Posted on 04/25/2008 1:54:33 AM PDT by freerepublic_or_die
The Bush administration released detailed photographic images on Thursday to support its assertion that the building in Syria that Israel destroyed in an airstrike last year was a nuclear reactor constructed with years of help from North Korea.
The administration said it withheld the pictures for seven months out of fear that Syria could retaliate against Israel and start a broader war in the Middle East.
The photographs taken inside the reactor before it was destroyed in an air raid on Sept. 6 clearly show the rods that control the heat in a nuclear reactor, one of many close engineering similarities to a reactor halfway around the world where North Korea produced the fuel for its nuclear arsenal.
While the photographs were not dated, some taken on the ground seemed to go back to before 2002.
But after a full day of briefing members of Congress, two senior intelligence officials acknowledged that the evidence had left them with no more than “low confidence” that Syria was preparing to build a nuclear weapon. They said that there was no sign that Syria had built an operation to convert the spent fuel from the plant into weapons-grade plutonium, but that they had told President Bush last year that they could think of no other explanation for the reactor.
Among the photographs shown to members of Congress and reporters on Thursday was one of the manager of North Korea’s Yongbyon nuclear plant with the director of Syria’s nuclear agency. A car in the background has Syrian license plates.
When asked about North Korea’s motivation for the project, one of the senior intelligence officials said simply, “Cash.” He refused to say how much.
The revelation of the plant’s existence is not new;
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I went to Google Earth a couple of days ago and searched for Syrian Nuclear Site. And there it is, complete with several added pictures. Not from inside the reactor, as I recall. But the site is entirely visible.
Sad but true.
You’re right, we can thank the IAF not the RAF for that timely mission. It now seems Syria claims the pre-mission ground-up photo recon of the buildings is fraudulent. Maybe they will tell us more and explain what kind of spa they were sparkin up out in that desert wadi??
Clealy..bread ovens....for making baby toast...
More western Zionist imperial infidel propaganda!
*grin*
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