http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070301/ap_on_re_as/nuclear_iran_nkorea

Bill right, George wrong?

Analysis: U.S. intel on nukes in doubt By GEORGE JAHN, AP-Writer 
Thu Mar 1, 6:14 PM ET
 

VIENNA, Austria - New doubts are arising about the accuracy of U.S. 
intelligence on the nuclear programs in 
       
North Korea and Iran, only a few years after faulty warnings about weapons of 
mass destruction helped President Bush justify the invasion of 
Iraq. 

North Korea agreed earlier this month to dismantle its plutonium-producing 
nuclear facilities in exchange for economic aid and security assurances from 
the United States and four other world or regional powers. The pact 
successfully put aside for now the possibility of military action.

But the Western standoff with Iran remains tense. The Bush administration 
says it won't rule out an attack if Tehran refuses to end its nuclear 
enrichment program.

However, in both cases, U.S. intelligence is backing away from at least some 
of its once-strident pronouncements raising the tension level with Pyongyang 
and Tehran — along with Saddam Hussein's Iraq, members of Bush's "axis of 
evil."

Just weeks after the Feb. 13 six-nation pact with North Korea, new U.S. 
statements suggest that Washington might have overstated a purported 
secret North Korean second-track nuclear program. The result was that it 
derailed what could have been a peaceful resolution to the North Korean issue 
more than four years ago.

The U.S. alleged then that North Korea had a large-scale gas centrifuge plant 
for uranium enrichment — the same program Iran now is developing. The Bush 
administration used that information to scrap a plan developed under the 
Clinton administration to supply energy to the North in exchange for its pledge 
to mothball its plutonium program.

Tensions rose and Pyongyang withdrew from the Nuclear Nonproliferation 
Treaty in January 2003, sparking the process that led to its test of an atomic 
weapon late last year.

Now, however, Bush administration officials are toning down assertions that 
such a program had been developed. Intelligence official Joseph DeTrani, in 
testimony to the 
       
Senate Armed Services Committee, said Tuesday belief that such a program 
exists was now "at the mid-confidence level."

The "mid-confidence" terminology means that analysts have differing views or 
credible information exists but has not been fully corroborated. That's a 
notable departure from the previous U.S. view of "high confidence" that the 
North was working on such activities.

Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill said Wednesday that the U.S. 
knows that North Korea has bought equipment that could be used only for 
uranium enrichment. But he expressed uncertainty about the program's current 
state.

"How far they've gotten, whether they've actually been able to produce highly 
enriched uranium at this time — I mean these are issues that intelligence 
analysts grapple with," Hill told a hearing of the House Foreign Affairs 
Committee. "But what we know is they have made the purchases, and we 
need to have complete clarity on this program."

A U.S. government official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the 
subject's sensitivity, said DeTrani was commenting on acquisitions for the 
program and not the program itself, and there was no change in the 
intelligence assessment. Varying degrees of certainty were always reflected in 
the CIA's judgment, the official said.

The U.S. intelligence community found with "high confidence" in 2002 that 
North Korea obtained components that could be used to enrich uranium. 
However, there has always been less confidence in the analysis of what 
precisely North Korea planned to do with the components, the official said.

It was a worst-case scenario when a CIA paper in 2002 stated that the 
plant "could produce enough weapons-grade uranium for two or more nuclear 
weapons per year when fully operational — which could be as soon as mid-
decade."

The next line of the paper highlighted the uncertainty, reminding readers that 
North Korea's nuclear program was "a difficult intelligence collection target."

President Bush said at the time that Pyongyang was "enriching uranium, with 
the desire of developing a weapon."

Chief U.N nuclear inspector Mohamed ElBaradei has been invited to Pyongyang 
in mid-March for a visit expected to result in the return of his inspectors after 
a four-year hiatus.

The U.S. intelligence record on Iran's nuclear activities also is being 
questioned. 

Several senior diplomats familiar with work of the Vienna-based 
International Atomic Energy Agency, which ElBaradei heads, told The 
Associated Press that while U.S. intelligence helped reveal Iran's secret 
nuclear program in 2002, none of the information provided the U.N. nuclear 
watchdog by American spy agencies since then had led to meaningful leads. 
Still unproven is whether Tehran is using the cover of a nuclear power plant 
program to try to make atomic weapons. 

One of the diplomats — who, like others demanded anonymity because he was 
discussing confidential information — said that in the case of Iran, lack of 
good intelligence was due to "no presence on the ground." Intelligence is 
increasingly scarce because "the Iranians have tightened up on their 
operations" since the 2002 revelations about their secret uranium enrichment 
program, he added. 

Broad assessments often hinge on detailed information about equipment, 
which can be difficult to prove. 

For North Korea, a key U.S. assertion that Pyongyang was trying to create an 
industrial-scale uranium enrichment program parallel to its plutonium operations 
was based on evidence that the North Koreans had purchased or were trying 
to buy thousands of highly machined aluminum tubes, he said. The CIA cited 
Iraqi purchases of such tubes to support its assertion about a purported 
nuclear weapons program under Saddam. 

A CIA fact sheet made public four years ago claimed "clear evidence indicating 
that the North has begun constructing a centrifuge facility," and estimated it 
could produce material for at least two or more nuclear weapons a year by 
2005. 

Former U.N. nuclear inspector David Albright, who recently visited Pyongyang 
and held talks on the North's nuclear program, does not question U.S. 
assertions that the North bought a few dozen centrifuges from the same 
Pakistani black market network that supplied Iran's program. 

"However, a large centrifuge plant likely does not exist; perhaps it never did," 
says Albright in a report of his Washington-based Institute for Science and 
International Security that tracks the North Korean and Iranian nuclear 
programs. 

The diplomat agreed, noting it made no sense for the energy-starved North — 
which is to get the equivalent of up to 1 million tons of heavy fuel oil under 
the nuclear disarmament deal — to run such a program consuming record 
amounts of power at a time it was making good progress on its plutonium-
based arms program

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