Bush Administration Caught Misrepresenting Details on Syrian Nuclear Reactor's Similarity with NK. Core is Less than 60% of the Size of Yongbyon

Seeing as details on how to create your own carbon-gas reactor are publicly available , the propaganda video that the Bush administration released last week's claim that the Syrian reactor was nearly the same as the North Korean one at Yongbyon would rest a lot on the size of the core.  I'm guessing that the carbon gas reactor is the poor nation's road to nuclear power (whether for energy or weapons purposes).

And according to details at Arms Control Wonk (link as identified below) the numbers just don't add up.  Excerpt ACW:

 Robin Wright wrote in the Washington Post Thursday, April 24th  (excerption here is from ACW) 

Sources familiar with the video say it also shows that the Syrian reactor core’s design is the same as that of the North Korean reactor at Yongbyon, including a virtually identical configuration and number of holes for fuel rods. It shows “remarkable resemblances inside and out to Yongbyon,” a U.S. intelligence official said. A nuclear weapons specialist called the video “very, very damning.”

Note that Wright had not seen the video, and just accepted the Bush administration's explanation of it.  Journalists often get 'inside' information on subjects straight from the White House, but as we can see a lot of it is not exactly accurate.  Still mainstream journalists know they'd better not embarrass the Bush administration too directly or their access make get cut off.

BTW, I noted in my last post that the speaker on the video was an Israeli, though of all the news sources I read  none identified him as such.  Wright does show that is true.  Heh heh:

U.S. officials said that Israel shared the video with the United States before the Sept. 6 bombing, after Bush administration officials expressed skepticism last spring that the facility, visible by satellite since 2001, was a nuclear reactor built with North Korea's assistance

U.S. releases Syria reactor video. This is the same one we've been seeing for days, nothing new

But back to Arms Control Wonk  -- Jeffrey "Just How Big Was Al Kibar Again?":  It's part on showing the smaller size of Al Kibar contains links to other blogs and pictures.  See the blog itself for that, and for Jeffrey's important conclusions.

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