PERISCOPE

Roh will have to tread carefully, however. The United States has begun to show some flexibility toward North Korea, offering to drop its demand for the "complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantling" of the Hermit Kingdom's nuclear program. Although Seoul was pleased with the offer, it may agitate for more concessions. (It views North Korean energy as the key to resolving the conflict, and has embraced Pyongyang's request for 2 million kilowatts of electricity each year.) But pushing Washington to bend more than it has already could be risky. South Korean troops are not crucial to security in Iraq, and a frustrated Bush administration could easily turn its back on Roh and revert to tough talk on North Korea. Which would leave the South Korean leader without any support at all.
--B. J. Lee

RUSSIA: Is Might Not Right?
Russian president Vladimir Putin has based his strategy for bringing stability to the volatile Caucasus region on installing hard-line, pro-Kremlin leaders in local government. But after about 200 rebel fighters from Chechnya went on a rampage last week in the neighboring republic of Ingushetia, more observers now suggest that Putin's policy is in fact the root of the problem.

More than 70,000 Russian troops are stationed in the region, and pro-Kremlin security and military officials fill the ranks of the civilian administration. Community leaders are excluded where they are needed most, which leaves uniformed types who lack the diplomatic skills necessary to end the near-decadelong conflict. "There is no flexible thinking," says analyst Shamil Benno of the Moscow-based Fund for the Support of Democracy and Social Progress. "These men were trained to follow orders from Moscow and that's it." Amnesty International has been even harsher in its condemnation, blaming the FSB--the KGB's successor--in which Ingushetia's President Murat Zyazikov once served as a general--for 34 political disappearances in Ingushetia over the past six months. The FSB's tactics are spreading "a wave of fear and terror" in the region, says Amnesty's Mariana Katzarova.

Putin has shown little inclination to change course. The Kremlin has anointed Chechnya's colorless top cop, Alu Alukhanov, as its candidate to replace the ravaged republic's recently assassinated president. If Alukhanov is elected in August, few expect him to show either the sort of political savvy that might win over the locals or the subtle skills necessary to deal with Chechen rebels. Far more likely is escalating violence--and no sign of the stability that Putin has long promised.
--Frank Brown

TERROR: Swapping Stories
A captured Qaeda commander who was a principal source for Bush administration claims that Osama bin Laden collaborated with Saddam Hussein's regime has changed his story. U.S. intelligence officials say that Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, a onetime member of bin Laden's inner circle, was a crucial source for one of the more dramatic assertions made by President George W. Bush and his top aides: that Iraq had provided training in "poisons and deadly gases" for Al Qaeda. Recently, sources say, U.S. interrogators went back to al-Libi with new evidence that cast doubt on his claims. Al-Libi "subsequently recounted a different story," said one U.S. official. Some officials now suspect that al-Libi, facing aggressive interrogation techniques, had previously said what U.S. officials wanted to hear. In any case, the cloud over his story explains why administration officials have made no mention of the "poisons and gases" claim for some time and did not more forcefully challenge the recent findings of the 9-11 Commission that Al Qaeda and Iraq had not forged a "collaborative relationship."

The debate, however, is far from over. Pentagon officials are culling through captured Iraqi documents they say will provide hard evidence of multiple contacts between Iraqi officials and Qaeda members over a decade. Current plans call for a massive "document dump" before the November election. But officials acknowledge ultimate proof may prove elusive. "It all depends on what your definition of a relationship is," said one.
--Michael Isikoff