Big Doubts About Syrian Reactor Size, Illegality, and North Korean Link Claims Emerge

Okay, actually, that there was an reactor in the Syrian desert is an idea that is believed by most, except for by the Syrians, if you go by their words.

But the problems start soon

• The design and building of the reactor wasn't necessarily aided by the North Koreans according to early press assessments.  

• Though the Bush administration continues to stress the weapons building scenario, actual intelligence sources have 'low confidence' that the reactor was built to produce weapons.

• Why couldn't it be actually a small research reactor?  Well, of course, it couldn't be a research reactor because the authoritative voice on the propaganda video we saw over and over again on the Internet, and TV news programs told us it couldn't.  Some of their claims they even repeated right on their video, in a great impression of brainwashing techniques, which, in fact they were.  All we were missing was Colin Powell dancing around with blurry pictures  of building and trucks , and a vial of something he said was anthrax. 
  

• A recent comment by the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff suddenly drops the idea that the North Koreans were helping.  Hmmm is that a sign? 
  

• The Syrian ambassador to the US asks why they would put a reactor out in the Syrian desert desert all alone with no security resources.

• A former UN  inspector in Iraq says the reactor was not illegal under the Nuclear Nonproliferation treaty which Syria has signed. The inspector also says showing interior shots and then unconnected exterior shots proves nothing.  This is something I had been thinking all weekend.  I'm glad to hear someone else question it who definitely knows what he's talking about.

• More propaganda about the facility is being sent out so mainstream news won't think too much about the previous evidence being very shaky.  CIA Chief Michael Hayden announced Sunday that the facility was about the size of North Korea's Yongbyon reactor and therefore should be capable of squeezing out 1-2 bombs a year.  (Bombs like NK's dud?  That's funny!).  Intelligence analysts question the assertion that the reactor was the size of Yongbyon, though.  Most think it was smaller.

Now lets put some flesh on these concerns. 

Supposedly, the whole excuse for 'releasing the "evidence" ' at this time was to use it to pressure North Korea in negotiations. But later the Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm Michael Mullens left North Korea out of the things to remember about the "Syrian reactor"

His statement: 

That this facility was being built secretly and against international convention and that it was destroyed before it became operational are the key points to remember. It should serve as a reminder to us all of the very real dangers of proliferation and need to rededicate ourselves to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction, particularly into the hands of a state or a group with terrorist connections.

The Passport blog at Foreign Policy says of that North Korean connection is (paraphrased) 'it ain't necessarily so' in "Syria's nuclear reactor " (emphasis mine):

The Syrian facility apparently contained a gas-cooled, graphite-moderated reactor (a derivation from the Calder Hall design) extremely similar to the reactor at Yongbyon. It's a relatively simple design, extensively described in the public domain, and one that's capable of producing plutonium useable in nuclear weapons. Despite the surfeit of publicly available information on the reactor, the intelligence community firmly asserts that, in this case, the design information came from North Korea.

 Michael Hayden, the CIA chief declared that at al Kibar according to Reuters report "UPDATE 2-Syrian reactor capacity was 1-2 weapons/year -CIA ": 

The reactor was of a "similar size and technology" to North Korea's Yongbyon reactor, Hayden said, disputing speculation it was smaller than the Korean facility.

From DemocracyNow rush transcript at "Scott Ritter: By Releasing Intel, US Endorses Israel’s Illegal Bombing of Alleged Syrian Nuke Site ":

 "Syria was producing a very, very small research reactor. But it is not a reactor usable in a nuclear weapons program. Syria was not violating the law."

More from Mr Ritter:

First of all, we have to be concerned about the evidence. We have interior photographs and exterior shots and nothing that links the two. And so, on the surface, I would say that if you’re bringing this evidence to a court of law—it’s a strange dimension, the rule of law, when we speak of American foreign policy lately—you would have trouble having anybody say yes, this is definitive evidence that links the allegations to this specific site in question.

But let’s just assume for a second that the data is in fact accurate. I have to take exception with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff when he says that the alleged activities are against international conventions. Actually, they’re not. If Syria had in fact been constructing the reactor they’ve been accused of, they were in total conformity with international law. The nonproliferation treaty, Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, of which Syria is a signatory, requires that facilities be declared to the IAEA only when nuclear materials are to be introduced to these facilities, that a facility under construction is not a declarable item. And so, it’s absurd to sit there and say that just because Syria and North Korea were pouring concrete that they are somehow breaking the law.

And in fact the International Herald Tribune reports in "Bush administration releases images of Syrian reactor ":

...after a full day of briefing members of Congress, two senior intelligence officials acknowledged that the evidence had left them with no more than "low confidence" that Syria was preparing to build a nuclear weapon. They said there was no sign that Syria had built an operation to convert the spent fuel from the plant into weapons-grade plutonium.

More from IHT on the subject:

Only selected pictures were released by the intelligence agencies on Thursday, including a video that combined still photos and drawings and had a voice-over that gave the presentation the feel of a Cold War news reel...

...

Representative Peter Hoekstra, a Republican from Michigan, expressed annoyance Thursday that the administration waited seven months to brief Congress. "I think many people believe that we were used today by the administration," he said.

...

The reactor was built within 100 miles, or 160 kilometers, of the Iraqi border yet never identified, even though the administration was searching for any form of such weapons programs over the border.

... 

Graham Allison, a Harvard professor and author of "Nuclear Terrorism," who was in Washington Thursday to testify about Iran's nuclear program[:] "And if you can build a reactor in Syria without being detected for eight years, how hard can it be to sell a little plutonium to Osama bin Laden?"

Report notes that North Korea's desperate need for cash spurred the help North Korea may have given Syria.  The Bush administration put additional sanctions on the nation after their members mishandled years of negotiations.

I do have to admit though that, if the following is true, it does appear that NK did help Syria with the design of Al Kibar, though as Foreign Policy said above, the design of such a simple reactor is in the public domain.  NK is lucky to have gotten the gig. 

Among the photographs shown to members of Congress and reporters on Thursday was one of the manager of North Korea's Yongbyon nuclear plant with the director of Syria's nuclear agency. A car in the background has Syrian license plates.

But, then again who identified these men.  Was is the same team that cooked up the propaganda video?

Scott Ritter also notes that even if the Syrians were building a reactor, and even if they were building a reactor for weapon purposes the proper proceedure would be to report the facts as the US and Israel knew them to be to the Internationl Atomic Energy Commission.  As members of the UN, the US and Israel should not act as if they weren't.

So who cares?  Apparently the majority of us Americans haven't met an act of war we didn't like, at least until we figure out it hurts our pocketbook, but....

In a source I cannot find now (after 5 years) a former member of Saddam's nuclear weapons team (they did have nuclear ambitions before GW1) said that the spur for Iraq to acquire nuclear weapons came after Israel bombed their research reactor Tammuz I (at Osiraq) which had originally been developed for peaceful means. Will we have to go into Syria in a decade to fix the mess Israel made late last summer.  How much will that cost us and how much will it hurt our barely recovering economy then?

The Syrian ambassador's response is almost as hilarious as the Bush administration propaganda: 

What nuclear reactor? says the Syrian ambassador (at Democracy Now link above):

IMAD MOUSTAPHA: Can you believe—can anyone be as gullible as this? An allegedly strategic site in Syria without a single military checkpoint around it, without barbed wire around it, without anti-aircraft missiles around it, without any sort of security surrounding it, thrown in the middle of the desert without electricity, plans to generate electricity for it, with out major supply plans around it? And yet, it is supposed to be a strategic installation? And people don’t even think of it. Yesterday, in the White House presidential statement, it was stated to the letter that that was a secret location. And yet, every commercial satellite service available on earth was able to provide photos and images of this so-called secret Syrian site for the past five, six years. I think something is very absurd and preposterous in the whole story.

Mr. Ambassador may not be absolutely correct in his assertions that there was no reactor, but he does have points about the way the Bush administration handle their propaganda.   This was also an initial reaction to the story as was the reaction out of Syria proper.  So, though it sounds comical, give the guy a break.  

The Syrians  were given no advanced warning of the breaking of the report and therefore should be given some extra time to firm up their own propaganda.  After all we had the nice little video with the Israeli guy giving a voice over that must have taken months of focus group work before they found the most effective way to cover for the bombing of al Kibar and the US support of it.  That was all dropped in the lap of the Bush administration (IMHO.).  The Syrians need some time to work up a response.  I doubt that they have the level of quality deceit that the Bush administration/ and our Israeli friends have achieved but give them the chance to try.

tags: syria  syrian reactor  north korea  nuclear proliferation  nuclear power  nukes  

links: digg this    del.icio.us    technorati    reddit