| Submit your comments on this article |
| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| Israeli: Syrian Site Hit Not a Reactor, But Nuke Assembling Plant |
| 2007-11-22 |
| By STEVE WEIZMAN JERUSALEM (AP) -- A Syrian site bombed by Israel in September was probably a plant for assembling a nuclear bomb, an Israeli nuclear expert said Thursday, challenging other analysts' conclusions that it housed a North Korean-style nuclear reactor. Tel Aviv University chemistry professor Uzi Even, who worked in the past at Israel's Dimona nuclear reactor, said satellite pictures of the site taken before the Israeli strike on Sept. 6 showed no sign of the cooling towers and chimneys characteristic of reactors. Even said the absence of telltale features of a reactor convinced him the building must have housed something else. And a rush by the Syrians after the attack to bury the site under tons of soil suggests the facility was a plutonium processing plant and they were trying to smother lethal doses of radiation leaking out. Israel has maintained an almost total official silence over the strike, which Syria said hit an unused military installation. But foreign media reports, some quoting unidentified U.S. officials, have said the strike hit a nuclear facility made with North Korean help and modeled on the North's Yongbyon reactor. Damascus denies it has an undeclared nuclear program, and North Korea has said it was not involved in any Syrian nuclear project. Last month, American analyst David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, said commercial satellite images taken before and after the Israeli raid supported suspicions that the target was indeed a reactor and that the site was given a hasty cleanup by the Syrians to remove incriminating evidence. Albright saw a clue in the fact that the structure was roofed at an early stage in its construction. Other analysts have said the satellite images are too grainy to make any conclusive judgment. But in an interview Thursday with the Haaretz newspaper - which first reported his assessment - Even compared pictures of a North Korean reactor at Yongbyon, in which a cooling tower with steam rising from it can clearly be seen, with the Syrian images, where no such structure appears. Even told The Associated Press that another piece of evidence against the reactor theory was that satellite pictures of the Syrian installation taken since 2003 showed no sign of a plutonium separation facility, which prepares fuel for a nuclear reactor - typically a large structure with visible ventilation openings. "It's very difficult to hide a separation plant," he said. "It's more difficult to hide a separation plant than to hide a nuclear reactor," Even added. "In Yongbyon, the supposed sister facility in North Korea, you can see all those signs that I am pointing out that are missing in the Syrian place," Even said. "You can see the chimneys, you can see the ventilation, you can see the cooling towers, you can see the separation plant. All that is missing from this building in Syria." Even said he believes the Syrian cleanup, in which large quantities of soil were bulldozed over the site, was an attempt to smother lethal radiation from a plutonium processing plant. "I have no information, only an assessment, but I suspect that it was a plant for processing plutonium, namely a factory for assembling the bomb," he told Haaretz. "Somebody made a lot of effort to bury deeply whatever remains of this facility," he told The AP. "Not just to hide it but to pile up a large mound of dirt on top of it." Even said Syrian authorities might have taken similar cleanup action if the site had held chemical or biological weapons. But it would not have made sense for Israel to have taken the military and diplomatic risk of attacking such a facility, long a known element of Syria's arsenal. "We know already that the Syrians have in place armed missiles with chemical weapons," he said. "They are already well-equipped in that department." |
| Posted by:anonymous5089 |
| #7 STRATEGYPAGE > ISRAEL: [HAMAS] PREPARING FOR WAR; + THE UNNOTICED DEAD. Nutshell - MSM focuing on Radical Islamists = Muslim Terrorists while all but ignoring that [pro-Secular/Govtist]COMMUNISTS-MAOISTS ARE ACTUALLY KILLING MORE PEOPLE IN SOUTH ASIA [espec in bloody SRI LANKA] THAN ISLAMISTS ARE. Hamas still engaged in heavy mil recruitment for PA, espec for defense = war agz Israel??? |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2007-11-22 22:58 |
| #6 Damascus denies it has an undeclared nuclear program Yes. But did it have one? |
| Posted by: Woozle Grereck5422 2007-11-22 22:39 |
| #5 The ones they got to see, anyway ..... |
| Posted by: lotp 2007-11-22 19:25 |
| #4 Funniest line in the article: Other analysts have said the satellite images are too grainy to make any conclusive judgment. LOL! |
| Posted by: mrp 2007-11-22 18:07 |
| #3 Damascus denies it has an undeclared nuclear program They certainly don't have one anymore. Let's hope all hands were on deck. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2007-11-22 17:25 |
| #2 a plant for assembling a nuclear bomb, LOL cranking those puppies out. |
| Posted by: Thomas Woof 2007-11-22 17:24 |
| #1 Trigger assembly site. Probably cost the SYrians and Iranians a pile of fissile materials. And hopefully some of their better brains. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2007-11-22 16:04 |