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  • From: "Toni Hawryluk" <tonihawr AT msn.com>
  • To: "Homestead mailing list" <homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [Homestead] "intelligence" ? Naaaahh - not even common sense ...
  • Date: Fri, 10 Dec 2004 21:05:46 -0800

http://famulus.msnbc.com/famulusintl/ap12-10-204127.asp?reg=pacrim&vts=121020042055<http://famulus.msnbc.com/famulusintl/ap12-10-204127.asp?reg=pacrim&vts=121020042055>



Expert: Washington exaggerated intelligence on North Korea's uranium threat

ASSOCIATED PRESS

SEOUL, South Korea, Dec. 10 - The U.S. government exaggerated the threat from
North Korea's nuclear programs, just as it manipulated intelligence about
weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, a U.S. foreign policy expert said in an
article published Friday.



Selig Harrison wrote in the Dec. 17 issue of Foreign Affairs that the
Bush administration claimed <>Pyongyang was on its way to producing
weapons-grade uranium to scare allies Japan and South Korea into a tougher
stance on the communist nation. Bush has labeled North Korea part of an
''axis of evil'' with Iran and prewar Iraq.


But by failing to distinguish between civilian and military
uranium-enrichment capabilities, Washington greatly complicated the already
complex efforts to eliminate North Korea's nuclear weapons ambitions,
Harrison wrote.


''Relying on sketchy data, the Bush administration presented a
worst-case scenario as an incontrovertible truth and distorted its
intelligence on North Korea (much as it did on Iraq), seriously exaggerating
the danger that Pyongyang is secretly making uranium-based nuclear weapons,''
he said.


Harrison is director of the Asia Program and chairman of the Task
Force on U.S.-Korea Policy at the Washington-based Center for International
Policy.


In Washington, U.S. State Department spokesman Adam Ereli dismissed
the article's claims.


''We think there is a wealth of clear and compelling evidence about
North Korea's uranium enrichment program,'' he said. ''We have known since
the late 1990s that North Korea was interested in enrichment technology.''


He said the United States obtained evidence more than 2½ years ago
that North Korea was pursuing a covert program to enrich uranium and assessed
it was aimed at making nuclear weapons.


North Korea's weapons capabilities remain a mystery. Some analysts and
observers have said the reclusive communist nation has six to eight atomic
bombs.


Ereli said the United States informed the North Koreans about its
knowledge of the program in October 2002, and North Korea then acknowledged
it was pursuing a convert program.


The United States, the two Koreas, China, Japan and Russia have held
three rounds of talks since last year to persuade the North into scrapping
its suspected nuclear facilities. No breakthroughs have been made.



© 2004 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be
published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.



  • [Homestead] "intelligence" ? Naaaahh - not even common sense ..., Toni Hawryluk, 12/11/2004

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