atellites 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. They said the North Koreans might be trying to put pressure on President Bush to offer a 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 Thursday evening. “We can’t tell what they are doing.” […]
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 Mr. 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.
Kim is considered skilled at the art of escalating a crisis, and a senior diplomat said Thursday that the United States had not raised a public alarm “because we don’t want to play his game.”
This comes only a few days after the North Koreans fired a missile into the sea, in the direction of Japan.
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