By CKR
The story a month or so ago about the uranium hexafluoride from North Korea, supposedly sent to Libya, was strange. The New York Times and the Washington Post had two entirely different stories, the science of them reported reasonably well. But the two seemed incompatible if both were correct, and there were big holes in the identification of North Korea as the source.
It was clear that part of the intention was to pressure North Korea, and North Korea responded.
Now we learn that, oh yeah, the intelligence guys knew that that UF6 was sent from North Korea to Pakistan! And it wasn't just the Times and the Post that were misled, it was the US's allies in trying to talk North Korea out of its nuclear weapons program. Presumably North Korea knew where the UF6 had been shipped to, which was why they could be so contemptuous of the US.
Pakistan then sold the material to Libya, which is where the US got it. The February reports thus had plausible deniability: Oh dear, it was in Libya and we could tell it came from North Korea, so we thought it was a direct sale.
Even at the time, there were speculations (David Albright, I think) that the material may have gone by way of Pakistan.
The Bush administration's approach, intended to isolate North Korea, instead left allies increasingly doubtful as they began to learn that the briefings omitted essential details about the transaction, U.S. officials and foreign diplomats said in interviews.
Pakistan is a problem. It's likely that the government was complicit in the A.Q. Khan network's dealings; how else could materials be delivered by government airplanes? But the Musharraf government is fragile and cooperative with the Bush administration's desires in the area. So the US has not pressed to talk to Khan, who is allegedly under house arrest but a national hero, having provided the Islamic bomb.
The current outcome seems to be the worst possible. The US has irritated its allies in east Asia by lying to them to hype the North Korea menace, North Korea knew the US was lying, and now Pakistan gets bad publicity too. And US credibility goes down one more notch.
An alternative might have been to keep the information quiet and use it as a lever with Pakistan behind the scenes. But the Bushies felt they needed something to whip up feelings against North Korea in preparation for talks.
...two other U.S. officials said the briefings were hastily arranged after China and South Korea indicated they were considering bolting from six-party talks on North Korea.
We may wonder if this was John Bolton's idea.
I'm still not convinced that the UF6 came from North Korea. We don't know they've got a facility for producing it (at least not in the unclassified reports), but we do know Pakistan does. The container could have been in North Korea at some time and acquired the plutonium traces on its outside, but it could have gone back to Pakistan for a refill.