Parsing North Korea's Nuclear Game

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In the late 1990s, U.S. spy satellites crisscrossing North Korea picked up alarming evidence that suggested the rogue regime might be excavating a secret underground nuclear test facility. North Korea agreed to allow U.S. officials to visit the site--after Washington ponied up some extra food aid--but when the inspectors arrived, all they found was an empty hole. With that incident in mind, U.S. officials last week cast a skeptical eye on new satellite images of the North Koreans hard at work on another big dig. Traffic around the mouth of a tunnel has intensified recently, and heavy equipment has been spotted hauling materials, possibly including cement, into the hole, according to a U.S. official briefed on the latest intelligence. That could mean technicians are plugging the shaft to conduct an underground test. Or not. "Could the activity at the tunnel be consistent with a nuclear test?" asks the official. "Yes. Are there other potential explanations? Yes." Given North Korea's track record of bluff and brinksmanship, "it is very possible they are pretending it is a test," says Choi Jin Wook, an expert on North Korea at Seoul's Korea Institute for National Unification.

The U.S. believes North Korea could have as many as eight nukes. And although testing one would mark Pyongyang's unequivocal entry into the world's exclusive club of proven nuclear powers, North Korea watchers say the potential fallout with its ally China could stay Pyongyang's hand. But President Bush isn't taking any chances. He urged China's President Hu Jintao last week to rein in his irksome neighbor. And in case Kim Jong Il doesn't get the message, the U.S. is rotating Stealth bombers and fighter jets through Guam, where they are within striking distance of North Korea. --By Donald Macintyre. With reporting by Elaine Shannon