AP SUNDAY, MARCH 20, 2005
'US misled allies on nuclear proliferation'
NEW YORK: In an effort to increase pressure on North Korea, the Bush administration told its Asian allies earlier this year that Pyongyang had exported nuclear material to Libya, when the shipment in fact went first to Pakistan, the Washington Post reported on Sunday.
The Bush administration claim was a significant new charge, the first allegation that North Korea was helping to create a new nuclear weapons state.
But that is not what US intelligence reported, according to two officials with detailed knowledge of the transaction, the Post said.
North Korea, according to the intelligence, had supplied uranium hexafluoride — which can be enriched to weapons-grade uranium —to Pakistan. It was Pakistan, a key US ally with its own nuclear arsenal, that sold the material to Libya.
The US government had no evidence, the US officials said, that North Korea knew of the second transaction, according to the Post.
Pakistan's role as both the buyer and the seller was concealed to cover up the part played by Washington's partner in the hunt for al-Qaida leaders, according to the officials, who discussed the issue with the Post on the condition of anonymity.
In addition, a North Korea-Pakistan transfer would not have been news to the US allies, which have known of such transfers for years and viewed it as a business matter between sovereign states.
The Bush administration's approach, intended to isolate North Korea, instead left allies increasingly doubtful as they began to learn that the briefings omitted essential details about the transaction, US officials and foreign diplomats quoted by the Post said.
North Korea responded to public reports last month about the briefings by withdrawing from talks with its neighbours and the US.
In an effort to repair the damage, secretary of state Condoleezza Rice travelled through East Asia last weekend trying to get the six-nation talks back on track.
The new details follow a string of controversies concerning the Bush administration's use of intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
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