WASHINGTON, March 14: US-led sanctions and international isolation forced Col Qadhafi to give up Libya's weapons of mass destruction, says United States Secretary of State Colin Powell , while indicating that Washington hoped to force North Korea to do the same by using the same methods.

In an interview released by the State Department on Sunday, Mr Powell spelled out the US policy for getting rid of WMDs, emphasizing that the Bush administration had "zero tolerance" for nuclear proliferation.

"Col Qadhafi took a look around and what did he see? He saw that he had spent a ton of money. He had worked with some very "unsavoury people, even more than him. From North Korea, A.Q. Khan, he had bought equipment that would develop a nuclear weapon, but he hadn't quite figured out how to put it all together yet," said Mr Powell.

The secretary claimed that Col Qadhafi had produced some chemicals that he kept hidden in a turkey farm. "And all he has achieved for this massive expenditure of his money was to become even more a pariah of the world."

Mr Powell said the weapons of mass destruction did not achieve anything for the Libyan leader. "It didn't do anything for his country. It didn't do anything for his people. And he, apparently, was no longer scaring anybody either."

Mr Powell recalled that despite the WMDs that Col Qadhafi had amassed, the Reagan administration was able to successfully hit his home in the 1980s, which further exposed the vulnerability of the Libyan leader.

"And then he takes a further look around and sees that the Bush Administration comes in with a strong foreign policy and with a determination to respond to the threats. And so he watches that a little bit, and then he sees what happens in Afghanistan and Iraq. And he says to himself, you know, it's time to get out of this," said Mr Powell.

Mr Powell said some critics of the Bush administration were urging Washington to buy off North Korea and induce it to destroy its WMDs in return for monetary favours.

Such critics, he said, were advising the US to be "so terrified by this little country with its 8,000 rods (of enriched uranium) that we should collapse our position and seek their willingness to give up their progress (by) paying them for their misbehaviour."

Mr Powell said the Clinton administration had used the policy but it did not work, "and we've made it clear that's not what's going to happen this time." He said the US had convinced Japan, South Korea, China and Russia to support its position on North Korea and also had "exposed the A.Q. Khan network."