WASHINGTON (AFP) — US intelligence officials Thursday began briefing lawmakers here behind closed doors on allegations that North Korea shared nuclear know-how with Syria, congressional aides said.
Shortly before the House and Senate Armed Services committees met, National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley and CIA chief Michael Hayden were seen going into the talks. They made no comment to waiting reporters.
An official, who asked to remain anonymous, said Wednesday the United States has concluded that Pyongyang helped Damascus start building a nuclear reactor. And the aid did not stop when the site was destroyed last year.
Lawmakers were also to be shown pictures of the site as part of a video presentation to Congress, a US official said.
"There are still photographs of the facility as part of the video, but it's a video presentation, like a Powerpoint presentation. It's not a video of the facility," the official said, requesting anonymity.
The New York Times and The Washington Post, had earlier cited unnamed senior US officials saying a video showing North Koreans inside the Syrian reactor would be shown at the hearing.
The Syrian reactor is said to appear to be identical in design to a North Korean reactor at Yongbyon.
Thursday's briefings come after months of questions over an Israeli airstrike in September on a mystery target widely reported to have been a fledgling nuclear site.
The closed hearings were to continue in the afternoon with a meeting of the House and Senate intelligence committees.
The briefing comes amid an aggressive effort by US President George W. Bush to to resolve the North Korean nuclear crisis before he leaves office in January 2009.
Under a six-nation deal struck in February 2007, Pyongyang agreed to dismantle its nuclear program and formally declare all of its nuclear activities in return for economic and diplomatic incentives.
But the isolated Stalinist state missed a December 31 deadline for providing its declaration.
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