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The New York Times reported Sunday that the U. S. intelligence agencies and outside nuclear experts concluded that the Bush administration's efforts to make slow North Korea and Iran's nuclear weapon development with its allies in Europe and Asia have failed and these two countries benefited greatly from it.
The NYT noted that the Bush administration requested that U.S. intelligence agencies produce three secret reports and one of them contained the above criticism.
The paper also reported, "The report concluded that nearly 20 months of toughened sanctions, including ending major energy aid, and several rounds of negotiations involving four of North Korea's neighbors have not slowed the North's efforts to develop plutonium weapons, and that a separate, parallel program to make weapons from highly enriched uranium was also moving forward, though more slowly."
"It [the report] acknowledges that the whereabouts of North Korea's stockpile of more than 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods has been a mystery since early 2003, but also concludes that the North has had plenty of time to reprocess the rods into enough fuel for six to eight additional weapons," reported the NYT.
"The evidence suggests that Iran is trying to keep all of its options open," the paper quoted Robert Gates, the CIA director under the elder George Bush.
In addition, it noted, "Senior administration and intelligence officials say they are seeking ways to step up unspecified covert actions intended, in the words of one official, 'to disrupt or delay as long as we can' Iran's efforts to develop a nuclear weapon."
(Kim Jae-ho, jaeho@chosun.com )
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