CIA Director Hayden testifies on N. Korea

By Bay Fang

The stated reason for CIA director Michael V. Hayden's briefings on the Hill this morning on North Korean help in building a Syrian nuclear reactor, is that the administration is responding to pressure from Congress.

But some administration officials believe that the briefings, on intelligence given to the administration by the Israelis over a year ago, are an attempt to scuttle the Six-Party talks, aimed at negotiating an end to North Korea's nuclear program.

The briefings will confirm that the facility bombed by the Israelis was a nuclear reactor built with the help of the North Koreans. Hayden will display for the first time photos and videos showing the head of the North Korean nuclear program with the head of the Syrian program at the facility, according to senior administration officials familiar with the briefing. The evidence will also show that the facility is configured in the same way as the North Korean reactor at Yongbyon, including the number of holes for the spent fuel rods.

The briefing will take place on the same day that a US team led by Sung Kim, head of the State Department's Korea office, leaves Pyongyang after meeting with North Korean officials to resolve an impasse in the nuclear talks. Some US officials have expressed concern that the North Koreans will react negatively to news of the Congressional briefings, scrapping whatever deal Kim may have worked out.

The new agreement is expected to provide measures by which the US can verify the North's nuclear program, as well as include a confidential document in which the North Koreans acknowledge US concerns about an alleged secret uranium enrichment program, and proliferation activities, including its involvement with Syria. Under a landmark deal reached last year, North Korea shuttered its working plutonium reactor at Yongbyon, but talks stalled after Chris Hill, the US's chief nuclear negotiator, insisted that Pyongyang's declaration of its nuclear activities, which was due last Dec. 31, was incomplete.

"Chris Hill thought he could get the North Koreans to confess to these activities, but they've refused, so the administration has made concessions to move the process forward," said Gary Samore, Vice President of the Council on Foreign Relations and former arms control official. "It's amazing how much the Bush administration has shifted its approach to North Korea, which is what has Bolton and others so pissed off."

For years, there has been in-fighting within the administration over how best to deal with Pyongyang, with some outspoken critics of the current approach, including conservative former UN ambassador John Bolton, saying US negotiators were using too many carrots and not enough sticks with the North Koreans.