Powell says North Koreans 'nullified' nuclear agreement

WASHINGTON -- Fighting nuclear proliferation on two fronts, the Bush administration said Sunday that military action contemplated against Iraq would not now remedy North Korea's violation of a U.S. agreement to dismantle its weapons program.

Whether through force or diplomacy, the U.S. goal is to eliminate both countries' weapons programs, the White House's leading foreign policy advisers said.

"We're not going to have a cookie cutter for foreign policy, where we try to apply the same formula to every case. It would be foolhardy to do that," said Condoleezza Rice, President Bush's national security adviser.

"The president put it very well when he said there may be many modalities, but there's only one morality. And the morality is that we are not prepared to allow nuclear powers of this kind to grow up," she said on CNN's "Late Edition."

Secretary of State Colin Powell stressed the need of working with the leaders of Russia, China, Japan, South Korea and others in the region to deter North Korea's nuclear ambitions.

"We'll move forward as a group of nations that are concerned about this issue," he said.

Part of 'axis of evil'

North Korea was branded, along with Iraq and Iran, as an "axis of evil" by Bush in January. He pledged after the Sept. 11 attacks that the United States would not allow those nations to threaten the world with weapons of mass destruction.

Iraq has chemical and biological weapons and is said to be working on nuclear arms. Unless U.N. inspectors are dispatched and eventually certify Iraq's disarmament, President Saddam Hussein's government faces U.S. military action either under U.N. auspices or with the authority of a congressional resolution signed by Bush this month.

North Korea has chemical weapons and a rudimentary biological weapons program, and the United States says the North Korean officials admitted this month the country is enriching uranium to make nuclear weapons in violation of a 1994 agreement.

Rice and Powell said the administration is considering how to force North Korea to abandon its program, but there is no plan so far for an invasion.

Powell said the administration considers the 1994 agreement, signed eight years ago Monday, effectively dead.

When the North Koreans told a U.S. envoy of its nuclear program, they "blamed us for their actions and then said they considered that agreement nullified," Powell said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

"When you have an agreement between two parties, and one says it's nullified, then it's hard to see what you do with such an agreement."

As part of the accord, Washington agreed to head a consortium to provide North Korea with two modern atomic reactors to replace its existing nuclear reactors, which could yield more bomb-grade plutonium. Japan and South Korea were to pay most of the $4 billion bill.

A senior White House official said Sunday that, considering North Korea's admission, it was unlikely the two new power plants will be completed. North Korea said the consortium's failure to meet a 2003 deadline was why it nullified the pact.