Bush breaks silence on suspected Syria-N.Korea link

By Matt Spetalnick

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush said on Tuesday he released U.S. intelligence about suspected North Korea-Syria nuclear collusion to put pressure on Pyongyang and send a message to Iran that it could not hide its own nuclear program.

Bush broke months of silence on the matter after his administration went public last week with accusations that Syria had been building a secret nuclear reactor with North Korean help when the facility was bombed by Israeli warplanes last September.

He said the disclosure, including photos and other information the CIA insisted showed the facility's potential for nuclear weapons purposes, was meant to "advance certain policy objectives."

"One would be to the North Koreans, to make it abundantly clear that we may know more about you than you think," Bush told a news conference in the White House Rose Garden.

Syria has denied it was building a reactor and instead accused Washington of involvement in the air attack by Israel, a staunch U.S. ally widely believed to have the Middle East's only nuclear arsenal.

The United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency has criticized the United States for waiting until this month to share its intelligence and U.S. lawmakers have also complained about the delay.

A diplomat close to the U.N. nuclear watchdog and outside analysts have said the U.S. disclosure did not amount to proof of an illicit arms program because there was no sign of a reprocessing plant needed to convert spent fuel from the facility into bomb-grade plutonium.

Under a six-nation deal reached with North Korea in September 2005, the poor, communist state committed to abandon all nuclear weapons and programs in return for economic aid and diplomatic benefits.