MOO!
Posted on 11/26/2007 6:09:33 PM PST by dervish
Ten weeks have passed since the Israel Air Force attacked in Syria, and there is still no reliable information about the precise target that was destroyed, or about the importance and necessity of the attack. Since Israel keeps maintaining its veil of secrecy, Everything that is known comes from leaks by anonymous U.S. administration officials to several of the major American media outlets. What is almost certain, judging from the leaks, are the following facts: A nuclear site built by the Syrians was attacked, and there was some connection to know-how and technology transferred from North Korea. The prevailing assumption is that it was a 5-megawatt nuclear reactor that was in stages of construction, that would have enabled Syria to produce plutonium to manufacture a nuclear bomb.
This assumption relies first and foremost on an analysis by scholar David Albright, director of the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington (ISIS). Albright was part of the United Nations supervisory unit in Iraq that searched for weapons of mass destruction.
'snip'
Albright's assessments, which hold that what was attacked in Syria was a nuclear reactor, have become almost an authoritative voice. They have been unreservedly adopted all over the world, Israeli media included.
But Prof. Uzi Even of Tel Aviv University is challenging them here for the first time.
'snip'
"In my estimation this was something very nasty and vicious, and even more dangerous than a reactor," says Even. "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."
In other words, Syria already had several kilograms of plutonium, and it was involved in building a bomb factory (the assembling of one bomb requires about four kilograms of fissionable material).
'snip'
(Excerpt) Read more at haaretz.com ...
Another piece of information crucial for reinforcing Even's assumption is the scant attention paid in the Israeli media to an op-ed published last month in The Wall Street Journal by two members of the U.S. Congress, Peter Hoekstra and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. Hoekstra is the senior Republican member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and Ros-Lehtinen is the senior Republican member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. They expressed their anger at the fact that the Bush administration "has thrown an unprecedented veil of secrecy around the Israeli airstrike. It has briefed only a handful of very senior members of Congress, leaving the vast majority of foreign relations and intelligence committee members in the dark. We are among the very few who were briefed, but we have been sworn to secrecy on this matter."
They write in the article that Syria received "nuclear expertise or material" from North Korea, and in the same breath they mention Iran, without explaining why. They claim that the administration leaks are intentionally vague: to justify the Israeli attack but also to blur North Korea's part in the affair.
The two Congressmen have a clear agenda: They want the administration to remove the cloak of secrecy and tell the members of Congress and the public the truth about what happened, in the belief that such information will lead the majority in Congress to understand that the negotiations with North Korea should be stopped.
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I think Syria was in the processing of assembling an implosion-type atomic bomb, one that weighs somewhere around 1,000 kilograms or 2,205 pounds (Syria has MiG-27’s that can easily carry a single bomb of this weight). The yield would be around 20-22 kT, more than enough to flatten all of downtown Tel Aviv and cause serious fires up to 2 miles from Ground Zero. It’s a good thing the Israeli attack ended plans the incorporation of such a bomb into the Syrian military inventory.
where’s cachelot?
BUMP
I wondered why it was buried like they said
I thought it was just to hide the evidence, I didn’t think of the atomic fallout aspect/radiation
True, it would require more Pu239 (by about only 1 kg) but is more reliable and doesn’t need fancy (expensive/hard-to-get/unreliable/very-hard-to-make-from-scratch) micro-second timers and explosive wedges.
I think this thing has been handled well. It may well be template for an Iranian bombing run. That the Syrians buried the site suggests that a US bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities will force them to do the same — so as to protect themselves from leaking radiation.
9/6 ping
bump
Thanks, 9/6 ping
Other Arabs downstream of the Euphrates also have groundwater contamination to consider. Same if we blow (if we didn’t already on 9/6) Saddam’s WMD secreted in those three sites in Western Syria, and possibly in the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon.
I’m starting to wonder just what the he11 bush is up to. He better not be screwing us over like he keeps trying to do with the illegal aliens. Why is he pushing israel to give away land to the palestinians?
Holy cats!
Any more news on the other sites?
I wonder if anyone has placed teams downstream outside Syria to sample the the water.
Satellites will tell the story, soon.
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