Troubling Developments in North Korea
BROWN: The question of what to do about North Korea is getting tricky again and the North Koreans have once again made a big show of crossing a red line. They now say they are one step closer to making a nuclear weapon or perhaps more nuclear weapons. There is some suspicion they already have two but nobody really knows for sure and that's part of the problem the uncertainty. The other is what to do regardless. The Bush administration seems content to wait things out, something that has prompted a former defense secretary in the Clinton administration to call a recipe for stumbling into war. Here's our Senior Pentagon Correspondent Jamie McIntyre.</s>MCINTYRE (voice-over): North Korea has told the U.S. it has completed reprocessing some 8,000 spent fuel rods from its nuclear reactor at Yongbyon and now has enough plutonium to make a half dozen nuclear bombs. If that's a threat, the U.S. is dismissing it.</s>RICHARD BOUCHER, STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESMAN: We will not submit to blackmail. We will not offer any incentives or inducements for North Korea to stop something they never should have started.</s>MCINTYRE: But in an interview with "The Washington Post," former Defense Secretary William Perry, a recognized Korea expert delivers an ominous warning. "Time is running out" he tells the paper. "I have thought for some months that if the North Koreans move toward processing, then we are on a path toward war."</s>REP. JANE HARMAN (D-CA), INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: When former Secretary of Defense Bill Perry, a guy who doesn't hold press interviews easily says that he thinks we're drifting toward war I pay attention.</s>MCINTYRE: The White House insists there is still plenty of time for diplomacy and economic pressure to force North Korea to abandon its nuclear ambitions.</s>SCOTT MCCLELLAN, WHITE HOUSE SPOKESMAN: Obviously, you never take any options off the table but we seek a diplomatic solution.</s>MCINTYRE: One big uncertainty is whether North Korea's Kim Jong- Il is simply bluffing hoping to intimidate the U.S. into appeasement by simply claiming to be a nuclear power. U.S. intelligence concludes North Korea has reprocessed plutonium but is uncertain how far its nuclear program has progressed and the fact that the pre-war intelligence on Iraq is now under question has some members of Congress wary.</s>HARMAN: Our intelligence that tells us whether the North Koreans are bluffing has to be accurate, timely, and unbiased.</s>MCINTYRE: Former Defense Secretary Perry criticized the Bush administration for refusing bilateral negotiations with the North. "I think we're losing control" he told "The Post." "I'm damned if I can figure out what the policy is."</s>MCINTYRE: The Bush administration is hoping to squeeze Pyongyang by going after its only source of hard cash. Sources say the U.S. is poised now, along with ten other countries, to stop North Korean shipments at sea of arms, drugs, and other contraband, claiming that it is a direct threat to U.S. national security -- Aaron.</s>BROWN: Jamie, on to the policy here. The United States, the Bush administration says it wants to avoid bilateral talks; that is, talks with the North Koreans directly that it wants a broader negotiation or conference or whatever the right word is. Are we anywhere in that? Is there anything being proposed? Is anybody making any noise that there ought to be such a meeting?</s>MCINTYRE: Well, the North Koreans are still asking for it. According to our producer at the State Department who checked with her sources again today, the latest message delivered to North Korea through China is absolutely no one-on-one just North Korea-U.S. meeting that they'll only meet on a regional basis, either with China or with other partners in the region. And, the U.S. is sticking to that. They claim that any concessions they make would amount to giving in to North Korean blackmail and they're sticking by that position. They believe they can pressure North Korea, unlike Iraq, with economic means because North Korea is not sitting on a sea of oil that it can use to generate revenues and thumb its nose at the United States.</s>BROWN: It's not sitting on a sea of much of anything. It's very hard pressed. Are the Chinese -- have the Chinese been considered by the administration helpful to this point?</s>MCINTYRE: Well, they've been considered about as helpful as one might expect, not as helpful as the U.S. might hope but China doesn't really seem to want to see a North Korean nuclear power on the North Korean peninsula but its answer to the United States is always the same that it's the U.S. believes -- it says to the U.S. you believe our influence with North Korea is much greater than it really is. We don't have as much influence either.</s>BROWN: Jamie, thank you very much, Senior Pentagon Correspondent Jamie McIntyre tonight. A few stories in our national roundup tonight beginning with a number, it's a bit hard to get your head around or your arms around, $455 billion, with a B, dollars. That's the new projected budget deficit for this year, larger than expected, and nearly triple the deficit from last year, a continuing weak economy, the tax cuts, the cost of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the war on terror all playing a part. The White House budget director said the new figures are "a legitimate subject of concern" but called the situation manageable. On to the Clintons' legal bills, it's been a while since you heard that phrase. The U.S. Court of Appeals decided today the government should pay some of those fees but not much, about $85,000 that the Clintons racked up during Whitewater and all the rest. The Clintons had asked for $3.5 million. The court said they were owed fees surrounding their response to the final report issued by Ken Starr because special prosecutors don't normally issue that kind of report. And, Pat Robertson had quite a request yesterday on the "700 Club," his TV show. He urged his audience to pray for God to remove three justices from the U.S. Supreme Court so they could be replaced by conservatives.</s>PAT ROBERTSON, EVANGELIST: Before it's too late, Lord, please hear our prayers. Answer, Lord, we pray. We cry out to you and we ask for miracles in regard to the Supreme Court. Lord, let there be a dramatic change, we pray, in the name of Jesus show you mighty arm.</s>BROWN: This is part of a 21-day prayer offensive that Robertson has launched after the Supreme Court decided that sodomy was not a crime. Coming up on NEWSNIGHT, the war of words over the war, as Democrats come out swinging over the intelligence flap but are they going too far? Both stories after the break, around the world this is NEWSNIGHT.