2007年VOA标准英语-US Intelligence Officials Speak Out on North Ko

U.S. intelligence officials say they stand by their assessment¹ that North Korea was pursuing uranium enrichment in 2002.  VOA White House Correspondent Paula Wolfson reports.

Once again, the Bush administration finds itself on the defensive² about intelligence information cited in the war on terror.

This time, the issue involves North Korea's nuclear capabilities³.

In 2002, the White House accused North Korea of secretly pursuing a uranium enrichment capability⁴ that could be used to develop nuclear weapons.

At a news conference that November, President Bush said North Korea admitted it had a uranium enrichment program.

President Bush

The accusation⁵ led to a rift⁶ in already tense relations.  The United States cut off oil supplies to North Korea, and Pyongyang expelled international nuclear inspectors⁷.

News reports suggest the intelligence community may have overstated the extent of Pyongyang's enrichment activities, but senior intelligence officials deny that was the case.

They say they stand by their original assessment that North Korea was seeking to enrich uranium in 2002.   But, they say, since then, it has become harder to assess North Korea's nuclear activities, and to corroborate⁸ new evidence.

At a hearing Tuesday before the Senate Armed Services committee, Joseph DeTrani, the chief U.S. intelligence official on North Korea, acknowledged the problem.  He was questioned by Senator Jack⁹ Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat¹⁰.

REED: "Do you have any further indication of whether that program has progressed in the last six years, one; or two, the evidence, the credibility of the evidence that we had initially¹¹, suggesting they had a program rather than aspirations¹²?"

DeTRANI: "Sir, we had high confidence, the assessment was with high confidence that, indeed, they were making acquisitions necessary for, if you will, a production-scale program. And, we still have confidence that the program is in existence -- at the mid¹³-confidence level, yes, sir, absolutely."

DeTrani did not offer a detailed¹⁴ explanation for the shift from a level of high confidence to one of mid confidence, terms used by intelligence professionals to grade the certainty of their conclusions.  But a look at recent history provides some clues.

Since 2002, U.S. and Pakistani officials have dismantled¹⁵ the secret network set up by A. Q. Khan, the former head of Pakistan's nuclear program.   The Khan network is believed to have sold nuclear know-how¹⁶ to the North Koreans.   And intelligence sources may have been lost, when the Khan network was broken up.

The White House, meanwhile, is downplaying the notion it might have overstated North Korea's nuclear capability in 2002.   Spokeswoman Dana Perino says North Korea is "an opaque¹⁷ regime."  She also points to the fact that Pyongyang tested a nuclear weapon last November.  That test did not involve enriched uranium, but another material, plutonium.

All this comes at a time when the Bush administration is facing questions about its assessments¹⁸ of Iran's nuclear capabilities.   It is also faced with constant reminders¹⁹ of the flawed intelligence regarding weapons of mass destruction that was used to make the case for the March 2003 invasion of Iraq.