William Broad and Mark Mazzetti have a fascinating article in the New York Times about the Syrian facility that the Israelis attacked in early September. They show two satellite photos…one from August 10th, 2007 (before the Israelis bombed) and one from October 24, 2007 (long after the Israelis bombed). It might blow your mind, but in the after picture the large structure is gone. This is then built up as proof that the facility was a nuclear reactor.
But the images, federal and private analysts say, suggest that the Syrian authorities rushed to dismantle the facility after the strike, calling it a tacit admission of guilt.
“It’s a magic act — here today, gone tomorrow,” said a senior intelligence official. “It doesn’t lower suspicions, it raises them. This was not a long-term decommissioning of a building, which can take a year. It was speedy. It’s incredible that they could have gone to that effort to make something go away.”
Excuse me if I am stupid, but didn’t the Israeli’s bombing run have more to do with the ‘here today, gone tomorrow’ nature of this situation?
But, let’s leave that issue aside for the moment. There are two significant typos in this article. See if you can find the first one.
Mr. Cirincione said the photographic evidence “tilts toward a nuclear program,” but does not prove that Syria was building a reactor. Besides, he said, even if it was developing a nuclear program, Syria would be l years away from being operational, and thus not an imminent threat.
Did you find it? Good. Now find the second one.
The purported reactor at the site is believed to be modeled on a North Korean model, which uses buildings a few feet longer on each side that the Syrian building that vanished.
Mr. Albright called the Syrian site “consistent with being a North Korean reactor design.” Imad Moustapha, the Syrian ambassador to the United States, said in an interview last week with The Dallas Morning News that his country was trying to build a reactor.
“There is no Syrian nuclear program whatsoever,” he said. “It’s an absolutely blatant lie.”
Later in the interview, he said, “ We understand that if Syria even contemplated nuclear technology, then the gates of hell would open on us.”
So, he’s trying to build a reactor, but he says that that the suggestion that they are playing with ‘nuclear program’ is a ‘blatant lie’ and that there is no way they would mess around with nuclear technology and open the ‘gates of hell’ on themselves. Perhaps the Times dropped a ‘not’ somewhere?
I don’t know what Syria was doing at this facility but it doesn’t surprise me that the so-called reactor disappeared after the Israelis bombed it. Are the Syrians under some obligation to leave the debris there for posterity? And what is up with those typos?
