Nuclear Challenge with North Korean

JIM LEHRER:

The North Korea story. We go now to David Sanger, who is covering it for the New York Times. David, welcome.

DAVID SANGER:

Thank you, very much, Jim.

JIM LEHRER:

It appears the North Koreans laid much on the table at that meeting in Beijing today. Tell us what they said.

DAVID SANGER:

Well, we knew that this was likely to be one of those meetings where both sides had to go read from their talking points. It's just that the North Korean talking points were pretty tough.

They said a few things: First, they said that they are already reprocessing their spent nuclear fuel rods, which have been in storage since 1994, into weapons-grade plutonium. Now, this is something that was the subject of great debate last week when it appeared first that they had made a similar statement in a written statement and then it was determined later it was mistranslated. I'm told that, at this session, the chief negotiator, who speaks English quite well and could listen to the translation, said the reprocessing has begun, American intelligence officials tell me that they have yet to see any evidence that it has started. The second thing they said was that they already have some nuclear weapons, which is something the CIA has believed for some time — up to two weapons the CIA believes they may have produced in the first Bush administration.

JIM LEHRER:

What kind of weapons, David?

DAVID SANGER:

We assume these to be plutonium-based small nuclear weapons, but they've never tested them. So we don't know if they work, and we don't know whether they've been able to make them small enough that they could put them on a missile and deliver them. So how big a threat that poses is a question. But it certainly puts the pressure on the bush administration to decide whether or not they are going to continue these talks, which broke off fairly abruptly today, or whether they'll begin to try to put the squeeze on North Korea.

JIM LEHRER:

Now, there was also a report that, in addition to those two things, they also said, "We're prepared to use these nuclear weapons and even prepared to sell them." Can you confirm that? Were you able to confirm that?

DAVID SANGER:

They were vague in this phraseology. They said, "We are prepared to act with these nuclear weapons, depending on how you act. And so it left open the possibility that they would in fact sell them or perhaps test them. I don't think anybody thought that they would attempt to use them out of this discussion. But it certainly plays to the main fear that Richard Armitage, the deputy secretary of state, discussed in Congress a few months ago when he said the big fear with North Korea is they've never had a weapons system they didn't sell. And they could certainly try to turn around and sell this one.

JIM LEHRER:

Secretary of State Powell, we just ran it in our News Summary, said, "we will not be intimidated by this." Was this interpreted as an act of intimidation by those sitting there with the North Koreans in Beijing?

DAVID SANGER:

I think that they were prepared for these talks to be an entire exercise in intimidation, and Secretary Powell has said several times, and he said to me and he said again today in his speech, that the North Koreans believe that, in 1994, they were able to use their intimidation to strike a deal. Now, what the Bush administration says, "You need to do something different, you can't just freeze your nuclear projects; you have to completely dismantle them." And the big question, the big debate within this administration that nobody has really yet resolved is: Do they believe that North Korea is willing to trade away these weapons, or do you believe that North Korea thinks that, without its weapons, or at least a weapons project it has no leverage over the United States?

JIM LEHRER:

Yeah, and that remains to be seen. I mean we're going to test this. Speaking of testing, that must now be tested by the United States, correct?

DAVID SANGER:

Well, that's what these talks were about. And I think the big issue is: Do you go to the next stage here? Now, the Japanese and the South Koreans have already said they believe you need to play this out, let are the North Koreans vent at their first meeting, go to a second one, determine whether they're willing to bargain this program away. There are others in the administration, including Secretary Rumsfeld, we believe, and certainly those who work for him, who have distributed a memo we reported on earlier in the week that basically said, "They'll never give up their nuclear weapons, so we ought to go for regime change there, we ought to press them to bring the government to the brink of collapse."

JIM LEHRER:

Now, today specifically, what's your reading of how this whole episode today is being read by administration leaders here? I mean is this seen as an escalation of the crisis, or was it expected to go? I mean how should we read this?

DAVID SANGER:

I think the way to read it is an expected escalation, and I don't think they're going to react to it very quickly. The new South Korean president, President Noh is coming here in mid May. I suspect he'll see the Japanese… you'll see the Japanese prime minister here, as well. And I don't think they want to make a single move without trying to coordinate it with them or at least appearing to. And as we've discussed before, a military action against North Korea would be far more complex than against Iraq, and I don't think that's a route that anybody wants to take any time soon.

JIM LEHRER:

Okay, David, thank you very much for the update.

DAVID SANGER:

Thank you.