Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Live Today
Activity at North Korea Nuclear Fuel Storage Site
Aired January 31, 2003 - 11:07 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: The activity in North Korea at a nuclear fuel storage site prompted some White House reaction a short time ago.
CNN national security correspondent David Ensor is tracking that story for us. We go to him now live from Washington.
Good morning, David.
DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Leon.
Well, Bush administration officials and intelligence officials are confirming this report of this person in "The New York Times" that surveillance satellites have indeed seen trucks assembling at the Pyongyang facility in North Korea, where that country keeps about 8,000 fuel rods, nuclear fuel rods.
Now, the assumption is, and an official says it's reasonable to assume, that those trucks are carrying some of those fuel rods out, and perhaps moving them to where they could be -- to where the plutonium could be processed, and that would be the first step, of course, toward nuclear bombs. That is, after all, what North Korea has said, it now intends to do.
One note of caution, though, an official said that while you can see the trucks assembling at the site, it's not clear what, if anything, is going into the trucks. So you can't completely dismiss the possibility that there's an element of Kabuki theater to this, that the North Koreans might be increasing the amount of activity so that the surveillance satellites will see it, and so that the world will get worried that they're moving further toward nuclear weapons.
Still, stressing again, officials say there's every reason to assume that the North Koreans are moving ahead to nuclear weapons -- Leon.
HARRIS: David, what have you heard at all -- or have you heard anything at all from your sources about this BBC report that Al Qaeda may have put together a so-called dirty bomb? We've been talking about this in the last year or so.
ENSOR: Well, officials stress, and we've all reported this in the past, that Al Qaeda wants to get a dirty bomb. It's one of the goals that we saw written about in some of the documentation that was seized from safe houses in Kabul at the time that the Afghanistan, the Taliban government collapsed. However, these officials say, they do not believe that Al Qaeda has successfully built even a small radiological device to this point. As one official put it to me, that's a greater degree of specificity than the facts would support. Now when I say specificity, of course, the BBC report said that there were documents that were found that indicated that Al Qaeda had produced near the town of Herot (ph) in western Afghanistan a small and crude radiological device. This official saying the facts do not support that -- Leon.
HARRIS: Very interesting. Thanks, David, David Ensor live in Washington.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired January 31, 2003 - 11:07 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: The activity in North Korea at a nuclear fuel storage site prompted some White House reaction a short time ago.
CNN national security correspondent David Ensor is tracking that story for us. We go to him now live from Washington.
Good morning, David.
DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Leon.
Well, Bush administration officials and intelligence officials are confirming this report of this person in "The New York Times" that surveillance satellites have indeed seen trucks assembling at the Pyongyang facility in North Korea, where that country keeps about 8,000 fuel rods, nuclear fuel rods.
Now, the assumption is, and an official says it's reasonable to assume, that those trucks are carrying some of those fuel rods out, and perhaps moving them to where they could be -- to where the plutonium could be processed, and that would be the first step, of course, toward nuclear bombs. That is, after all, what North Korea has said, it now intends to do.
One note of caution, though, an official said that while you can see the trucks assembling at the site, it's not clear what, if anything, is going into the trucks. So you can't completely dismiss the possibility that there's an element of Kabuki theater to this, that the North Koreans might be increasing the amount of activity so that the surveillance satellites will see it, and so that the world will get worried that they're moving further toward nuclear weapons.
Still, stressing again, officials say there's every reason to assume that the North Koreans are moving ahead to nuclear weapons -- Leon.
HARRIS: David, what have you heard at all -- or have you heard anything at all from your sources about this BBC report that Al Qaeda may have put together a so-called dirty bomb? We've been talking about this in the last year or so.
ENSOR: Well, officials stress, and we've all reported this in the past, that Al Qaeda wants to get a dirty bomb. It's one of the goals that we saw written about in some of the documentation that was seized from safe houses in Kabul at the time that the Afghanistan, the Taliban government collapsed. However, these officials say, they do not believe that Al Qaeda has successfully built even a small radiological device to this point. As one official put it to me, that's a greater degree of specificity than the facts would support. Now when I say specificity, of course, the BBC report said that there were documents that were found that indicated that Al Qaeda had produced near the town of Herot (ph) in western Afghanistan a small and crude radiological device. This official saying the facts do not support that -- Leon.
HARRIS: Very interesting. Thanks, David, David Ensor live in Washington.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
