WASHINGTON - The Bush administration responded calmly Tuesday to North Korean claims it has turned the plutonium from 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods into nuclear weapons.
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Meanwhile, Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton said the Bush administration remains committed to six-party talks, and that North Korea was using criticism of South Korean tests as a propaganda ploy. Bolton said it was "very hard to know" how advanced North Korea's nuclear weapons program was.
North Korea's nuclear weapons program has become part of the presidential election campaign.
Democratic candidate John Kerry (news - web sites) prefers one-on-one negotiations with North Korea and has accused the Bush administration of letting a "nuclear nightmare" develop by refusing to deal with North Korea when President Bush (news - web sites) took office in January 2001.
"North Korea's nuclear program is well ahead of what Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) was even suspected of doing, yet the president took his eye off the ball, wrongly ignoring this growing danger," Kerry said recently.
Some U.S. intelligence analysts are becoming concerned that North Korea may have up to six nuclear weapons instead of the one or two the Central Intelligence Agency (news - web sites) estimates.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=544&ncid=693&e=3&u=/ap/20040928/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_north_korea
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