... another leak.
Now, intelligence officials say, extensive testing conducted at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee over the last several months has concluded that the material did not originate in Pakistan or other suspect countries...
... not only a leak from a briefing but more than one source, apparently. Possible motives?
another recent retired or perhaps resigned Pentagon official:
One recently retired Pentagon official who has long experience dealing with North Korea
Oh well.
North Korea may be the source but why the need to leak it early? I still keep wondering how many people in Europe, the US gov and the UN would freak out if the IAEA poster-child country and the country which sent teams to Iraq just before the war to help Iraq clean what WMD it allegedly doesn't have- South Africa- turned out to be involved instead.
Just noting that this is NOT enriched unranium capable of nuclear fission.
It is just uranium hexaflouride, naturally ocurring uranium which has been reprocessed into a chemical compound which is gaseous. Now this uranium compound can be enriched in centrifuges but this step is extremely complex and takes billions in resources to pull off.
Uranium is sold around the world every day (sometimes uranium heaxflouride is as well) in the legitimate market.
Nevertheless, it does show that North Korea was willing to sell nuclear material and who knows what else they sold. And there is no legitimate market for any of North Korea's nuclear material.