U.S. Warns North Korea Over Satellite Images

The Bush administration confirmed Friday that recent satellite photos show North Korea may be resuming production of weapons-grade plutonium, and warned Pyongyang not to build nuclear bombs.

North Korea’s moves to possibly start bomb production are far more serious than previous steps by the Stalinist regime as it maneuvers to win aid and diplomatic concessions from the United States, experts said.

Satellite photos taken this week have shown covered trucks pulling up to a building at the Yongbyon nuclear complex, where about 8,000 spent fuel rods are stored. The activity at Yongbyon increases the pressure for a response from the Bush administration, which has been trying to keep the North Korean crisis out of the spotlight as it presses its campaign to disarm Iraq.

U.S. officials said the purpose of the activity at Yongbyon is not completely clear, but it could mean that North Korea is making good on threats to begin extracting plutonium from spent fuel to build nuclear weapons, a process that could yield weapons within several months.

Although “we don’t know for sure what’s happening ... you’ve got to be concerned that spent fuel rods are being brought out of the facility,” said one U.S. official.

Some experts said they fear the United States may not be able to accept the idea of a North Korea producing a large number of nuclear weapons that it could use or sell or that might fall into the wrong hands. U.S. officials believe Pyongyang already has one or two nuclear weapons.

“I’m increasingly worried that the risks of a North Korean miscalculation are going up rapidly,” said L. Gordon Flake, executive director of the Mansfield Center for Pacific Affairs in Washington. Flake said he still considers a U.S. military strike unlikely, but “there’s a risk of [North Korea] crossing a publicly unspoken red line and putting us into a real dangerous situation.”

Administration officials declined public comment on intelligence reports, but Richard Boucher, the chief State Department spokesman, said that any movement of the fuel rods “would be a very serious development for the international community.”

“Reprocessing the spent fuel is clearly a step in the direction of nuclear weapons,” Boucher said, and urged North Korea to abide by its past promises not to build nuclear weapons.

Powell Speaks

At the same time, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell emphasized in a speech Friday that the United States “has no intention of attacking North Korea.” Powell said the U.S. wants to convey this message to North Korea in a way that “makes sense and is unmistakable.” Since the crisis began heating up in December, North Korea has repeatedly called on Washington to agree to a nonaggression pact that would guarantee the regime’s security.

But there were signs Friday that the administration has not taken the military option off the table.

Pentagon officials described Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld as being “immersed in the North Korean crisis,” even as he prepares for a possible war on Iraq. Officials said Rumsfeld has been reviewing military options on North Korea.

The satellite pictures were taken so recently that there has not been enough time to establish a pattern or determine exactly what the North Koreans are doing, U.S. officials said.

One official said there is no way of knowing for certain from the images whether rods have been loaded into the trucks and moved. Trucks do not need to be specially equipped to handle fuel rods, which can be transported in containers.

Interpreting Photos

Asked whether the intelligence community interprets the satellite images as evidence of a restarting of North Korea’s nuclear program, the official said: “It would not be inconsistent with what they implied they were going to do. It looks like it could be continued efforts to reprocess the fuel rods.”

However, the truck movement could also mean that the North Koreans are bringing in fresh fuel rods to restart a small nuclear reactor that is nearby in the same complex, said officials at the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog. Pyongyang has said it wants to restart the small reactor to generate electricity.

The confrontation began in October, when the United States reported that Pyongyang had admitted in private talks that it had been carrying on a secret program to build nuclear weapons with highly enriched uranium.

After the U.S. responded by cutting off fuel aid, North Korea kicked out a United Nations weapons monitoring team and threatened to resume its nuclear arms program.

Seeking China’s Aid

The Bush administration has been trying to pressure North Korea to abandon the nuclear program by enlisting the help of the North’s neighbors, especially China. It has also sought to work through the IAEA in an effort to make the crisis international, rather than a face-off between North Korea and the United States. At the same time, the administration has insisted it will not negotiate with North Korea until it agrees to abandon its nuclear weapons programs.

The head of the IAEA, Mohamed ElBaradei, said Friday that he plans to go before the agency’s board Feb. 12 to raise the issue of North Korea’s breach of promises to freeze its nuclear program. If the board agreed, the issue would be sent to the U.N. Security Council.

ElBaradei said he believes that North Korea could have a “significant” amount of nuclear material within six months. He described the activity at Yongbyon as “a matter of grave concern.”

The Security Council has the power to enact economic sanctions against a country that is in violation of international nuclear treaties. North Korea has warned, however, that it would view such a move as an act of war.

U.S. officials and outside experts say it is unclear whether the North Koreans’ apparent moves to restart the program are aimed at building bargaining pressure or increasing its nuclear arsenal, or both.

U.S. officials have acknowledged that there are no good military options on the Korean peninsula, because Pyongyang has a large standing army and the ability to inflict enormous casualties on South Korea if war erupted. During the last crisis over North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, in 1994, President Clinton reviewed options for a preemptive military strike on Yongbyon.

Robert J. Einhorn, who worked with North Korea as a senior official in the Clinton administration, said that if it is confirmed that North Korea is extracting plutonium from spent fuel rods, that “will force the Bush administration to think deeply about what they want to do.”

Effort May ‘Backfire’

“They may elect not to react. They’re very reluctant to be seen to react to North Korean pressure,” he said. Thus, he said, if the North’s moves are an effort to drive the United States to the negotiating table, “it may backfire.”

In his State of the Union address Tuesday, President Bush described North Korea as “an oppressive regime.” The North reacted strongly, calling the speech “an undisguised declaration of aggression.”

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Times staff writers Edwin Chen in Washington and Alissa J. Rubin in Amman, Jordan, contributed to this report.