`N.K. has nuke arms, missile delivery systems`

WASHINGTON -- North Korea has developed both nuclear weapons and missile delivery systems, a U.S. defense report said Monday, expressing concerns about the possible proliferation of weapons of mass destruction in Northeast Asia.

The U.S. State Department also said Pakistan has provided nuclear technology to North Korea to help the reclusive communist state build a uranium-based nuclear program.

The announcements coincided with outgoing President George W. Bush`s concession at his final news conference earlier in the day that "there might be a highly enriched uranium program" in North Korea.

Word of such a program surfaced in 2002, but North Korea has denied it.

"North Korea, India and Pakistan have acquired both nuclear weapons and missile delivery systems, while Iran is apparently headed down the same road," said the report of the Pentagon`s task force on nuclear weapons management led by former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger.

"The derivative danger from North Korea or Iran is that they may pass nuclear weapons or nuclear technology to others," the report said. "Proliferation elsewhere remains a strong possibility, particularly in East Asia."

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The report is the second part of the Pentagon commission`s report on the review of the Pentagon`s nuclear mission.

In the first report released last week, the commission said that North Korea "might have been encouraged to believe that they were reasonably safe from a nuclear response."

Schlesinger said last Thursday North Korea may have begun developing nuclear arms after deciding the United States was unlikely to use nuclear weapons to eliminate its development program.

"It probably is today`s situation that they have developed the confidence -- perhaps misplaced confidence -- that the United States, if it were to go after their nuclear capability, likely would do so with conventional forces," said former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger.

Schlesinger told reporters that he believes Pyongyang initially saw "a higher probability" that Washington would use its nuclear arsenal to wipe out a nuclear threat from North Korea.

"But as the decades have gone on, and as we have not reacted in the way they might have anticipated to their development of nuclear capabilities, they might have been encouraged to believe that they were reasonably safe from a nuclear response," he said.

The report comes as U.S. President George W. Bush and other senior officials have talked about North Korea`s uranium -- as well as plutonium-based nuclear programs just weeks before Bush`s terms ends early next week.

National security adviser, Stephen Hadley, also depicted North Korea last week as "an early challenge" for the incoming Barack Obama administration, predicting North Korea will try to renegotiate a six-party aid-for-denuclearization deal to test the fledgling Obama administration after its inauguration on Jan. 20.

In contrast to the U.S. government`s official position not to recognize North Korea as a nuclear power, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said last month North Korea has built several nuclear bombs, and U.S. intelligence and defense reports have categorized the North as a nuclear weapons state.

Obama has also said the North has eight nuclear weapons, pledging to support the six-party nuclear talks while seeking more direct bilateral engagement.

North Korea considers its nuclear arsenal as its only working deterrent against an invasion, saying Iraq was invaded due to lack of a nuclear arsenal.

The State Department said the uranium program, apart from the plutonium-based nuclear reactor being sanctioned under a multilateral nuclear deal, grew from a "one stop shopping" source provided by Pakistan`s A.Q. Khan.

Iran and Libya also benefited from the network, the department said in a statement to announce the list of 13 individuals and private companies, mostly British, German, Turkish, Swiss and Sri Lankan nationals, being sanctioned for their involvement in the Khan network.

"With the assistance of Khan`s network, countries could leapfrog the slow, incremental stages of other nuclear weapons development programs," it said.

The department said Khan and his associates provided centrifuge designs, equipment and technology to North Korea.

Khan has been under house arrest since 2004, when he confessed to secret dealings with North Korea and several other countries, but he recently disavowed his previous remarks.

"Many of Dr. Khan`s associates are either in custody, being prosecuted, or have been convicted of crimes," the department said.

"While we believe the A.Q. Khan network is no longer operating, countries should remain vigilant to ensure that Khan network associates, or others seeking to pursue similar proliferation activities, will not become a future source for sensitive nuclear information or equipment."

North Korea`s plutonium program has been the focus of the six-party talks involving the two Koreas, the U.S., China, Japan and Russia.

Those talks resulted in a series of agreements that outlined steps for the eventual dismantlement of North Korea`s nuclear facilities at Yongbyon, north of Pyongyang, in return for economic assistance.

As the clock ticks down on the Bush administration, however, North Korea has refused to agree to inspections that would verify its compliance.

That has invited criticism that Bush`s team made too many concessions regarding the plutonium program and failed to address the parallel issues of uranium production and weapons proliferation.



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