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Experts identify Israeli target as possible nuclear facility

Los Angeles Times-Washington Post/AP
Published: October 24, 2007, 23:44

Washington: Independent experts have pinpointed what they believe to be the Euphrates River site in Syria that was bombed by Israel last month.

Satellite imagery of the area shows buildings under construction roughly similar in design to a North Korean reactor capable of producing nuclear material for one bomb a year, experts say.

Photographs of the site taken before the secret September 6 airstrike depict an isolated compound that includes a tall, boxy structure similar to the type of building used to house a gas-graphite reactor. They also show what could have been a pumping station used to supply cooling water for a reactor, say experts David Albright and Paul Brannan of the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS).

US and international experts and officials familiar with the site, who were shown the photographs on Tuesday, said there was a strong and credible possibility that they depict the remote compound that was attacked. Israeli officials and the White House declined to comment.

If the facility is confirmed as the site of the attack, the photos provide a potential explanation for Israel's middle-of-the-night bombing raid.

The facility is located seven miles north of the desert village of At Tibnah, in the Dayr Al Zawr region, and about 90 miles from the Iraqi border, according to the ISIS report which was to be released yesterday.

Albright, a former UN weapons inspector, said the size of the structures suggested that Syria might have been building a gas-graphite reactor of about 20 to 25 megawatts of heat, similar to the reactor North Korea built at Yongbyon.

"I'm pretty convinced that Syria was trying to build a nuclear reactor," Albright said in an interview. He said the project would represent a significant departure from past policies. ISIS, a nonprofit research group, tracks nuclear weapons and stockpiles around the world.

Israel, which has nuclear weapons of its own, has not said publicly what its warplanes hit or provided justification for the raid. Syria has denied having a nuclear programme. But beginning construction of a nuclear reactor in secret would violate Syria's obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which requires all signatories to declare their intent when such a decision is made, according to IAEA sources.
The new report leaves many questions unanswered, such as what Syria intended to use the unfinished structures for and the exact role, if any, of North Korea in its construction. Also unclear is why Israel chose to use military force rather than diplomatic pressure against a facility that could not have produced significant nuclear material for years. The new details could fuel debate over whether Israel's attack was warranted.

Syrian official dismisses report

A Syrian foreign ministry official yesterday denied reports that satellite images taken of a site struck by Israeli warplanes last month showed it might have been a nuclear facility, saying they are part of a campaign of accusations targeting Syria.

The renewed denial follows the publication of some news reports that quote experts as saying that satellite imagery taken before the secret September 6 airstrike showed buildings under construction similar in design to a North Korean reactor capable of producing nuclear material.

United Nations diplomats last week told The Associated Press that UN experts have begun analysing satellite imagery of the Syrian site, disclosing what amounts to the first independent look at reports that Damascus was hiding a nuclear facility. It was unclear where the material was obtained or what exactly it showed.

Source: Gulf News


Neighbors view nuclear-powered Iran as a useful political pawn

By Victor Davis Hanson

Article Launched: 10/25/2007 01:37:16 AM PDT

At first glance, it would seem a straightforward thing to stop a relatively weak but volatile Iran from obtaining a nuclear bomb. It would also seem to be something a concerned world community would be actively working to do.

After all, the Sunni Arab states surrounding Iran don't want a Shiite nuclear power on their borders.

Europe, which isn't all that far from Tehran and lacks a missile-defense shield, certainly doesn't want to be in range of Iran's missiles.

Israel can't tolerate an Iranian theocracy both promising to wipe it off the map and then brazenly obtaining the means to do so.

The Russians and the Chinese, both already concerned about India, Pakistan and North Korea, don't need another rival Asian nuclear power on their borders.

And the United States, already worried about Iranian threats to Israel and involved in daily military battles in Iraq with pro-Iranian agents and terrorists armed with Iranian-imported weapons, doesn't want a nuclear Iran expanding its Persian Gulf influence.

But in truth, most players don't care enough to stop Iran from getting the bomb, or apparently don't think it's worth the effort and cost. Some may even see some advantages to a nuclear Iran.

Hidden advantages

The Arab Gulf monarchies, for example, know that their enormous dollar reserves would likely buy them some reprieve from a nuclear Iran, or at least bring in the U.S.
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Navy to offer them deterrence from attack.

Meanwhile, the current tension and ongoing fear of disruption in the Persian Gulf sends billions in windfall oil profits the Gulf states' way.

Leaders of Arab states also have to fear their own populations' reactions to any action taken against Islamic Iran. Despite his religious Shiite background, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is far more popular among Sunni populations in the Gulf than George Bush - and even perhaps more popular than the autocratic Arab thugs and dictators who run most of the Middle East.

The European Union, like the Arab states, believes as a last resort that its economic clout and deft diplomats can always work out some sort of arrangement with Tehran's clerics, who, after all, need customers to buy their high-priced oil.

Unwelcome warning

So most in Europe bristle at French President Nicolas Sarkozy's warnings about an impending war to stop an Iranian bomb. Instead, they feel it's an American problem to organize global containment of Iran.

Israel also has reason to fear a war with Iran. If Israel were to attack Tehran, it could find itself in three instantaneous wars - and be hit with thousands of missiles from the West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Iran. That shower would make last year's Hezbollah barrage seem like child's play.

In Russia, Vladimir Putin's foreign policy is nursed on grievances about a lost empire, America as the sole superpower and the independence of cocky former Soviet republics. In the thinking of oil-exporting Russia, anything that causes America to squirm and world oil prices to soar is a win/win situation. That's why Russia supplies Iran with its reactor technology and stirs the nuclear pot.

China, like Russia, is a large nuclear power and doesn't fear all that much Iranian missiles that it thinks are more likely to be pointed westward anyway. True, it would like calm in the Gulf to ensure safe oil supplies, but thinks it still could do business with a nuclear Iran.

And, as in the case of Russia, anything that bothers the United States can't be all that bad for Beijing. While Ahmadinejad ties the U.S. down in the Middle East, China thinks it will have more of a free hand to expand its influence in the Pacific.

Then there's the complacent situation here at home. After Afghanistan and Iraq, most Americans don't feel we're up to a third war. Some point to nuclear Pakistan and believe we could likewise live with Iran having the bomb.

A few on the left even feel that a nuclear Iran would remind us of our own limitations in imposing our will and influence abroad. They belittle the current warnings of George Bush and Dick Cheney about Iran's nuclear program, shrugging that the two used to say similar things about Saddam and his non-existent arsenal of weapons of mass destruction.

Meanwhile, much of the rest of the world, represented in the United Nations' General Assembly, feels that a nuclear Iran offers comeuppance to a haughty United States, Israel and Europe without threatening anyone else.

Ahmadinejad may be viewed across the globe as a dangerous religious nut. But to many, he, like Fidel Castro and Hugo Chávez, also represents an anti-capitalist, anti-globalization popular front against America and therefore shouldn't be ostracized.

So who wants a nuclear Iran?

No one and everyone.

Source: Mercury News