North Korea linked to Syrian attempt to Build NuclearReactor

[Straha]

N. Koreans Taped At Syrian Reactor
Video Played a Role in Israeli Raid

By Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 24, 2008; A01

A video taken inside a secret Syrian facility last summer convinced the Israeli government and the Bush administration that North Korea was helping to construct a reactor similar to one that produces plutonium for North Korea's nuclear arsenal, according to senior U.S. officials who said it would be shared with lawmakers today.

The officials said the video of the remote site, code-named Al Kibar by the Syrians, shows North Koreans inside. It played a pivotal role in Israel's decision to bomb the facility late at night last Sept. 6, a move that was publicly denounced by Damascus but not by Washington.

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."

Nuclear weapons analysts and U.S. officials predicted that CIA Director Michael V. Hayden's planned disclosures to Capitol Hill could complicate U.S. efforts to improve relations with North Korea as a way to stop its nuclear weapons program. They come as factions inside the administration and in Congress have been battling over the merits of a nuclear-related deal with North Korea.

Syrian Ambassador Imad Moustapha yesterday angrily denounced the U.S. and Israeli assertions. "If they show a video, remember that the U.S. went to the U.N. Security Council and displayed evidence and images about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. I hope the American people will not be as gullible this time around," he said.

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. Israel has a nuclear weapons arsenal that it has never declared.

But beginning today, intelligence officials will tell members of the House and Senate intelligence, armed services and foreign relations committees that the Syrian facility was not yet fully operational and that there was no uranium for the reactor and no indication of fuel capability, according to U.S. officials and intelligence sources.

David Albright, president of Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) and a former U.N. weapons inspector, said the absence of such evidence warrants skepticism that the reactor was part of an active weapons program.

"The United States and Israel have not identified any Syrian plutonium separation facilities or nuclear weaponization facilities," he said. "The lack of any such facilities gives little confidence that the reactor is part of an active nuclear weapons program. The apparent lack of fuel, either imported or indigenously produced, also is curious and lowers confidence that Syria has a nuclear weapons program."

U.S. intelligence officials will also tell the lawmakers that Syria is not rebuilding a reactor at the Al Kibar site. "The successful engagement of North Korea in the six-party talks means that it was unlikely to have supplied Syria with such facilities or nuclear materials after the reactor site was destroyed," Albright said. "Indeed, there is little, if any, evidence that cooperation between Syria and North Korea extended beyond the date of the destruction of the reactor."

The timing of the congressional briefing is nonetheless awkward for the Bush administration's diplomatic initiative to persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear program and permanently disable the reactor at Yongbyon. The CIA's hand was forced, officials said, because influential lawmakers had threatened to cut off funding for the U.S. diplomatic effort unless they received a full account of what the administration knew.

Also, the terms of a tentative U.S.-North Korean deal require that North Korean officials acknowledge U.S. evidence about its help with the Syrian program, and so the disclosures to Congress are meant to preempt what North Korea may eventually say.

Following talks with the South Korean president last weekend, President Bush said that it was premature to make a judgment about whether North Korea was willing to follow through with a commitment to publicly declare its nuclear-related programs, materials and facilities.

Washington and Pyongyang still differ over what should be included in that declaration, a State Department official said. Sung Kim, the State Department director of the Office of Korean Affairs, is in Pyongyang for discussions about the contents.

Syria's top envoy to Washington said the CIA briefings were meant to undermine diplomatic efforts with North Korea, not to confront Syria. Why, Moustapha said, are "they repeating the same lies and fabrications when they were planning to attack Iraq? The reason is simple: It's about North Korea, not Syria. The neoconservative elements are having the upper hand."

He added, "We do not want to plan to acquire nuclear technology as we understand the reality of this world and have seen what the U.S. did to Iraq even when it did not have a nuclear program. So we are not going to give them a pretext to attack Syria."

Before the site was bombed, the facility included a tall, boxy structure like those used to house gas-graphite reactors and was located seven miles north of the desert village of At Tibnah in the Dayr az Zawr region, 90 miles from the Iraqi border, according to photographs released by the ISIS, a nonprofit research group.

The White House and the CIA declined to comment on the briefings

No comment.

[Sea Skimmer]

Count me as still being extremely skeptical that the target was a nuclear reactor. The explanation that the target was a shipment of arms intended for Hezbollah or perhapes even a Hezbollah base camp is far more credible.

[Coyote]

Count me as still being extremely skeptical that the target was a nuclear reactor. The explanation that the target was a shipment of arms intended for Hezbollah or perhapes even a Hezbollah base camp is far more credible.

Curious: why discount the reactor theory?

[SirNitram]

And the rollback towards reality from the hype begins. There's no videotape. There's still pictures. Link

Same story, but with this vital admission:

A US official, requesting anonymity, told AFP: "There are still photographs of the facility as part of the video, but it's a video presentation, like a Powerpoint presentation. It's not a video of the facility."

Mobile Bioweapons Labs all over again.

[Sea Skimmer]

Curious: why discount the reactor theory?

I don’t think Syria would bother to try, because it’s unlikely that they could ever make the industrial and scientific investment to actual field a working nuclear device. I wonder if Syria even has the critical mass of scientists you need to actually engineer and build a working nuclear device, and even if they did, could they actually recruit enough of them to work in secret and actually make it happen. In the absence of the raw capability to build a device, a reactor, a much simpler undertaking even if Norks don’t hand you the blueprints, is just a waste of time.

Ill be interested to see the satellite overheads that apparently now exist of the site, that will show a lot more then any hazy internal photographs are likely too. If they had a square concrete building next to a bank of industrial radiators surrounded by three layers of fencing, then I might change my opinion.

[Admiral Valdemar]

I don’t think Syria would bother to try, because it’s unlikely that they could ever make the industrial and scientific investment to actual field a working nuclear device. I wonder if Syria even has the critical mass of scientists you need to actually engineer and build a working nuclear device, and even if they did, could they actually recruit enough of them to work in secret and actually make it happen. In the absence of the raw capability to build a device, a reactor, a much simpler undertaking even if Norks don’t hand you the blueprints, is just a waste of time.

Ill be interested to see the satellite overheads that apparently now exist of the site, that will show a lot more then any hazy internal photographs are likely too. If they had a square concrete building next to a bank of industrial radiators surrounded by three layers of fencing, then I might change my opinion.

Like this?

[Sea Skimmer]

Well actually I just found that Google earth updated the area in high resolution overnight, so we can now get a much better view. It the facility appears to have a series of berms around it, besides being in a gully, which may be meant to shield it from observation, pretty suspicious. The cooling arrangement isn’t too convincing, but then I suppose Syria might be accepting boiling the Euphrates rather then risking a giveaway of a proper cooling setup (course that proper cooling setup could have been hidden by collocating the reactor with other facilities). It’s also hard to think of what other purpose that building might have, it doesn’t seem to be possibly linked into local irrigation. The railway that runs right through the site is also interesting, this would be pretty vital to covertly bringing in the many large pieces of equipment you need for a reactor.

However this is still alls just circumstantial evidence which could all be made to fit a variety of other projects. If Syria (which has been accused on and off of having an nuclear program since 1975, and which has openly asked for bids for research reactors in the past) was actually going after a nuclear reactor then they’d need more then just this site to even be able to operate it. You need facilities to refine and fabricate fuel, and the store and process waste. That’s why most nuclear research facilities are sprawling complexes, or in the case of Iran and other nations with big time ambitions, multiple redundant sprawling complexes. Unless those other facilities are revealed I’m going to remain skeptical. The only alternative would be for Syria to be fully dependent on North Korea for those tasks, which is not the making of a viable nuclear weapons program or even a halfway decent research reactor program.