Lesson #612 on non-proliferation

[southsider2k5]

So basically the technology has gone from Pakistan to North Korea to Syria... Who knows where it is going next...

 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12784361/

 

U.N. eyes images of possible Syrian nuke site

International Atomic Energy Agency experts studying satellite photographs

 

Updated: 1 hour, 51 minutes ago

VIENNA, Austria - U.N. experts have received satellite imagery of the site struck last month by Israeli warplanes and are analyzing it for signs that it might have been a secret nuclear facility, diplomats said Friday.

 

One of the diplomats indicated that the photos came from U.S intelligence. Two others said the images, which have been studied by experts of the International Atomic Energy Agency since being received on Thursday, do not at first examination appear to substantiate reports that the target was a nuclear installation, but emphasized that the images were still under examination.

 

The diplomats, who were briefed on the agency’s receipt of the images, spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because their information was confidential. Officials of the Vienna-based nuclear watchdog had no comment.

 

Since the Sept. 6 bombing, news media have quoted unidentified U.S. officials as saying that the airstrike hit some sort of nuclear facility linked to North Korea, which is now in the process of dismantling its nuclear weapons program. On Friday, The Washington Post cited American officials as saying the site in Syria’s eastern desert near the Euphrates River had characteristics of a small but substantial nuclear reactor similar to North Korea’s facility.

 

The investigation by the IAEA — the U.N. nuclear watchdog — is crucial because it is the first instance of an independent and respected organization looking at the evidence and trying to reach a conclusion as to what was hit.

 

Syria denies that it has an undeclared nuclear program — it has said that the Israelis targeted an empty building — and the agency has said it has no evidence to the contrary.

 

The diplomats said that Vienna-based Syrian diplomats have met with senior IAEA representatives since the bombing but have provided no substantive information that would indicate their country has nuclear secrets.

 

Syria has signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and has allowed agency experts to inspect its only known nuclear facility — a small, 27-kilowatt reactor, according to diplomats linked to the IAEA.

[EvilMonkey]

Maybe we should just send the EPA over to the mid-east. If all those countries had to jump thru the same hoops as we did here in America, there would never be another nuke facility over there again!

[southsider2k5]

 

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/10/26/africa/26syria.php

 

Photos show cleansing of suspect Syrian site

By William J. Broad and Mark Mazzetti Published: October 25, 2007

 

New commercial satellite photos show that a Syrian site believed to have been attacked by Israel last month no longer bears any obvious traces of what some analysts said appeared to have been a partly built nuclear reactor.

 

Two photos, taken Wednesday from space by rival companies, show the site near the Euphrates River to have been wiped clean since August, when imagery showed a tall square building there measuring about 150 feet on a side.

 

The Syrians reported an attack by Israel in early September; the Israelis have not confirmed that. Senior Syrian officials continue to deny that a nuclear reactor was under construction, insisting that Israel hit a largely empty military warehouse.

 

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," a senior intelligence official said. "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."

 

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Any attempt by Syrian authorities to clean up the site would make it difficult, if not impossible, for international weapons inspectors to determine the exact nature of the activity there. Officials from the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna have said they hoped to analyze the satellite images and ultimately inspect the site in person. David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, a private group in Washington that released a report on the Syrian site earlier this week, said the expurgation of the building was inherently suspicious.

 

"It looks like Syria is trying to hide something and destroy the evidence of some activity," Albright said in an interview. "But it won't work. Syria has got to answer questions about what it was doing."

 

The striking difference in the satellite photos surprised even some outside experts who were skeptical that Syria might be developing a nuclear program.

 

"It's clearly very suspicious," said Joseph Cirincione, an expert on nuclear proliferation at the Center for American Progress in Washington. "The Syrians were up to something that they clearly didn't want the world to know about."

 

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 years away from being operational, and thus not an imminent threat.

 

Gordon Johndroe, a White House spokesman, declined to comment on the satellite pictures.

 

The new satellite images of the Syrian site were taken by DigitalGlobe, in Longmont, Colorado, and SPOT Image Corporation, in Chantilly, Virginia. They show just a smooth, unfurrowed area where the large building once stood.

 

The desolate Syrian site is located on the eastern bank of the Euphrates River some 90 miles north of the Iraqi border and 7 miles north of the desert village of At Tibnah. An airfield lies nearby. The new images reveal that the tall building is gone but still show a secondary structure and a pumping station on the Euphrates. Reactors need water for cooling.

 

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 than the Syrian building that vanished.

 

Albright called the Syrian site "consistent with being a North Korean reactor design." Imad Moustapha, the Syrian ambassador to the United States, denied 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."

[southsider2k5]

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid...icle%2FShowFull

 

The September 6 raid over Syria was carried out by the US Air Force, the Al-Jazeera Web site reported Friday. The Web site quoted Israeli and Arab sources as saying that two strategic US jets armed with tactical nuclear weapons carried out an attack on a nuclear site under construction.

 

The sources were quoted as saying that Israeli F-15 and F-16 jets provided cover for the US planes.

 

The sources added that each US plane carried one tactical nuclear weapon and that the site was hit by one bomb and was totally destroyed.

 

At the beginning of October, Israel's military censor began to allow the local media to report on the raid without attributing their report to foreign sources. Nevertheless, details of the strike have remained clouded in mystery.

 

On October 28, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told the cabinet that he had apologized to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan if Israel violated Turkish airspace during a strike on an alleged nuclear facility in Syria last month.

 

In a carefully worded statement that was given to reporters after the cabinet meeting, Olmert said: "In my conversation with the Turkish prime minister, I told him that if Israeli planes indeed penetrated Turkish airspace, then there was no intention thereby, either in advance or in any case, to - in any way - violate or undermine Turkish sovereignty, which we respect."

 

The New York Times reported on October 13 that Israeli planes struck at what US and Israeli intelligence believed was a partly constructed nuclear reactor in Syria on September 6, citing American and foreign officials who had seen the relevant intelligence reports.

 

According to the report, Israel carried out the report to send a message that it would not tolerate even a nuclear program in its initial stages of construction in any neighboring state.

 

On October 17, Syria denied that one of its representatives to the United Nations told a panel that an Israeli air strike hit a Syrian nuclear facility and added that "such facilities do not exist in Syria."

 

A UN document released by the press office had provided an account of a meeting of the First Committee, Disarmament and International Security, in New York, and paraphrased an unnamed Syrian representative as saying that a nuclear facility was hit by the raid.

 

However, the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency, SANA said media reports, apparently based on a UN press release, misquoted the Syrian diplomat.

[kapkomet]

Wow. And you know what? GOOD WORK! This is what I'm talking about. I do see, however, when clicking on the link that most people think that this is a fake news story.

 

Either way, those pictures posted above tells me all I need to know, and whoever did it did a hell of a good job in making Syria irrelevent in this conversation.

[NorthSideSox72]

I find it highly unlikely that US planes were involved, or that a nuclear device was used by either the US or Israel. Those would be idiotic decisions. I am sure the US probably helped support the mission, but not the aircraft.

 

And I agree, this was a good move.

 

[Balta1701]

I find it highly unlikely that US planes were involved, or that a nuclear device was used by either the US or Israel. Those would be idiotic decisions. I am sure the US probably helped support the mission, but not the aircraft.

 

And I agree, this was a good move.

If a nuclear weapon had been used somewhere in the world, it would be well known by everyone. Hell, there are people down the hall from me who'd be measuring the results in the air.

[kapkomet]

If a nuclear weapon had been used somewhere in the world, it would be well known by everyone. Hell, there are people down the hall from me who'd be measuring the results in the air.

I think it is misleading to say the weapons were on the plane, vs. the weapons were actually used. There is a slight semantics issue here. I didn't read that tactical nukes were used, only carried on the plane.

 

Nonetheless, it's pretty bad to mislead like that. I agree - we would know it if a nuclear weapon was used.

[NorthSideSox72]

I think it is misleading to say the weapons were on the plane, vs. the weapons were actually used. There is a slight semantics issue here. I didn't read that tactical nukes were used, only carried on the plane.

 

Nonetheless, it's pretty bad to mislead like that. I agree - we would know it if a nuclear weapon was used.

They wouldn't have been carrying them either. You don't use tactical nukes defensively, only strategically, so... why bring them if you aren't using them? The claim simply makes no sense.

 

[Balta1701]

They wouldn't have been carrying them either. You don't use tactical nukes defensively, only strategically, so... why bring them if you aren't using them? The claim simply makes no sense.

Because the Syrians could have shot down our plane, recovered the bomb, and then we could proclaim without lying that Syria has nuclear weapons and must be stopped.

 

Do I need green?

[NorthSideSox72]

Because the Syrians could have shot down our plane, recovered the bomb, and then we could proclaim without lying that Syria has nuclear weapons and must be stopped.

 

Do I need green?

Did you ever read The Sum of All Fears? Clancy at his best, before he went over the edge. Similar premise, in some ways - not so much the conspiracy stuff though.

 

[Rex Kickass]

Because the Syrians could have shot down our plane, recovered the bomb, and then we could proclaim without lying that Syria has nuclear weapons and must be stopped.

 

Do I need green?

 

Sadly, no.

 

If we can try to kill Castro with an exploding cigar, this doesn't sound implausible either.

[EvilMonkey]

They are just claiming that so that when inspectors finally get there and detedt traces of radioactivity, they can say it was from an American bomb instead of their nuke stuff that got blown up. Win-win for them.

[kapkomet]

They are just claiming that so that when inspectors finally get there and detedt traces of radioactivity, they can say it was from an American bomb instead of their nuke stuff that got blown up. Win-win for them.

Very good point.