Posted on 04/22/2008 9:22:34 PM PDT by txhurl
WASHINGTON - Members of Congress will be told this week about intelligence linking North Korea to Syria's alleged nuclear program, congressional officials said Tuesday.
The Senate and House intelligence committees were scheduled to be briefed on Thursday.
North Korea has been suspected of helping Syria with a secret nuclear program, but both countries deny it. Pyongyang says it has never spread its nuclear expertise beyond its borders.
The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that U.S. intelligence officials will tell the committees North Korea was helping Syria build a plutonium-fueled reactor. Israeli warplanes bombed a site in Syria on Sept. 6 that private analysts say may have been the site of a reactor, based on commercial satellite imagery taken after the raid. The site later was razed and wiped clean.
One senior administration official said Thursday's briefing was scheduled because the intelligence community had been deluged for months with congressional requests for information about North Korean activity in Syria and the Israeli airstrike and felt it was now time to brief lawmakers.
The official said, though, that there were concerns that the revelations if leaked or made public could encourage opponents of the administration's attempts to negotiate an end to North Korea's nuclear weapons program. U.S. diplomats are pressing North Korea to come clean about its nuclear cooperation with Syria as part of those talks but have had little success.
At the same time, Middle East experts in the administration are worried that the timing of the briefing might upstage visits to Washington this week by Jordanian King Abdullah II and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and hurt Arab-Israeli peace prospects with allegations of nefarious activity by an Arab nation with the aid of North Korea, the official said.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss elements of the classified briefing.
Speculation about a possible release of information has been building, particularly in the Israeli media, for more than a week, with some reports suggesting that the briefing would include intelligence gathered by Israel and that the Israeli government had signed off on it being shared.
Under an agreement reached last year with the United States, China, Japan, South Korea and Russia, the North is required to give a full account of its nuclear programs, including whether it spread nuclear technology.
North Korea claims it gave the nuclear declaration to the U.S. in November, but U.S. officials say the North never produced a "complete and correct" declaration.
The Capitol Hill briefing also comes the same week a U.S. delegation went to North Korea to press the regime for a detailed list of its nuclear programs, the latest sticking point at international nuclear disarmament talks.
The leader of the delegation is expected to report back to Washington on Friday.
The U.S. recently has stepped back from its push for a detailed declaration addressing the North's alleged secret uranium enrichment program and nuclear cooperation with Syria. Now, the U.S. says it wants the North to simply acknowledge the concerns and then set up a system to verify the country doesn't continue such activity in the future.
President Bush defended the plans over the weekend during a meeting with new South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, saying North Korea had the burden of proof under the agreements.
Syrian strike to be heard in DC.
Syrian strike ping
Compliments Ernest at the beach:
“Alleged”?
Anyone who thinks that NK and Islamofascist nukes are “alleged” is dreaming.
They may not be right here, right now, but they’re coming unless we get a POTUS and government with enough stones to pre empt the fruitcakes from trying to kill us all.
If both or either of the French or British had had enough guts pre WWII, a lot of people would have lived and Europe would be totally different today. Hitler could have been stopped before he invaded Poland if the Brits and French had merely stood up to him instead of caving.
Read William Shirer’s “The Rise and Fall Of The Third Reich”. Very interesting.
Same principle applies to the Islamofascists.
It’s like oil changes, pay a little now, or pay a lot more later.
The shadow government within our CIA merely wants to let the world know how Israel beat the Syrian (Russian) radars...the NK nuke issue is merely a ruse to permit such airing.
I think it will be argued that the recent NIE report that showed Iran suspended its nuclear program in 2003 is true: they simply moved it to Syria once it was sure we were going into Iraq.
And maybe it will be shown that Saddam moved a bunch of his WMDs for Syria to hold, once they realized same.
Israel has solid-metal proof of NK sending not just fissionable material but probably actual components and maybe something semi-functional to Syria.
"So what. Are they willing to go to war with me over it?"
If the answer is YES (which it is not) he will stop it then and there.
If the answer is NO (which he and everyone in the world knows), then they will just keep it up, keep it up, keep it up. Making fools of us and endangering the entire world in the process.
Whichever liberal president the next one will be, either Clinton, Obama or McCain, they inherit one hell of a problem from the Bush administration. There can be no denial of this.
Right!
This is much bigger than any PR plan about Russian radar.
N. Korea will not relent unless evidence is put into their lap. Not sure if we have it to shove in front of them or not.
Thanks for Da Ping.
There was a good cartoon about this I saw somewhere...Kim’s on the phone in front of a “Going out of business” sign on a store, saying “OK, nukes gone. Now are we a friendly country?” And in the background a boat labelled “Syria” sales off with the nukes....
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