US:CIA OFFICIALS will tell Congress today that North Korea had been helping Syria build a plutonium-based nuclear reactor, a US official in Washington says, a disclosure that could touch off new resistance to the administration's plan to ease sanctions on Pyongyang.
The CIA officials will tell lawmakers they believe the reactor would have been capable of producing plutonium for nuclear weapons but was destroyed before it could do so, the US official said, apparently referring to a suspicious installation bombed last year by Israeli warplanes.
The CIA officials also will say that although US officials have had concerns for years about ties between North Korea and Syria, it was not until last year that new intelligence convinced them that the suspicious facility, under construction in a remote area of Syria, was a secret nuclear reactor, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity when discussing plans for the upcoming briefing.
By holding closed, classified briefings for members of several congressional committees, the administration will break a long silence on North Korean-Syrian nuclear co-operation and on what it knows about last year's destruction of the Syrian facility. Nonetheless, it has been assumed for months that many in the Bush administration considered the site a nuclear installation.
It was not clear how recently North Korea might have been aiding Syria.
But disclosure of the relationship to the committees is likely to bring criticism from conservative lawmakers who already believe that US overtures to North Korea have offered the government in Pyongyang too many benefits, without assurances that it would disclose the extent of its nuclear arms effort or ultimately surrender its weapons.
US officials provided little explanation for why they now want to brief lawmakers on the North Korean-Syrian links.
A senior Senate aide said that the timing appeared driven by a Bush administration desire to apprise committee members of the latest intelligence on the reactor before releasing some information.
"I have this strong impression the reason they want to brief the committee is they want to say something publicly," said the aide.
The administration has briefed senior members of the House and Senate intelligence committees, a senior Senate aide said. But other lawmakers have remained in the dark.
The Bush administration has been under pressure to extend briefings to a larger circle of lawmakers.
The administration is planning to ease sanctions on North Korea as part of talks aimed at removing Pyongyang's nuclear weapons. The six nations involved in the talks, which also include China, Russia, South Korea and Japan, have been negotiating since 2003.
After a breakthrough last year in which North Korea agreed to shut down its only functioning nuclear production facility, it was rewarded with fuel oil and the release of frozen bank funds. But talks stalled after the Bush administration demanded that Pyongyang provide a full and accurate description of its nuclear activities by December 2007.
Shifting course, US officials said two weeks ago that it would be sufficient for the North Koreans to acknowledge US concerns about Pyongyang's activities.
In return, administration officials would remove North Korea from the US list of countries that sponsor terrorism and it would no longer be subject to US trade sanctions under the 1917 Trading with the Enemy Act.
Danielle Pletka, a vice-president of the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute think-tank, said the congressional briefings were simply a step the administration needs to take to move forward.
"This is a box-checking exercise," she said. - ( LA Times-Washington Post )