North Korea admitted that it had a covert program to make highly enriched uranium for nuclear arms.
Once a banking entity acquires full control of a commercial company, it becomes impossible to determine whether that bank is a passive financier or an actual commercial actor in, for example, oil drilling, uranium mining or arms trading.
Washington assigned high priority to intelligence on the "transfer of strategic materials such as uranium", and "details of arms acquisitions and arms sales by government or insurgents, including negotiations, contracts, deliveries, terms of sale, quantity and quality of equipment, and price and payment terms".
By contrast, highly enriched uranium can fuel nuclear arms.
The higher purity is a short technical step away from the highly enriched uranium used in nuclear arms.
But before the Bush administration could present its new negotiating approach, American intelligence received fresh evidence that North Korea had begun a clandestine program to enrich uranium to make nuclear arms.
Since 1995, it has paid Russia more than $2 billion for fuel derived from 130 metric tons of weapons-grade enriched uranium -- enough to arm 5,600 warheads; USEC is obliged to buy fuel derived from a total of 500 metric tons by 2013.
"Inside an Enigma" (April 29) once more raises the question whether Iran's uranium enrichment program supports nuclear arms or electric power generation.
In 1992, he urged the United States to buy bomb-grade uranium from scrapped Soviet nuclear arms to bolster the shaky Russian economy and reduce the risk of nuclear war, accident and theft.
Private and federal experts said the most stunning revelation was how Tehran had labored in secret for 18 years to enrich uranium, a main fuel of nuclear arms.
