING - As the world learns of the startling possibility that North Korea has a second, unreported nuclear plant, the regime of Kim Jong Il continues to escalate its threats and provocations - putting new pressure on the Bush administration to respond.
North Korea also grabbed attention this past week by shooting at guard posts across the DMZ and positioning heavy artillery close to the South Korean border. Meanwhile, air samples above the North indicate that the regime may not be reprocessing weapons-grade plutonium at the well-known Yongbyon facility, but at some hidden location, reported The New York Times Sunday.
The recent provocations by Mr. Kim seem timed to coincide with an unusually public and vigorous Chinese diplomatic effort to bring the US and North Korea to the negotiating table, experts say. This weekend, Chinese envoy Dai Bingguo was in Washington, after being granted a rare audience the previous week with Kim, in an effort to restart three-way talks held in Beijing in April.
An influential group of Chinese officials, moreover, seems newly concerned that the North is actively developing a nuclear capability, that Kim is more worried about his personal safety following the Iraq war, and that the US-North Korea dynamics involved in the nine-month crisis could be speeding in a direction that jeopardizes the stability of East Asia.
"China is so active because the idea of a nonnuclear peninsula is being broken; North Korea is taking things to the brink," argues Zhang Lian Gui, a leading professor at the Communist Party School in Beijing. "Kim Jong Il has told his people for many years that they are poor, but that they are sacrificing for the cause of nuclear weapons - something that only a few other countries in the world can boast. He may decide now is the time to play that card. He doesn't have many options."
If anything, the current concern in China contrasts ironically with what has at times been seen as the White House position that Kim is simply bluffing and does not have the ability to achieve a serious nuclear capability. Either as a dismissive backhand to Kim or because of an Iraq war focus, the White House has steadily refused to term the North Korea issue a "crisis" - though it early leaned on China to use leverage with its neighbor to stop its nuclear program.
North Korea watchers have long felt that despite the difficulty of "reading" or making sense of Pyongyang's moves, one consistent trademark of the regime is the creation of a crisis or emergency that will bring them to the negotiating table.
"The North is continuing to pursue a crisis-driven negotiating strategy," says Scott Snyder of the Asia Foundation in Seoul. "But the Bush administration is aware of this, and their choice is to resist it. What you now see is that the reaction from the North side is to drive harder. Whether this is a game of chicken, or a willful or perhaps accidental circumstance, still it is clear there is a potential for spiraling out of control at this point."
Some US diplomats and experts in Asia worry that the projected timelines that Washington and Pyongyang are using to calculate each others' capability and behavior are being misread - including the possibility that North Korea may well achieve deliverable nuclear-weapons capability before the regime collapses due to planned sanctions and a stone-age economy.
Since October, when North Korean officials admitted having a secret enriched uranium program in violation of a previous 1994 agreement, a large debate has ensued over what constitutes a "red line" past which the North should not be allowed to take its nuclear ambitions. In October, the "red line" was often described as any move by Kim to kick out UN inspectors from the Yongbyon facility. Kim did so back in December. Now White House officials sometimes say an actual nuclear test would be a "red line."
North Korean officials, for their part, have claimed repeatedly since May that they are reprocessing spent plutonium fuel rods used to make weapons-grade materials. One by one in recent weeks, the intelligence and security services of Asian as well as US government sources, have hinted at a range of activity in the North that suggests a greater degree of weapons accession.
When South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun was in Beijing last week, Seoul intelligence officials described some 70 small explosions in the North in recent months, that indicate the testing of triggering devices for nuclear-tipped missiles. Former Defense Secretary William Perry last week told reporters that the Korean question could bring war by the end of the year, and warned of the North's potential to deliver nuclear devices to US shores. International Atomic Energy Director Mohamed ElBaradei three days ago described North Korea as "currently the most immediate and most serious threat to the nuclear nonproliferation regime."
Chinese diplomacy, which appears successful in securing some kind of future talks, could create an opening. Finding the format for talks has taken strenuous effort. The US had insisted that Japan and South Korea be included, but Kim has reportedly balked on this - while again agreeing to meet with China at the table. US Secretary of State Colin Powell said last week, as Mr. Bingguo was in Washington, that he was "optimistic" over a meeting.
Yet even many Chinese experts feel that while Kim conceded a procedural point in agreeing to meet, the substance of demands by the North (a detailed US guarantee of security) and by the US (a complete dismantling of North nuclear programs) are so far apart as to make any progress unlikely. "I'm quite pessimistic," argued one well-placed Chinese source.
"North Korea is enjoying a lack of similarity with others," one Chinese diplomatic adviser pointed out. "It is not so easy for them to meet and make concessions."
Mr. Synder hopes that talks, while perhaps appearing fruitless on the surface, could provide a format for both the US and North Korea, "for their own reasons, to back off this path."

Powell, China Talk as Clock Ticks for N.Korea
By Linda Sieg

TOKYO (Reuters) - Secretary of State Colin Powell discussed the North Korean nuclear crisis with his Chinese counterpart Wednesday as diplomats said Pyongyang had little time to respond positively to Beijing's push to renew talks.
"The two sides agreed to keep contact and exert efforts to further the Sino-U.S. constructive and cooperative relationship," China's official Xinhua news agency said after Powell spoke by telephone with Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing.
Unnerved by the tense standoff between Pyongyang and Washington, China is pushing a compromise for talks that it hopes will bring the two sides back to the table after an initial round in Beijing yielded little.
North Korea has demanded one-to-one talks with the United States. Washington, which is demanding that Pyongyang abandon its nuclear program, wants a multilateral format that would bring in South Korea and Japan.
Tuesday, China said it had suggested a multilateral framework that would allow for two-way talks on the sidelines -- a proposal that has so far met a chilly U.S. response.
A senior Japanese Foreign Ministry official said on Wednesday that Beijing's proposal offered hope for a breakthrough.
But he added that Pyongyang had limited time to respond before the United States and its allies turned up the heat.
"The window of opportunity is limited and we are hoping that China will make a breakthrough, so that we can at least arrive at an entry point for a comprehensive settlement," the Japanese official told Reuters in an interview.
"This is an important moment for North Korea to make the right decision," the official added.
The crisis erupted last year when U.S. officials said North Korea had admitted to pursuing a secret nuclear weapons program and no talks have been held since April in Beijing.
Even as China, one of North Korea's few important allies, seeks a way out, Pyongyang has told Washington that it has finished reprocessing used nuclear fuel.
Analysts say that could give them enough bomb-grade plutonium to make half a dozen nuclear weapons to add to the one or two the CIA says they already have.
THREAT REAL, BUT HOW REAL?
U.S. officials have responded to the claim cautiously, saying they were seeking verification. Some think Pyongyang may be bluffing in an effort to force Washington to talk.
"We don't have concrete information that they've completed reprocessing," the Japanese official said.
"As for the rest, we don't know. Nothing has been confirmed."
North Korea also dominated the agenda in talks in Tokyo on Wednesday between Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and Australian Prime Minister John Howard.
"The threat of North Korea is real. But like all threats it has to be dealt with in a careful and sober fashion," Howard said in a speech in Tokyo, one stop on a week-long Asian tour.
Australia and Japan are among 11 nations forming the Proliferation Security Initiative, which agreed in Brisbane on Thursday to hold military exercises aimed at halting trade in weapons of mass destruction by intercepting ships and aircraft.
Participants have said the initiative is not specifically aimed at North Korea, which is an exporter of missiles.
At a joint news conference, Koizumi stressed that, in the North Korean crisis, dialogue and pressure were both vital.
"(North Korea) is a difficult partner to negotiate with, but by cooperating with the United States and South Korea and by using dialogue and pressure, we must bring them to the negotiating table..." he said.
The senior Japanese official said there was no specific time limit for Pyongyang to respond to the China talks solution, but one diplomatic source said it could be as short as two weeks.
Unless a positive response comes soon, pressure will mount for the U.N. Security Council to approve a chairman's statement condemning North Korea for reviving its nuclear weapons program, the Japanese official said.
A multi-billion-dollar nuclear power project under construction in North Korea might also be halted, he said, adding that members of the Korean Energy Development Organization (KEDO) would have to decide in two or three months.
Momentum has already been building to formally suspend the $5 billion dollar project to build two light-water nuclear reactors to alleviate Pyongyang's chronic fuel shortage. KEDO's members are the United States, South Korea, Japan and the European Union.
Impoverished Pyongyang announced Wednesday that China, its long-time communist ally and benefactor, had decided to donate 10,000 tons of diesel oil to North Korea.

Bush Backs U.S. Intelligence as Questions Persist
Furor over his statement that Iraq sought uranium from Africa obscures a 'larger point' -- that Hussein had an arms program, he says.
By Edwin Chen
Times Staff Writer

July 15, 2003

WASHINGTON - President Bush on Monday defended the quality of U.S. intelligence as "darn good," despite the inclusion in his State of the Union address of unsubstantiated allegations that Saddam Hussein's regime tried to buy uranium in Africa.

Bush also suggested that the furor over his assertion that Iraq sought to acquire such material in Africa obscures the "larger point"- that Hussein "absolutely" possessed a weapons of mass destruction program.

"And I am absolutely convinced today, like I was convinced when I gave the [prewar] speeches, that Saddam Hussein developed a program of weapons of mass destruction and that our country made the right decision," the president told reporters at the White House.

At issue is the reliability of Bush's statement in his nationally televised speech before a joint session of Congress in January that "the British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

That passage has become a lightning rod for criticism of how the Bush administration built the case for going to war, and both Democrats and the media continued to hammer on the White House Monday for a full accounting - despite a White House declaration last week that Bush considered the matter closed.

One of the administration's sharpest critics, Rep. David R. Obey (D-Wis.), said in a statement: "These officials should be reminded that what is at stake is not just the credibility of one man or even the credibility of the office of the president of the United States. What we place in the balance is the credibility of the United States as a nation and as leader of the free world."

Bush is said to be angry that questionable information made its way into such a major address.

"I assure you, the president is not pleased," White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said. "The president, of course, would not be pleased if he said something in the State of the Union that may or may not have been true and should not have risen to his level." Steps have been taken to avoid a recurrence, Fleischer said.

"I think it's safe to say that everybody involved in the vetting process already knows that this process has to be improved," he said. "Nobody wants to go through this once more, of course. A State of the Union is one of the most important speeches a president can give. And I think everybody involved has learned the lessons from this."

A week ago, the White House acknowledged that the evidence supporting the statement did not meet the standards of a presidential address to the nation.

However, Fleischer maintained Monday that the statement "very well may be true. We don't know if it's true, but nobody can say it is wrong."

The president and CIA Director George J. Tenet have said the CIA approved the 16 words on Iraq and Africa.

But a written mea culpa issued Friday by Tenet, in which he accepted responsibility for failing to excise the sentence from the speech, has hardly put the issue to rest, as the president discovered Monday during a photo session with visiting U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

Bush sounded defensive as he fielded questions about the controversy.

"When I gave the speech, the line was relevant," he said, noting that it had been cleared by the CIA. The president said it was only after his January speech that the agency "had some doubts" about the reliability of the information.

"The larger point is, and the fundamental question is, did Saddam Hussein have a weapons program? And the answer is absolutely," Bush said.

He spoke briefly to reporters in the Oval Office after meeting with Annan. They discussed such issues as Iraq, the Middle East peace process and the status of peacekeeping efforts in Liberia.

In his final White House briefing for the media, Fleischer echoed the president as reporters peppered him with questions. Fleischer dismissed the question of whether Hussein had sought uranium in Africa as a "minor element" in the array of factors Bush weighed before undertaking a "regime change" in Baghdad.

"They were seeking to reconstitute their nuclear program, whether they got the uranium from Africa or from somewhere else," he said.

"The fact of the matter is, whether they sought it from Africa or didn't seek it from Africa doesn't change the fact that they were seeking to reconstitute a nuclear program.

"The fact that they had biological weapons made them a threat. The fact that they had chemical weapons made them a threat. And that's why this president did the right thing and led our nation to war to remove the threat," Fleischer said.

The spokesman declined to specify what new safeguards have been instituted in fact-checking presidential speeches in light of the controversy, saying only that "people are going to make certain that they do their due diligence with each and every sentence of every presidential address."

The White House's continuing statements and explanations on Monday did not satisfy Democrats, who raised more questions about the administration's handling of the matter. And antiwar advocacy groups launched a television advertising campaign accusing Bush of misleading Americans about Iraq's nuclear ambitions. The ad ends with the word "Leader" superimposed on the president's face; the word then changes to "Misleader."

S.Korea Says North Reprocessing Not Confirmed
Mon Jul 14, 4:47 AM ET
By Paul Eckert

SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea said on Monday it had "no scientific evidence" to back reports North Korea has reprocessed all its spent nuclear fuel rods, a development that would enable Pyongyang to build five or six new atomic bombs.
On Sunday, South Korea's Yonhap news agency quoted a former presidential intelligence aide as saying U.N.-based North Korean diplomats had told U.S. officials the reprocessing had been completed in June at the North's Yongbyon nuclear complex.
"We're not at the stage of being able to confirm anything," President Roh Moo-hyun's foreign policy adviser, Ban Ki-moon, told a meeting of presidential secretaries.
"At present, as we have said, there is no scientific evidence" that Pyongyang had completed reprocessing, he said.
Roh's office released minutes of the meeting.
Reprocessing the 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods would enable North Korea to extract 25 to 30 kg (55 to 66 lb) of plutonium -- enough to add five or six bombs to an arsenal U.S. experts estimate already includes one or two such weapons.
The Yonhap report was based on an account of a U.S.-North Korean meeting provided by Chang Sung-min, an intelligence aide to former South Korean president Kim Dae-jung Roh's predecessor.
"North Korean delegates told U.S. officials in an unofficial meeting in New York on July 8 that the reprocessing of spent fuel rods was completed on June 30," Chang was quoted as saying.
Washington and Seoul are trying to draw Pyongyang into talks with South Korea, Japan and China to try to negotiate an end to North Korea's nuclear weapons ambitions. Pyongyang says there must be North Korea-U.S. talks first.
SEEKING U.S. ATTENTION?
Japan warned North Korea on Monday not to escalate its stand-off with the international community and said it also had no confirmation of the Yonhap report.
The rods were part of a nuclear program frozen under a 1994 nuclear agreement between North Korea and the United States. The pact fell apart after Washington said last October North Korea had said it had a covert scheme to enrich uranium for bombmaking.
In what some analysts say is a sign North Korea aims to force the United States into bilateral talks, Pyongyang has since made a series of confusing comments about its nuclear activities.
Ban, who said Seoul and Washington were exchanging information on the reprocessing reports, cited recent remarks by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld that highlighted the uncertainty about the state of North Korea's reprocessing.
Rumsfeld told the U.S. NBC television program "Meet the Press" on Sunday: "We do not have good visibility into what they're doing with those rods, and the extent to which they are or are not reprocessing."
Referring to Pyongyang's statements on weapons possession and reprocessing, Rumsfeld said: "Some people believe what they're saying. Other people don't believe what they're saying."
Seoul's intelligence agency told parliament last week it estimated the North had reprocessed some of the rods. On Saturday, Japan's Kyodo news agency cited U.S. sources as saying air samples taken close to Yongbyon had shown traces of krypton 85, a reprocessing by-product.
Analyst Koh Yoo-hwan of Dongkuk University in Seoul said the statements were "North Korea's card to capture the U.S.'s attention and force them to the negotiating table."
"Because the U.S. has ignored North Korea, I think the North Koreans are getting a bit impatient," he said.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard and Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo discussed North Korea in talks in Manila on Monday. They agreed a multilateral approach was the best way to defuse the crisis over its nuclear program.

CQ HOMELAND SECURITY - WEAPONS
July 8, 2003 - 7:23 p.m.
Energy Department Orders Sweeping Security Upgrades at Nuclear Weapons Plants
By Martin Edwin Andersen, CQ Staff Writer

Citing a "wealth" of studies showing lax security at U.S. nuclear weapons facilities, National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Administrator Linton Brooks on Tuesday announced a series of steps designed to safeguard the complex of laboratories and production plants from terrorist attack.
Brooks ordered facility managers to immediately help the agency respond to security concerns identified in recent months by increasing the number of federal and contract experts working on security issues.
In a statement, Brooks said NNSA site managers also are being required to "increase the frequency of surveillance of security" at the labs.
The NNSA chief's initiative came just two weeks after Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham cited a recent spate of security incidents at the nuclear laboratories as evidence that "improved security must be aggressive and far reaching."
Abraham directed Brooks to launch a "comprehensive security overhaul" throughout the complex and to make whatever changes are necessary to fix security problems.
In the past two months, a series of managerial lapses, financial fraud and security concerns have been uncovered at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, the New Mexico facility run by the University of California.
At the same time, a team of senior NNSA officials was sent by Brooks to investigate security at another UC-run facility, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, after it was revealed that a set of security keys and an electronic access card had been missing for weeks before their disappearance was reported.
Although lab officials maintained the facility's security was not compromised by the breaches, critics pointed out that the keys opened as many as 3,000 locks at the lab, the repository for the most important secrets of the U.S. nuclear weapons program.
In his announcement Tuesday, Brooks also said he had appointed two former strategic commanders to head review groups looking at long-term security management and protection issues at the sites.
Richard Mies will chair a panel examining physical security and nuclear materials control and accountability programs. A former chief of the military's U.S. Strategic Command, in 2001 Mies was outspoken in cautioning against irreversibly shrinking the American nuclear arsenal.
Brooks said Mies will focus on improving the deployment and management of the laboratories' protective forces and increasing the use of state-of-the-art security technology.
Another retired Strategic Command commander, Hank Chiles, will head a panel tasked with developing recommendations for recruiting and retaining NNSA managers proficient in technical operations, engineering and physical sciences.
Chiles is a former chair of a congressionally-mandated Commission on Maintaining United States Nuclear Weapons Expertise.
Noting the previous work done by outside commissions, the DOE inspector general, the General Accounting Office and lab internal review teams, among others, Brooks announced that he had directed a team to reassess "the many recommendations and devise a plan for implementing any sound ideas that we have not yet undertaken."
Meanwhile, Livermore security officials told CQ Homeland Security that one of the employees who received a 10-day suspension for his role in failing to report recent security violations at the lab has since retired from the federal workforce. He has, however, been hired by LLNL as an outside expert security consultant.

July 8, 2003
Bush Claim on Iraq Had Flawed Origin, White House Says
By DAVID E. SANGER

WASHINGTON, July 7 - The White House acknowledged for the first time today that President Bush was relying on incomplete and perhaps inaccurate information from American intelligence agencies when he declared, in his State of the Union speech, that Saddam Hussein had tried to purchase uranium from Africa.
The White House statement appeared to undercut one of the key pieces of evidence that President Bush and his aides had cited to back their claims made prior to launching an attack against Iraq in March that Mr. Hussein was "reconstituting" his nuclear weapons program. Those claims added urgency to the White House case that military action to depose Mr. Hussein needed to be taken quickly, and could not await further inspections of the country or additional resolutions at the United Nations.
The acknowledgment came after a day of questions - and sometimes contradictory answers from White House officials - about an article published on the Op-Ed page of The New York Times on Sunday by Joseph C. Wilson 4th, a former ambassador who was sent to Niger, in West Africa, last year to investigate reports of the attempted purchase. He reported back that the intelligence was likely fraudulent, a warning that White House officials say never reached them.
"There is other reporting to suggest that Iraq tried to obtain uranium from Africa," the statement said. "However, the information is not detailed or specific enough for us to be certain that attempts were in fact made."
In other words, said one senior official, "we couldn't prove it, and it might in fact be wrong."
Separately tonight, The Washington Post quoted an unidentified senior administration official as declaring that "knowing all that we know now, the reference to Iraq's attempt to acquire uranium from Africa should not have been included in the State of the Union speech." Some administration officials have expressed similar sentiments in interviews in the past two weeks.
Asked about the statement early today, before President Bush departed for a six-day tour of Africa, Ari Fleischer, the White House spokesman, said, "There is zero, nada, nothing new here." He said that "we've long acknowledged" that information on the attempted purchases from Niger "did, indeed, turn out to be incorrect."
But in public, administration officials have defended the president's statement in the State of Union address that "the British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."
While Mr. Bush cited the British report, seemingly giving the account the credibility of coming from a non-American intelligence service, Britain itself relied in part on information provided by the C.I.A., American and British officials have said.
But today a report from a parliamentary committee that conducted an investigation into the British assertions also questioned the credibility of what the government of Prime Minister Tony Blair had published.
The committee went on to say that Mr. Blair's government had asserted it had other evidence of Iraqi attempts to procure uranium. But eight months later the government still had not told Parliament what that other information was.
While Mr. Bush quoted the British report, his statement was apparently primarily based on American intelligence - a classified "National Intelligence Estimate" published in October of last year that also identified two other countries, Congo and Somalia, where Iraq had sought the material, in addition to Niger.
But many analysts did not believe those reports at the time, and were shocked to hear the president make such a flat, declarative statement.
Asked about the accuracy of the president's statement this morning, Mr. Fleischer said, "We see nothing that would dissuade us from the president's broader statement." But when pressed, he said he would clarify the issue later today.
Tonight, after Air Force One had departed, White House officials issued a statement in Mr. Fleischer's name that made clear that they no longer stood behind Mr. Bush's statement.
How Mr. Bush's statement made it into last January's State of the Union address is still unclear. No one involved in drafting the speech will say who put the phrase in, or whether it was drawn from the classified intelligence estimate.
That document contained a footnote - in a separate section of the report, on another subject - noting that State Department experts were doubtful of the claims that Mr. Hussein had sought uranium.
If the intelligence was true, it would have buttressed statements by Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney that Saddam Hussein was actively seeking a nuclear weapon, and could build one in a year or less if he obtained enough nuclear material.
In early March, before the invasion of Iraq began, the International Atomic Energy Agency dismissed the uranium reports about Niger, noting that they were based on forged documents.
In an interview late last month, a senior administration official said that the news of the fraud was not brought to the attention of the White House until after Mr. Bush had spoken.
But even then, White House officials made no effort to correct the president's remarks. Indeed, as recently as a few weeks ago they were arguing that Mr. Bush had quite deliberately avoided mentioning Niger, and noted that he had spoken more generally about efforts to obtain "yellowcake," the substance from which uranium is extracted, from African nations.
Tonight's statement, though, calls even those reports into question. In interviews in recent days, a number of administration officials have conceded that Mr. Bush never should have made the claims, given the weakness of the case. One senior official said that the uranium purchases were "only one small part" of a broader effort to reconstitute the nuclear program, and that Mr. Bush probably should have dwelled on others.
White House officials would not say, however, how the statement was approved. They have suggested that the Central Intelligence Agency approved the wording, though the C.I.A. has said none of its senior leaders had reviewed it. Other key members of the administration said the information was discounted early on, and that by the time the president delivered the State of the Union address, there were widespread questions about the quality of the intelligence.
"We only found that out later," said one official involved in the speech.

CIA shifts on North Korean nukes

By Bill Gertz
Published July 4, 2003

The CIA has revised an earlier intelligence estimate and now believes North Korea has begun reprocessing spent nuclear-fuel rods into plutonium for weapons, U.S. officials said.
Reprocessing the 8,000 stored nuclear fuel rods would be a key indicator that Pyongyang has abandoned past commitments to freeze its nuclear-arms program.
A review of intelligence on the nuclear-rod reprocessing began in April after North Korea's representative to nuclear talks with the United States and China in Beijing stated that the reprocessing was nearly finished.
The CIA review included re-examining intelligence that showed North Korea had imported plutonium secretly from Russia or a former Soviet republic during the 1990s. It could not be learned whether that intelligence was confirmed.
A senior U.S. official familiar with the review said the new estimate states that "some" reprocessing could be under way.
"If it is, we don't believe it is anywhere near completed," the official said.
A senior Asian diplomat also said new intelligence reports indicate that the fuel reprocessing is under way, although not completed.
In April, the CIA reported that North Korea was not separating the fuel, although trucks that could move the rods to a reprocessing facility had been seen at the storage facility at the Yongbyon nuclear complex.
No reprocessing, however, had been detected before Li Gun, the North Korean negotiator at the Beijing talks last April, stated that it was nearly finished.
Mr. Li also told Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly in an aside during the talks that North Korea planned to export nuclear weapons or add to its existing nuclear arsenal. U.S. officials view the statement as a threat and say Pyongyang will not blackmail the United States.
The United States wants to expand any new talks to include representatives of South Korea and Japan.
The fuel rods were taken from a 5-megawatt reactor at Yongbyon and stored in cannisters in a fuel pond that had been sealed by the International Atomic Energy Agency according to the terms of a 1994 agreement between North Korea and the United States to freeze Pyongyang's nuclear program in exchange for economic and energy aid.
The storage program was completed in April 2000.
North Korea announced last year that it had a secret program to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons. It then expelled international inspectors who had been monitoring the nuclear weapons freeze and restarted the small 5-megawatt reactor.
The communist government is believed to have enough plutonium for two or three nuclear devices. The plutonium in the fuel rods would give Pyongyang enough for five or six more weapons.
Reprocessing takes place at a large facility where the rods are chopped up and dissolved in nitric acid. The material is then treated with a mixture of tributyl phosphate and kerosene in several steps, and a small amount of weapons-grade plutonium is produced.
In December, U.S. intelligence agencies detected North Korea's purchase from a Chinese company of 20 tons of tributyl phosphate - one of the first indicators that the North Koreans were preparing to reprocess the spent fuel rods.
Robert Alvarez, a former Energy Department adviser, wrote in the current issue of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists that the North Koreans could take the fuel rods to a cave or other hidden location to conduct the reprocessing.
"Work in this kind of makeshift environment would be even more dangerous and definitely more time-consuming - it would involve handling much smaller batches of rods than the reprocessing plant and using 'hot cells' to extract the tiny fraction of plutonium in the spent reactor fuel," Mr. Alvarez stated.
The North Koreans will need anywhere from "several months" to more than a year to produce the plutonium, he stated.
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell told Congress on April 30 that North Korean officials told the United States that they had reprocessed all the fuel rods in storage.
"We can't establish that as a matter of fact with our intelligence community, but they said they did it. That is their assertion. That is their position," Mr. Powell said.
On Wednesday, according to reports, China and Russia delayed U.N. Security Council action on a U.S.-sought condemnation of the North Korean nuclear-weapons program.
The administration also is pushing South Korea to stop helping to build two light-water nuclear reactors in North Korea - one provision of the 1994 Agreed Framework aimed at halting the North Korean nuclear program.
Asked about the reactor-building effort yesterday, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said: "This is obviously a subject of continuing discussions."
North Korea has said it would consider any imposition of sanctions as a declaration of war, and South Korea is resisting U.S. pressure to halt the new reactors.

July 1, 2003
U.S. Releases Final Reports on Cold War Toxin Tests
By THOM SHANKER

WASHINGTON, June 30 - The Pentagon made public today a final set of reports on a cold war program that tested the vulnerability of American forces to unconventional attack, having identified 5,842 people who may have been exposed to chemical or biological agents.
The end of the inquiry was criticized on Capitol Hill and by a leading veterans' organization, whose leaders said they remained unconvinced that all the tests had been documented and all those potentially exposed had been identified.
The 10 test reports declassified today offered none of the revelations of earlier Pentagon releases on the test program, in which deadly substances like VX and sarin had been sprayed on sailors, ships and even on American soil.
One new fact was the disclosure that military personnel used a substance called Betapropriolactone to decontaminate naval vessels, structures and clothing. Studies of mice, rats, hamsters and guinea pigs now indicate that it may cause cancer, the Pentagon said, although the findings are not definitive.
Under the testing program, which was known as Project 112 and Project SHAD (for shipboard hazard and defense), the military conducted 50 exercises out of 134 that had been planned, the Pentagon said. The names of those known to have participated in the tests have been provided to the Department of Veterans Affairs, because they may be eligible for benefits if medical problems or disabilities can be linked to exposure.
"This release concludes a significant effort on the part of many people in the Department of Defense to ensure important information was made available to service members and the Department of Veterans Affairs," William Winkenwerder Jr., assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, said. "That effort reflects our individual and collective commitment to veterans and their families."
But seven members of Congress wrote to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Thursday stating that while they "appreciate the determination to declassify information concerning known tests," any decision by the Pentagon to "discontinue its investigation would be premature and would put thousands of veterans at further risk."
An author of the letter, Representative Mike Thompson, a California Democrat, said today: "There are still a lot of unanswered questions, and a lot of new information is still coming out. I think we do need a hearing, or at a minimum a briefing by the Department of Defense, to ask some of these questions, in particular why they think it is necessary to shut this down."
Rick Weidman, director of government relations for the Vietnam Veterans of America, said his organization had been contacted by retired military personnel who provided information that suggested additional tests were conducted and that other military units were involved beyond those described in the Pentagon reports.

Tehran proposes nuclear talks

THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published June 22, 2003

TEHRAN (Agence France-Presse) - The head of Iran's atomic energy authority yesterday rejected again growing international demands for the country to immediately allow tougher U.N. inspections of its nuclear program.
But Gholam Reza Aghazadeh said he was optimistic that further negotiations would pave the way for an end to the dispute, and he pledged that Iran would show greater cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Authority (IAEA).
"We will try to ease the worries of the world. We have cooperated with the IAEA, and we will continue to cooperate even more." Mr. Aghazadeh told reporters.
"We are optimistic over the signing of the additional protocol, but there are ambiguities that need to be removed," he said, adding that Iran would "study the demands of the agency" and "wishes to commence discussions with the IAEA as soon as possible."
The IAEA has called on Iran to sign an additional protocol to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) that would permit U.N. inspectors to carry out surprise visits to suspect nuclear facilities.
So far, IAEA teams are permitted to make only prearranged visits to declared sites related to Iran's bid to produce atomic power, a program the United States says is a cover for nuclear weapons development.
The IAEA demand has been backed up by the United States, the European Union, Group of Eight leaders, Russia, Canada and Australia, who all have told Iran to make a "confidence building" gesture immediately and without conditions.
Iran has fiercely denied that it is developing nuclear weapons and has argued that it is being treated unfairly. It has also continued to attach conditions to allowing more inspections.
Tehran has also complained that treaty signatories have refused to keep their side of the deal - their obligation to aid Iran through the transfer of peaceful atomic technology.
But Mr. Aghazadeh's comments hinted that those conditions, effectively demanding an end to sanctions, may be waived by Iran and that the country is ready to discuss the mechanisms of additional inspections.
"There are ambiguities over the protocol. We will discuss them with the agency, as it is the right of every country to have discussions when there are ambiguities," Mr. Aghazadeh said, without saying what he considered the ambiguities to be.
"The path we will take is that of cooperation, so as to find an acceptable solution for both parties."
"America is not the policeman of the world. It has to use legal channels," he said. "If the U.S. is really of good faith, they have to chose other methods. The agency [IAEA] is the correct institution for them to raise worries over such and such a country.

Putin: Iran Ready for Nuclear Oversight
By DEBORAH SEWARD, Associated Press Writer

MOSCOW - Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday that Iran was prepared to accept tight international oversight of its nuclear program. He also called for security guarantees to be given to North Korea to solve the deadlock over its nuclear activity.
In his annual Kremlin news conference, Putin also said that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat must not be shut out of the Mideast peace process.
"He's influential," Putin said. "A lot of people in the region count on him."
Putin said Iranian President Mohammad Khatami had assured him in a telephone call two days ago that his country does not strive for nuclear weapons and that it was prepared to sign protocols required by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
"The Iranian leadership is ready to fully meet all the IAEA demands regarding control over its nuclear program," Putin said.
On Thursday, the U.N. nuclear watchdog urged Iran to allow more inspections and to stop enriching nuclear fuel, but it rejected Washington's effort to bring the matter before the U.N. Security Council.
Tehran insists its program is intended to produce electricity. Russia has an $800 million contract to build a nuclear power plant in Iran and insists U.S. fears that the project could help Tehran develop nuclear weapons are unfounded.
Under U.S. pressure, Russia has urged Iran to open itself up to broader nuclear inspections, but it has not made fulfillment of the power plant contract contingent on Tehran's signing an additional IAEA protocol providing the U.N. organization with greater access.
Putin warned against pressuring Russia to abandon the Bushehr contract, saying Russia was against "using the nuclear card in unfair competition on the Iranian market."
In response to a question from a South Korean journalist, Putin said President Bush did not favor using force against North Korea.
"As far as I know from my meetings with President Bush, he has no plans to solve the Korean nuclear problem militarily," Putin said.
He said that the U.S. and Russian positions on the crisis were becoming closer but insisted that Pyongyang's security worries be addressed.
"We think this problem must be solved by negotiations, taking into account North Korea's legitimate interests and concerns. North Korea should not be cornered, and the problem should not be exacerbated."
Turning to Russia's often tense relations with its ex-Soviet neighbor, Georgia, Putin said Russia supports Georgia's territorial integrity in its conflict with the breakaway province of Abkhazia and pledged to help ethnic Georgian refugees return there. But he urged the Georgian government to take stronger steps to end alleged cross-border attacks by Chechen militants from Georgia.
Most of the questions concerned domestic politics, and Putin's remarks often sounded like a dress-rehearsal for next year's presidential campaign. He described his administration's achievements in restructuring the state as the boldest in Russia's history, and praised the government's successes in boosting economic growth and establishing conditions that have encouraged Russians to repatriate capital that had been stashed abroad.
However, Putin said he was pained by the poverty of many Russians and called for the government to write off some $2 billion in farmers' debts.

UN nuclear watchdog to release judgment on Iran nuclear program
Thu Jun 19, 2:54 AM ET

VIENNA (AFP) - The UN nuclear watchdog will release a judgment Thursday on Iran's nuclear program but this is almost certain to be a weaker statement than the United States wants as it warns Tehran is secretly trying to develop atomic weapons, diplomats said.
Iran and the United States traded charges Wednesday at an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) meeting over a report that said Tehran had failed to comply with international agreements on reporting nuclear material.
US representative Kenneth Brill accused Iran of secretly developing a nuclear weapons program and called for more intrusive inspections, but Iran vigorously refuted the charges.
Washington has urged the IAEA board members to issue a strong statement about Iran's monitoring violations but Malaysia, representing a group of Non-Aligned Movement states, said it was against a tough declaration since Iran is trying to cooperate.
Meanwhile, US President George W. Bush said in Washington Wednesday that the world must warn Tehran that it "will not tolerate" the Islamic regime's getting atomic weapons.
An IAEA spokesman said Kuwaiti representative Nabeela Al-Mulla who has chaired the 35-nation board meeting would issue a written statement on the Iranian nuclear program Thursday and then IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei would talk to the press.
A senior Western diplomat said Al-Mulla would "distill the essence of what people have said" rather than just summarize the debate.
"What is important is that there be a clear message. Iran heard a clear message today (Wednesday)" at the board meeting, the diplomat said.
The result is expected to be weaker however than the "resolution of concern" which the Americans were seeking before the IAEA meeting began Monday.
Bush has branded Iran part of an "axis of evil," along with North Korea, all charged with developing weapons of mass destruction.
Iran, which is building its first civil nuclear plant with Russian assistance, says the pressure being applied to it now, hot on the heels of the US-led war on neighbouring Iraq, is "politically motivated."
The diplomat said the IAEA would in any case continue to investigate the Iraqi program and would compile another report ahead of the next IAEA meeting in September.
Brill said: "The US expects the agency's accumulation of further information will point to only one conclusion -- that Iran is aggressively pursuing a nuclear weapons program."
He said the United States wants ElBaradei to "advise immediately" if he feels there are "essential and urgent" measures "for Iran to take in order for the IAEA to verify that there has been no diversion of nuclear material."
But Ali Salehi, the Iranian ambassador to the IAEA, said: "The Islamic Republic of Iran has fulfilled its obligations under all provisions of the NPT (the global nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty)."
"Iran considers the acquiring, development and use of nuclear weapons inhuman, illegal and against its very basic principles," Salehi said.
ElBaradei has called on Tehran to allow wider inspections of suspected nuclear sites.
But Salehi repeated Tehran's position that Iran was currently not prepared to allow IAEA nuclear inspectors wider access but would give the matter "positive consideration" if the IAEA avoided using the "language of force" in the forthcoming statement on Iran's nuclear program.
Salehi said Tehran believed concern over its nuclear activities was exaggerated and that the IAEA report "could have been crafted in a more partial, fair and balanced manner," a clear accusation of US influence.
"The crux of the (ElBaradei) report in front of us deals only with a small amount of 0.13 effective kilogram of natural uranium that we imported in 1991," Salehi said.
"Nevertheless my country declared the material to the agency and it is now under its full safeguards."
Brill quoted the IAEA report saying the amount involved was "not insignificant in terms of a state's ability to conduct nuclear research and development activities."

North Korea Plans to Strengthen Nuclear Deterrence
Wednesday, June 18, 2003

SEOUL, South Korea - North Korea said Wednesday it will step up efforts to strengthen its "nuclear deterrent capabilities" in response to U.S. pressure, and discarded American calls for multilateral talks on the atomic dispute.
The comments by North Korea's Foreign Ministry -- carried by the North's official news agency KCNA -- came shortly after a state-run newspaper apparently acknowledged publicly for the first time that the communist nation has a nuclear weapons program.
In Phnom Penh, Cambodia's capital, Secretary of State Colin Powell urged Southeast Asian nations to close ranks behind Washington's effort to form a coalition of countries to curb North Korea's nuclear weapons ambitions.
North Korean has warned that any blockade or embargo against it could lead to an "all-out war" and has said it would not join multilateral talks proposed by the United States.
"We will step up our efforts to strengthen our nuclear deterrent capabilities as a means of self-defense against the United States' strategy to isolate and stifle" the North, KCNA quoted an unidentified Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying.
The ministry also said it would not join multilateral talks proposed by the United States. "Dialogue and pressure are not compatible," it said.
The Foreign Ministry's comments indicated that the isolated regime is intensifying the rhetoric in its standoff with Washington.
For days, North Korea has claimed that the United States and its allies were laying "international siege" to the isolated country, as a prelude for invasion. The United States says it has no plans to invade North Korea, but has not ruled out the military option.
The United States and its allies, including Japan and Australia, have recently put their navies on alert for North Korean vessels that may be carrying illicit drugs, weapons and counterfeit money -- believed to be key sources of hard currency for Pyongyang.
The North Korean spokesman called the crackdown a "violation of the armistice" that ended the 1950-53 Korean War, "a declaration of war," and "tantamount to the very act of war."
Earlier Wednesday, Pyongyang's main state-run newspaper Rodong Sinmun said the United States' "pressure on the (North) to scrap its nuclear weapons program first is intended to contain it with ease after forcing it to disarm itself."
"The Iraqi war proved that disarmament leads to a war," Rodong said. "Therefore, it is quite clear that the DPRK can never accept the U.S. demand that it scrap its nuclear weapons program first," it said, using the initials of North Korea's official name.
Rodong's commentary, which was carried by KCNA, was the first time North Korea's state-run news media referred to its own "nuclear weapons program." During talks in Beijing in April, U.S. officials said the North Koreans privately told them that Pyongyang already had nuclear weapons and planned to build more.
North Korea has said it might consider U.S. demands for talks involving several nations, if it can also meet one-on-one with the United States. Washington says the North's nuclear ambitions are a regional threat and talks should include Russia, China, South Korea and Japan.
"This is not a bilateral matter between the United States and North Korea," Powell said, according to a State Department official who attended a closed-door ASEAN meeting in Phnom Penh where Powell spoke. "It affects every nation in the region that would fall under the arc of a North Korean missile."
"ASEAN's help in keeping pressure on North Korea is absolutely necessary if we are to achieve the goal that all of us seek: a diplomatic solution that leaves the peninsula, the region and the world safer," Powell said.
Britain expressed strong support.
"We do need internationally to work together to isolate North Korea and to demonstrate that we will not tolerate the way in which they both develop and proliferate weapons of mass destruction," said Britain's Defense Minister Geoffrey Hoon on a two-day visit to Australia.
The nuclear dispute flared in October when U.S. officials said North Korea admitted it had a clandestine nuclear program in violation of a 1994 agreement with Washington.
The United States and its allies suspended fuel shipments promised under the 1994 deal, and Pyongyang retaliated by expelling U.N. monitors, restarting frozen nuclear facilities and withdrawing from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

Second GAO Report Cites Threat Posed by Inadequate Control of Radioactive Materials

A May 2003 report by the Government Accounting Office (GAO), released on 16 June, found that there are nearly 10 million 'sealed sources' of radioactive material in the 50 countries surveyed by the agency, including the United States, but that international efforts to control their possession "vary greatly and are weakest among less developed countries. Sealed sources are radioactive material, such as cesium-137, strontium-90, cobalt-60, plutonium-238 and plutonium-239, encased in metal and typically used in equipment for medicine, industry, agriculture and research. However, they pose a security threat because they could be used by terrorists to make a radiological dispersion device, or "dirty bomb." Countries responding to GAO's survey indicated "that a total of 612 sealed sources had been reported lost or stolen since 1995, 254 of which had not been recovered." While the exact number of stolen, lost or abandoned sealed sources is difficult to determine, GAO estimated that it to be several thousand. The agency also found that "many of the most vulnerable sealed sources that could pose a security risk are located in the countries of the former Soviet Union," in particular the Republic of Georgia, which raised considerable concern over some dozen abandoned strontium-90-rich electrical generators. The report cited as many as 1,000 other generators in the region that lack adequate protection. It charged the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) program established to address the sealed sources threat in Russia and the former Soviet Union with lacking "adequate planning and coordination" with the State Department and Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and spending "the majority of the program funds...in the United States rather than in the countries of the former Soviet Union.

ANALYSIS: The GAO report is the second investigation of sealed radioactive sources that had been requested by Senator Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii). The first report, released in April, looked only at US efforts. Commenting on the latest report, Akaka said, "There is a worldwide crisis in tracking and securing these sources. Thankfully, no dirty bombs have been detonated, but there have been accidents with sealed sources that show the consequences of a dirty bomb could be serious." The GAO report was released on the heels of the 13 June arrest of a Thai man in Bangkok who had a significant amount of cesium-137 that he attempted to sell Thai police as the result of a U.S.-Thai sting operation. Details of the investigation revealed that the cesium-137 had been transported into Thailand from Laos, which reportedly has significantly large amounts of radioactive material for sale on the black market that originated from the former Soviet Union. The GAO report recommended, among other things, that the Secretary of Energy "take the lead in developing a government wide plan to strengthen controls over other countries' sealed sources."

North Korea: Blockade Could Lead to War
Tuesday, June 17, 2003

SEOUL, South Korea - North Korea warned Tuesday that any economic blockade by the United States and its allies against the communist state could lead to a war that would include Japan.
The warning came as the United States, Japan and Australia, began cracking down on the North Korean trade in illicit drugs, weapons and counterfeit money -- believed to be key sources of hard currency for Pyongyang to buttress its regime and its suspected nuclear weapons programs.
North Korea's main state-run newspaper Rodong Sinmun on Tuesday charged that the United States is "laying an international siege to the North and putting a blockade against it as a premeditated scheme to start a new war on the Korean peninsula."
North Korea will take "physical retaliation," including "all means and methods an independent country can take," if it concludes that the recent moves by the allies violate its sovereignty, Rodong said in a commentary monitored by South Korean news agency Yonhap.
"There is no guarantee that this blockade will not lead to such a serious condition as a full-scale war," said Rodong. "If war breaks out between the North and the United States, it will not be limited to the Korean Peninsula but all the areas where aggressors are lurking will become our targets."
North Korea accused Japan of turning itself into the "base camp for U.S. aggression against Korea."
North Korea traditionally churns out sabre-rattling rhetoric when its relations with the outside world worsen.
Japan has been tightening safety and customs inspections of North Korean ships long suspected of smuggling missile parts and narcotics between the two countries. In the past week, they have detained one cargo ship and blocked another from docking for safety violations.
The move came after a North Korean defector told U.S. lawmakers last month that a North Korean ferry linking the two countries was used to smuggle missile parts.
Japan allows trade with North Korea on an informal basis, though the two countries have no diplomatic relations. Last year, 147 North Korean ships made over 1,300 port calls in Japan.
In a joint statement in Hawaii last week, U.S., Japanese and South Korean officials expressed concern about the North's narcotics trafficking and counterfeiting, and said they discussed cooperation to stop them.
In the past few days, both Japanese and South Korean officials have said that intensifying pressure on North Korea would force it to accept a U.S. offer for multilateral talks on halting its suspected nuclear weapons programs.
In April, Australian authorities raided a North Korean-owned ship and charged its crew with aiding and abetting the trafficking of heroin.
Tensions have increased since October, when U.S. officials said North Korea admitted having a covert nuclear program.
Separately, the mayor of Hiroshima has invited North Korean leader Kim Jong Il to attend this year's memorial of the 1945 atomic bombing in protest of Pyongyang's plans to pursue nuclear weapons.
The annual memorial honors those who died on Aug. 6, 1945, when the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the western Japanese city in the closing days of World War II. About 160,000 people were killed or injured in the attack.

Iran 'didn't report' N-activities

VIENNA, Austria (CNN) --Iran has failed to report on certain nuclear material and activities but is taking corrective action, the United Nations' chief nuclear inspector says.

International Atomic Energy Agency Secretary General Dr Mohamed Elaborate said there were a number of "open questions" with regards Iran's nuclear program.
Intensive inspections would go on, IDEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming told CNN Monday.
The Idea's 35-nation governing board of diplomats was due to discuss a report on Iran's nuclear program at a behind-closed-doors meeting in Vienna Monday.
The Vienna meeting comes 10 days after a leaked internal report claims that Iran failed to honor promises to disclose its use of nuclear material. Some U.S. experts say that Tehran could have a nuclear bomb developed by 2006.
"It is not a final report and we expect more reporting in the future," Fleming told CNN.
The IDEA wants Tehran to allow inspectors unfettered access to its facilities without prior notice. Iran has offered to allow more monitoring in exchange for advanced technology.
Under the treaty, members gain access to technology to build peaceful programs. Iran needs expertise to build advanced reactors.
Iran said on Monday it was considering accepting the stricter U.N. inspections of its nuclear programmed demanded by the international community, but had made no final decision on the subject.
Despite calls from the U.N., the European Union, Russia and the United States, Iran has so far refused to sign an Additional Protocol to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which would allow inspections of its nuclear facilities at short notice.
"We have not yet decided about signing the Additional Protocol, but we are studying it with a positive view," Iran's Atomic Energy Organization spokesman Cahill Mosaic told Reuters.
Spokesman for Iran's Foreign Ministry, Humid Reza Azeri, told reporters he hoped the board will not cave into American pressures on its nuclear program.
He said the U.S. had launched "a psychological war" to influence the IDEA so the agency would act according to its wishes.
"We hope the agency will act with diligence understand the situation," said Azeri.
Gholamreza Aghazadeh, Iran's nuclear chief, told The Associated Press: "We want the (IDEA) to end discrimination against us and allow all member states equal access to nuclear technology."
Elaborate was also expected to brief diplomats on North Korea, which expelled all U.N. inspectors in December, and Iraq, where the IDEA has been investigating reports of looting at the country's main atomic facility.
Iran's nuclear program has been an issue between the U.S. and Russia.
Since 1995, Russia has been helping Iran build a nuclear power plant near Bushehr -- a deal worth at least $800 million to Moscow.
Both countries deny a nuclear arms program and say it is purely for civilian purposes, to provide light-water reactors for a power plant.
Elaborate toured Iran's nuclear facilities in February. The visit was intended to ensure that Iran's nuclear program was limited to peaceful, civilian purposes and that the facilities were safe.
His visit included a trip to the incomplete nuclear plant in Natanz, about 200 miles (320 kilometers) south of Tehran.
Diplomatic sources quoted by TIME say he found the plant much further along than previously believed. The sources say work on the plant is "extremely advanced," involves hundreds of gas centrifuges ready to produce enriched uranium and "the parts for a thousand others ready to be assembled."
Russia's stance could be shifting. President Vladimir Putin has given signals that it could be prepared to put more pressure on Tehran, CNN's Moscow Bureau Chief Jill Dougherty reported. (Full story http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/06/15/iran.russia/index.html)
Georgy Mamdedov, Russian deputy foreign minister, told CNN: "I can only assure you of one thing. We are for the strictest possible observance of the NPT Treaty.
"This is the highest priority for us. And this is higher than any material gain from any nuclear contract with any country."
Russia says it will not provide nuclear fuel for the Bushehr plant until Iran signs a new agreement to return spent fuel to Russia -- which it says it is about to do.
The Russian foreign ministry says: "If the IDEA has questions for Iran... Russia will support the agency... and that will influence Russia's future plans on cooperating with Iran."
CNN's Moscow Bureau Chief Jill Dougherty contributed to this report

June 12, 2003
Rumsfeld Says Iran Is Developing Nuclear Arms Under Guise of Civilian Program
By RICHARD BERNSTEIN

GARMISCH-PARTENKIRCHEN, Germany, June 11 - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld warned today about Iran's nuclear activities and called on the Atlantic alliance to find new ways of combating "the nexus of terror and weapons of mass destruction," which he called the biggest threat facing the countries of both "old" and "new" Europe.
Speaking in this resort town in the Bavarian Alps, Mr. Rumsfeld struck a mostly conciliatory tone, shaking hands warmly with the German defense minister, Peter Struck, who was here to greet him.
"Like a family, sometimes we don't agree on everything and sometimes we have debates, but when we are threatened or challenged, we need to come together, as we did after Sept. 11," Mr. Rumsfeld said.
One such threat, Mr. Rumsfeld said to a group of students before his formal remarks, is Iran's development of nuclear weapons, which Washington says Tehran is doing under the guise of a civilian nuclear program. "The intelligence community in the United States and around the world currently assess that Iran does not have nuclear weapons," he said. "The assessment is that they do have a very active program and are likely to have nuclear weapons in a relatively short period of time."
In Washington, a senior United States official said the administration had asked the International Atomic Energy Agency to refer the issue of Iran's suspected nuclear arms program to the United Nations Security Council at a board meeting on Monday. He cited a "devastating" report by the agency that he said was "consistent with our theory, our belief, that Iran has a clandestine nuclear weapons program."
The agency's report found, among other things, that Iran had failed to declare the existence of facilities, including a heavy water research reactor, that could enable it to produce nuclear weapons.
In his remarks, Mr. Rumsfeld exhibited some of his customary combativeness, continuing to draw a distinction between the "old" Europe, particularly France and Germany, and the "new," made up mostly of former Soviet bloc countries. He made it clear that the countries of "new" Europe understand what he called "the new threat" better than some of countries of "old" Europe.
"The distinction between old and new in Europe today is not really of a matter of age or size or even geography," Mr. Rumsfeld said. "It is a matter of attitude, of the vision that countries bring to the trans-Atlantic relationship.
"It is no surprise that many of the nations with fresh memories of tyranny and occupation have been among those most willing to face the new threats, and contribute to dealing with them," he said. "This attitude is why, a decade after the cold war ended, NATO has now invited 10 new allies to join the Atlantic alliance. They are bringing new vision and new vitality to our old alliance.
"Let me be clear: those countries have not been invited as junior partners, allowed to join the grown-ups' table so long as they sit quietly," Mr. Rumsfeld continued. "No, they have been invited to lead."
Mr. Rumsfeld is on a four-stop tour that began in Portugal and is due to end at a NATO meeting in Brussels on Thursday. It will be the first since the end of the Iraq war. He stopped for a few hours in Germany to attend the 10th-anniversary celebrations of the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies, a joint institution of the German and American military establishments, which holds seminars and classes for government officials from former Communist countries in Europe and Asia.
The site, now a complex of stately cream-colored stucco buildings, was first used by the United States in 1945 as a prisoner-of-war camp for officers. Later it was used to train American officers in Russian and Soviet studies, while a part of it was the headquarters for a mountain division of the German Army.
The meeting here, attended by ministers of defense from several former Communist countries, including Albania, Azerbaijan, Slovenia and Ukraine, was not for a major policy address by Mr. Rumsfeld. Still, the presence of so many senior officials from the former Soviet bloc seemed to underscore the American enthusiasm for countries like Poland and Romania, as opposed to Germany and France, which opposed the war in Iraq.
The text of Mr. Rumsfeld's speech, given to reporters only minutes before the ceremonies began, made reference to countries that want to "define themselves by their opposition to the United States" - an unmistakable reference to France - but Mr. Rumsfeld omitted the reference in his actual remarks.
While Mr. Rumsfeld praised first Poland, for its military involvement in Iraq, and then Romania, for sending an infantry battalion to Afghanistan, he did not mention the fact that Germany, though opposed to the war in Iraq, also has troops in Afghanistan and supported the United States in the Kosovo war.
In a brief statement made during a photo session after his speech, Mr. Rumsfeld did express condolences to Germany for the four German soldiers killed in a suicide bomb attack in Afghanistan over the weekend.
Overall, the atmosphere was far more cordial on this trip than on Mr. Rumsfeld's last visit to Germany, for a security conference in Munich, where a direct verbal confrontation on Iraq took place between Mr. Rumsfeld and the German foreign minister, Joschka Fischer.
Mr. Rumsfeld, in his speech today, cited as the greatest of the "new dangers" facing the world the growing arsenals of rogue states, the trade among them in materials related to weapons of mass destruction and their connection with terrorist networks.
"If our free nations do not come to grips with the proliferation problem," Mr. Rumsfeld said, "it is possible that not so many years from now, when we gather for the 20th anniversary of this center, we could be living in a world with as many as twice the number of nuclear powers - and a number of those new nuclear powers being terrorist states."

June 10, 2003
North Korea Says It Seeks to Develop Nuclear Arms
By DAVID E. SANGER

WASHINGTON, June 9 - North Korea declared today for the first time that it was seeking to develop nuclear weapons so that it could reduce the size of a million-man army it can no longer afford.
The announcement came on the same day that several administration officials said the United States and its Asian allies were planning to track and inspect suspect sea shipments out of North Korea.
Administration officials said that those steps would stop short of a full embargo, but would amount to what one official called "selective interdiction." The effort is aimed at curbing the weapons exports of North Korea and cutting off its sources of cash, officials said. North Korea has shipped missiles to the Middle East, including Iran, and to Pakistan.
The administration was deliberately measured in its public response to the North today.
"This does not mean we are on our way to war," Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said in Santiago, Chile, where he was attending a meeting of the Organization of American States, according to Reuters. "We are not."
"The president continues to believe that there is an opportunity for a diplomatic solution, a political solution, but it's a solution that must come in a multilateral forum," Mr. Powell said at a news conference.
While debate continues on holding a second round of talks with North Korea - the first was two months ago - the administration is stepping up the economic pressure on the government of Kim Jong Il.
Japan began the process, sending 1,900 "safety inspectors" and policemen to meet a North Korean ferry suspected for years as being the link that allowed North Koreans living in Japan to transfer money home. When it became clear that the ferry would be inspected regularly, the North suspended the service.
American officials say those inspections are just a beginning. They are encouraging allies to stop ships and inspect them for drugs, as Australia did a month ago. Whether the United States itself will attempt to interdict shipments is unclear.
The legality of stopping ships is open to question. A ship suspected of carrying illegal drugs, for example, may be searched.
The effort "will be focused on those activities which require no additional laws, no new international treaties, no going to the United Nations Security Council," a senior official said. "Look at the Japanese, who can't stop transfers of money on North Korean ships, but suddenly discovered they can do `safety inspections.' " Other techniques like that are under consideration.
The strategy, officials say, is to make no announcement of any new measures, to avoid any overt confrontation with the North. But the interdictions are intended to make clear, officials say, that the United States has had some success in organizing its Asian allies into a loose coalition to put more and more pressure on the North. The most important nation needed in that coalition is China, and so far there is no indication it is willing to seal off its border or cut off oil and other shipments.
There is no indication that the squeeze on the North is having much effect. A Congressional delegation that traveled there last week said officials boasted that they had nearly completed reprocessing 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods, which can make four or five weapons.
The North was believed to have two nuclear weapons produced at least a decade ago, but with the ejection of international inspectors on New Year's Eve the opportunity to produce weapons has increased.
"What they are doing, though, is edging toward a declaration that they are now a nuclear weapons state," a senior official said. "And once they take that step, how do we respond?"
That is the subject of a continuing debate between Mr. Bush and his allies. Meetings with the leaders of South Korea and Japan have produced statements that the allies will not tolerate a nuclear North Korea. But the meaning of that is unclear.
The White House has said that it will rule out no options, even a military strike against the North's nuclear facilities. South Korean leaders have declared such a strike would be unthinkable, and have said they will neither plan for any military solution nor discuss one with allies.
In today's announcement, the North said it might have to develop a "nuclear deterrent." Its usual warning is that it will develop a "physical deterrent" against the United States.
Today also marked the first time North Korea linked its atomic weapons program to the goal of cutting its conventional military and saving money. Its huge army consumes most of the country's budget. But it also performs nonmilitary functions, including building housing.
"They introduced a new element into their logic today when they said they would also do this as a cost-saving measure," Mr. Powell said. "I'll have to reflect on that for a while," he added.

June 9, 2003
Bush Aides Deny Effort to Slant Data on Iraq Arms
By DAVID E. SANGER

WASHINGTON, June 8 - President Bush's top foreign policy advisers insisted today that all of the evidence available to them starting last October pointed to efforts by Saddam Hussein to revive his weapons programs. They dismissed as "revisionist history" charges that intelligence had been twisted to justify an attack on Iraq.
The comments today by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and the national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, were part of a coordinated effort by the White House to quell questions about whether they had exaggerated the threat posed by Mr. Hussein. But the arguments that they put forward varied somewhat from the explanations that senior officials offered to reporters a few weeks ago and appeared to open the possibility that, in the end, American forces might find that Mr. Hussein had several development programs under way, but few or no weapons ready for use.
Mr. Bush appeared to be edging toward that direction on Thursday, when he told troops at the United States Central Command in Qatar that mobile biological laboratories found in Iraq showed that Mr. Hussein was "capable" of producing biological weapons. That is somewhat different from saying that he possessed chemical and biological weapons, the argument that Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney made repeatedly before the war.
Today, Ms. Rice argued that the administration made the best judgment it could and that a succession of central intelligence directors had made the same judgments as far back as 1996.
"Successive C.I.A. directors, successive administrations, have known that we had every reason to judge that he had weapons of mass destruction," Ms. Rice said on the NBC News program "Meet the Press." She said that if the C.I.A. had come to a different conclusion, it would have constituted a failure to "connect the dots," a reference to the term used to question why the agency did not put together evidence that a terror attack was in the works before Sept. 11, 2001.
"The fact is this was a program that was built for concealment," Ms. Rice said. "We've always known that. We have always known that it would take some time to put together a full picture of his weapons of mass destruction programs."
Mr. Powell and Ms. Rice did not repeat the argument that many in the administration had made privately in recent weeks - that Mr. Hussein had chemical "precursors" and biological agents but kept them in nonweaponized form so that they would not arouse the suspicions of United Nations inspectors. Those same officials went on to tell reporters, before and during Mr. Bush's Middle East trip, that Mr. Hussein did not have time between the withdrawal of the inspectors and the start of the war to put together the components into weapons.
Both officials disputed suggestions that the administration had exaggerated intelligence to build a larger coalition, or to win domestic support for a war. They both said it would take more time to uncover the evidence of Iraq's weapons efforts - the time they were unwilling to extend to United Nations inspectors in March. Interviews with scientists and others are proceeding, they said, and another 1,300 American experts are now joining the search.
But it is unclear how much time Ms. Rice and Mr. Bush have before a number of Congressional inquiries begin, and other nations begin to question American credibility.
The crucial document Ms. Rice cited was the October 2002 "National Intelligence Estimate," which was the basis for administration statements that Mr. Hussein possessed proscribed weapons.
That intelligence estimate bore the stamp of George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence. Today, White House officials appeared to be subtly shifting the issue from whether they twisted conclusions to what the C.I.A. said as it prepared the estimate, a consensus document that is supposed to reflect the conclusions of competing intelligence services.
The document noted the findings of inspectors, before their withdrawal from Iraq in 1998, of missing stores of chemical weapons, biological precursors and equipment.
Mr. Powell, appearing on Fox News, noted that the mobile biological laboratories found by American forces bore great resemblance to those he described to the United Nations in February. "I would put before you exhibit A, the mobile biological labs that we have found," he said. `Now, people are saying, well, are they truly mobile biological labs? Yes, they are."
So far, however, there has been no evidence that the labs were ever put into use in producing the critical materials for biological weapons.

June 3, 2003
G-8 Leaders Talk Tough on Spread of Nuclear Arms
By JOHN TAGLIABUE and ELISABETH BUMILLER

ÉVIAN-LES-BAINS, France, June 2 - President Bush and leaders of the major industrialized countries today called nuclear proliferation "the pre-eminent threat to international security" and suggested that force could in some circumstances be used to meet the threat.
At the conclusion of a meeting of the Group of 8 leading industrial democracies, the leaders urged North Korea and Iran to curb their nuclear programs, saying they would not "ignore the proliferation implications of Iran's nuclear program." [Excerpts are linked at the right.]
The leaders said they had at their disposal a range of tools, like inspections and export controls, to deal with the threat of proliferation. In a clear reference to force, they added that they could employ, "if necessary, other means in accordance with international law."
The United States has accused Iran of developing nuclear weapons under the cover of its civilian nuclear program, and there has been speculation that it could become the next target of the Bush administration. But today, according to Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of Italy, Mr. Bush said he had no intention of attacking Iran.
"Bush made a clear statement that the idea of an armed operation by American forces in Iran is completely without foundation," Mr. Berlusconi said. He did not say whether Mr. Bush had addressed the use of force against North Korea. In the past, the White House has insisted that the North Korea issue will be resolved diplomatically.
The leaders called on North Korea "to visibly, verifiably and irreversibly dismantle any nuclear weapons programs."
Mr. Bush left the summit meeting this afternoon, but not before telling his fellow leaders that he expected the American economy to achieve growth of 2.9 percent in the second half of this year, according to Alfred Tacke, a senior aide to Chancellor Gerhard Schröder of Germany.
The meeting provided the first opportunity for the deep trans-Atlantic rifts caused by the Iraq war to be addressed in person by the leaders involved. The summit leaders' statement avoided any reference to Iraq.
Mr. Bush and President Jacques Chirac of France had a cheerful photo session on a terrace overlooking Lake Geneva before a 25-minute private meeting, their first since the Iraq war divided them. "We can have disagreements," Mr. Bush said, "but it doesn't mean we have to be disagreeable to each other."
Mr. Bush, who had implicitly reprimanded the French as recently as the weekend for the divisions in the Atlantic alliance, seemed to go out of his way to flatter Mr. Chirac. He was particularly solicitous of his advice on the peace talks that the American president will hold with Israeli, Palestinian and other Arab leaders in Egypt and Jordan this week.
"I'm going to meet with Jacques here in a little bit and ask his advice on the Middle East," Mr. Bush said. "He's a man who knows a lot about the Middle East, he has got good judgment about the Middle East, and we will spend some time discussing that."
Mr. Chirac later said it was "possible and probable" that he would travel to the United States before the opening of the United Nations General Assembly in the fall, and that he would then meet Mr. Bush again.
Turning to the world economy, the leaders said the conditions were in place for a revival of economic growth. But they continued to differ on the best means to accelerate the process, with Mr. Bush stressing the value of his new $350 billion of federal tax cuts as an effective remedy, while leaders from Europe and Japan stressed the long-term changes to the structure of their economies now under way.
Mr. Tacke said Mr. Bush had "confirmed that a policy of a strong dollar remains." The president's recent remarks in support of a strong dollar have caused it to stem a months-long slide against the euro.
Mr. Chirac, at a news conference, cited the dissipation of uncertainties following the conclusion of the Iraq war, stable oil prices and low interest rates as among the grounds given by the leaders for their optimism.
Clearly, though, the focus of the meetings was on nuclear weapons proliferation, against the backdrop of the continuing efforts to thwart international terrorism. A senior Bush administration official said the tough language on Iran's and North Korea's nuclear programs was made possible by support from France, Germany and Russia, the nations that had been less than supportive on the war in Iraq. "What's key is that the only two countries named are North Korea and Iran and that the language is very strong," the official said, adding that it was the Russians who suggested that the communiqué declare that North Korean behavior was undermining agreements curbing nuclear arms.
The statement on Iran, the official said, clears the way for the International Atomic Energy Agency to deal with Iran on June 16. "Iran's going to be on the griddle," the official said. "This statement confirms it."
Iran's president, Mohammed Khatami, responding to the growing world attention to his country's nuclear program, said today in Tehran that the Islamic republic had no plans to develop nuclear weapons. He noted that Iran was one of the first nations in the Middle East to propose that the region become a zone free of nuclear weapons.
"All of Iran's nuclear activity is under the inspection of the International Atomic Energy Agency, and we have no intention of obtaining nuclear arms," Mr. Khatami said at a diplomatic reception. "Don't use this as a pretext to pressure and threaten Iran."
A senior administration official in Évian, asked whether Mr. Bush had told the leaders that the United States would not invade Iran, as Mr. Berlusconi said, replied: "I actually don't recall that conversation per se. Iran was talked about in the context of proliferation. He may have said, as I recall, something that that kind of speculation was not warranted."
Most of the G-8 leaders were set to meet one last time on Tuesday morning to summarize the results of their meetings, but with the departure of Mr. Bush, much of the wind had gone out of the meeting's sails. And the bulk of the work has been completed.
On the economy, the leaders discussed trade issues, including the latest the Doha round of trade negotiations, where they are seeking to narrow their differences before a crucial meeting in Mexico, in September. But a French official said that they had only "agreed to be in agreement," and that low-ranking officials would be delegated to resolve remaining differences.
The leaders also approved an action plan on health to help developing nations overcome shortages of essential medications. France had proposed a draft version that included measures like ensuring greater access to generic drugs in developing countries, improving access to branded drugs through differential pricing and stimulating local production and technology transfer. But most of these measures were expunged from the final version at the insistence of the United States, which saw them as a menace to intellectual property rights in pharmaceuticals.

North Korea Says It Will Make More Nukes
Monday, June 02, 2003

SEOUL, South Korea - North Korea told American lawmakers it already has nuclear weapons and intends to build more, a senior U.S. congressman said Monday after returning from a trip to the communist state.
Rep. Curt Weldon, who led a congressional delegation that visited Pyongyang for three days ending Sunday, said North Korean officials also told them they had almost completed reprocessing 8,000 spent fuel rods.
"They admitted to having nuclear capability and weapons at this moment," Weldon said at a news conference in Seoul. "They admitted to an effort to expand their nuclear production program."
U.S. officials have said North Korea claimed at talks in April in Beijing that it already had nuclear weapons, but would give up its nuclear programs in return for economic aid and security guarantees.
On Monday, Weldon, R-Pa., said North Korean officials repeated that claim and even said they planned to produce more nuclear weapons despite pressure from the United States and its allies.
"They admitted to having just about completed the reprocessing of 8,000 rods," said Weldon, who is the No. 2 member of the U.S. House Armed Services Committee.
U.S. experts say the rods' reprocessing could give North Korea several more nuclear bombs within months.
During their three-day trip to Pyongyang, Weldon's delegation met North Korean Foreign Minister Paek Nam Sun, Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan and Choe Thae Bok, chairman of North Korea's legislature, the Supreme People's Assembly.
Although they were not traveling as envoys of President Bush, they were first American officials to visit since the nuclear standoff began in October. They flew to Seoul on Sunday to brief South Korean officials on their trip.
North Korea said it was developing its nuclear weapons as "a response to what they saw happened in Iraq, with the U.S. removing Saddam Hussein from power," Weldon said.
North Korea has repeatedly accused Washington of planning to invade. Bush says he prefers a diplomatic solution, but has not ruled out a military option.
In Seoul, South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun said his government has no "clear proof" to conclude North Korea has nuclear weapons.
"North Korea has told important people of the United States that it has developed nukes and reprocessed spent fuel rods. But North Korea has not confirmed that to anyone else," Roh said. "Thus, we must make a very careful judgment on whether we will conclude it has nuclear weapons or not, based on those words only."
U.S. and South Korean officials said North Korea may be bluffing in an attempt to increase its leverage in talks with the United States over its suspected nuclear weapons programs.
Weldon said his delegation "comes away convinced" that the nuclear standoff can be resolved in a peaceful manner.
North Korea said the visit "helped both sides know better each other and they shared the view that core of the DPRK-U.S. relations is to avert confrontation and war and peacefully co-exist on an equal basis." DPRK stands for Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the North's official name.
"They were of the same view that it is necessary to seek a negotiated settlement of the nuclear issue and expressed their stand that it is necessary to continue seeking and discussing ways of settling it," a North Korean foreign ministry spokesman was quoted as saying by state-run KCNA news agency.
The nuclear crisis flared last October when U.S. officials said North Korea admitted running a secret nuclear weapons program in violation of a 1994 accord.
Other members of Weldon's delegation are Reps. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., Jeff Miller, R-Fla. and Solomon Ortiz, D-Texas.

May 27, 2003
Group Says Iran Has 2 Undisclosed Nuclear Laboratories
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

WASHINGTON, May 26 - An Iranian opposition group said today that it had evidence of two previously undisclosed uranium enrichment facilities west of Tehran - information that, if proven, might add to the Bush administration's argument that Iran is violating its commitment not to produce nuclear weapons.

The group, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, an umbrella for Iranian opposition organizations, said the facilities were two small laboratories that operate as satellite plants to a larger nuclear facility in Natanz, in central Iran. The group said the facilities were discovered by the People's Mujahedeen, a resistance group that brought the Natanz plant to the attention of international weapons inspectors.

"The Iranian regime is working on other outlets to circumvent international supervision and international monitoring," a council official, Ali Safavi, said in an interview. He said one site had already installed several centrifuges for processing uranium, and called on international inspectors to scrutinize the facilities.

"This organization has been extremely on the mark in the past," said a senior United Nations official who is familiar with the situation in Iran, adding, "They are a group that seems to be privy to very solid and insider information."

However, People's Mujahedeen has stirred some controversy within the Bush administration. In a gesture toward Iran, the administration has classified the organization as a terrorist group. However, American military officials have also signed a cease-fire with People's Mujahedeen fighters based in Iraq.

Iran has insisted that its intention is to make fuel for a civilian nuclear power program. But in recent months American officials have grown increasingly concerned that Iran is developing a secret nuclear weapons program in violation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which it has signed.

Administration officials are now trying to build international support for an official finding from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the branch of the United Nations that monitors peaceful nuclear programs.

Mr. Safavi said his organization, which plans to make its information public on Tuesday, had already provided details to the atomic energy agency, whose board is meeting in June at agency headquarters in Vienna to review Iran's compliance with the treaty.

A spokeswoman for the agency, Melissa Fleming, declined to comment on the People's Mujahedeen's allegations. "We are not commenting at all on the situation in Iran because we are in the midst of a very sensitive inspection," she said. "We are going there. We are taking samples and we are doing analysis."

The State Department also declined comment. An independent expert, Gary Milhollin, director of The Wisconsin Project, an arms control research group, said, "I think the Bush administration ought to take it seriously."

"They ought to ask the I.A.E.A. to ask Iran for either a denial or a confirmation," he said, "and if the Iranians confirm it, then the I.A.E.A. ought to ask to be allowed to see both sites."

In the interview today, Mr. Safavi said the two laboratories were intended to function as a backup to the Natanz site in case that facility were to come under military attack. "These sites will allow the mullahs to continue their uranium weapons production," he said, describing them as "smaller, dispersed sites used for uranium enrichment."

The two laboratories, Mr. Safavi said, are both in the Hasthgerd region, near Karaj, about 25 miles west of Tehran. He said construction at the sites began in 2000 under strict security.

Mr. Safavi also provided a list of eight businesses that he described as "front companies" set up by the Atomic Energy Organization, the branch of the Iranian government that oversees nuclear activities, to conduct secret weapons work.

Mr. Milhollin, the arms control expert, said it would make sense for Iran to build satellite nuclear facilities, "because of the risk that Israel or somebody else could bomb the sites that are known."

But he said it might be difficult for the Bush administration to prove that the Iranian program violates the nuclear nonproliferation pact. The pact requires that countries make their nuclear sites available to international inspectors, but disclosure is not required until the sites contain the fissile material that explodes in nuclear weapons. Countries that are in the early stages of building nuclear facilities can legally keep those sites secret.

N.Korea ratcheting up tension despite aid

By Jong-Heon Lee
UPI Correspondent

SEOUL, South Korea, May 26 (UPI) -- North Korean warned again on Sunday that South Korea cannot avoid "an unimaginable disaster" if the North faced tougher measures by the United States and its allies over the nuclear crisis.

The statement came two days after North Korea won a South Korean promise of 400,000 tons of rice aid in return for Pyongyang's expression of regret over its saber-rattling rhetoric.

During the inter-Korean talks that ended Friday, North Koreans threatened South Korea with an "unspeakable disaster" if it sided with the United States in the nuclear standoff, which led the reconciliation talks to the brink of collapse.

But after four days of haggling, North Korean delegates expressed regret, saying the threatening re