N. Korea preparation for nuclear test feared

NEW YORK -- White House and Pentagon officials are closely monitoring a recent stream of satellite photographs of North Korea that appear to show rapid, extensive preparations for a nuclear weapons test, including the construction of a reviewing stand, according to US and foreign officials who have been briefed on the imagery, The New York Times reported today.

Bush administration officials, when asked about the burst of activity at a suspected test site in the northeastern part of the country, cautioned that satellites could not divine the intentions of Kim Jong Il, North Korea's leader, and said it was possible that he was putting on a show for American spy satellites, according to the Times.

They said the North Koreans might be trying to put pressure on President Bush to offer an improved package of economic and diplomatic incentives to the desperately poor country in exchange for curtailing its nuclear activities.

''The North Koreans have learned how to use irrationality as a bargaining tool," a senior American official said, according to the Times. ''We can't tell what they are doing."

Nonetheless, American officials have been sufficiently alarmed that they have extensively briefed their Japanese and South Korean allies and warned them to be prepared for the political implications of a test, the Times said.

But another American intelligence specialist said that so far, intelligence agencies had not seen the telltale signs of electronic equipment often used to monitor the size and success of a test, leading to ''some debate about whether this is the real deal," the Times said.

The intelligence official who reviewed the imagery, and others familiar with the evidence, said it was entirely possible that the activity was an elaborate ruse by Kim to strengthen his bargaining position with the five other nations in the talks that he has boycotted: the United States, China, Russia, Japan, and South Korea, the Times reported.