Analysts Find Israel Struck a Nuclear Project Inside Syria

[Gunny]

By DAVID E. SANGER and MARK MAZZETTI
Published: October 14, 2007

WASHINGTON, Oct. 13 — Israel’s air attack on Syria last month was directed against a site that Israeli and American intelligence analysts judged was a partly constructed nuclear reactor, apparently modeled on one North Korea has used to create its stockpile of nuclear weapons fuel, according to American and foreign officials with access to the intelligence reports.

more ... http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/14/w...414c776e8dfd65&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Imagine that ...

 

[jillian]

Imagine that ...

Notice how quiet Syria's been about this. Guess they know they got caught red-handed. I'm shocked, I tell ya, shocked!

 

[doniston]

Notice how quiet Syria's been about this. Guess they know they got caught red-handed. I'm shocked, I tell ya, shocked!

They don't necessarily have "RED hands, (as you put it,) but who, Pray tell, can they complain to???? The US???

 

[jillian]

They don't necessarily have "RED hands, (as you put it,) but who, Pray tell, can they complain to???? The US???

A nuclear facility isn't red-hands?

Ya... those lovely hezbollah-supporting Syrians are real stand-up dudes.

They had no problem complaining about Israel defending itself from rocket attacks from Lebanon, did they?

 

[Shogun]

given the track record of "analysts" these days I don't think i'd be taking anyones opinion as truth. Who wants to trade erroneous analyst stories within the last ten years and the bullshit tied to people believeing shit they want to believe regardless of the truth?

Even if it diminishes the lionization of ones favorite pet nations.


Jillian.

 

[doniston]

A nuclear facility isn't red-hands?

Do WE have any of those? does Israel? (especially Israel) does China? Russia? India? pakistan? So why should they be different??? Because you ( and a whole bunch of other idiots) think they are more of a threat than ourselves?

They had no problem complaining about Israel defending itself from rocket attacks from Lebanon, did they?

So now, Syria and Lebanon are one and the same?--- If that wasn't your point, what was???

 

[Annie]

Do WE have any of those? does Israel? (especially Israel) does China? Russia? India? pakistan? So why should they be different??? Because you ( and a whole bunch of other idiots) think they are more of a threat than ourselves?

So now, Syria and Lebanon are one and the same?--- If that wasn't your point, what was???

They are more of a threat than those you mentioned, yeah.

 

[Shogun]

I wonder what kind of a thread we'd become if MEXICO raided our nation and blew some shit up...



Indeed, any reaction from Syria would just be written off as more jew hating antisemitism by those who don't really give a fuck about the sovereignty of muslim nations..

 

[Gunny]

Do WE have any of those? does Israel? (especially Israel) does China? Russia? India? pakistan? So why should they be different??? Because you ( and a whole bunch of other idiots) think they are more of a threat than ourselves?

So now, Syria and Lebanon are one and the same?--- If that wasn't your point, what was???

Yes.

If anyone is an idiot, it's someone that thinks people who are willing to kill themselves to murder their enemies should possess the power to kill billions in seconds.

 

[Gunny]

I wonder what kind of a thread we'd become if MEXICO raided our nation and blew some shit up...



Indeed, any reaction from Syria would just be written off as more jew hating antisemitism by those who don't really give a fuck about the sovereignty of muslim nations..

You mean if Mexico raided the US and blew some of those nuclear reactors we use to buld nukes to attack Mexico with?

The Arabs themselves are the ones who don't give a fuck about sovereignty. If they did, there wouldn't really be an issue, would there?

 

[Shogun]

WHO is the only nation to ever USE a nuke, again?

Indeed, it's hard to point a finger at syria with our track record, dude.


Funny how you accuse the ARABS to disrespecting sovereignty... After all, it sure was the ARABS who decided to carve a nation for itself out of indigenous peoples.. yup.. Just like those pesky fucking injuns just didn't appreciate the sovereignty behind the Louisiana purchase!

 

[Shogun]

Yes.

If anyone is an idiot, it's someone that thinks people who are willing to kill themselves to murder their enemies should possess the power to kill billions in seconds.

as opposed to people willing to rationalize ACTUALLY USING NUKES ON TWO CIVILIAN POPULATIONS on the mere speculation that it saved lives?

 

[Gunny]

WHO is the only nation to ever USE a nuke, again?

Indeed, it's hard to point a finger at syria with our track record, dude.


Funny how you accuse the ARABS to disrespecting sovereignty... After all, it sure was the ARABS who decided to carve a nation for itself out of indigenous peoples.. yup.. Just like those pesky fucking injuns just didn't appreciate the sovereignty behind the Louisiana purchase!

It was the Arabs that ran the Jews out of the Middle East to begin with. They can claim being indigenous to Israel/Palestine as much as any Arab can.

By the rules of their respective days, both Native Americans and Arabs lost land as the result of losing wars. That's how it was. Griping about it 60 years or 200 years later is pointless.

That is the way societies have operated since the beginning. The strong push out the weak.

When you start giving everything back ... just WHERE do you stop, exactly? 1900? 1800? 1949? 1924? It's all relative to who's doing the bitching about what.

 

[Gunny]

as opposed to people willing to rationalize ACTUALLY USING NUKES ON TWO CIVILIAN POPULATIONS on the mere speculation that it saved lives?

More like calculated. And you may as well quit trying this one. I know you are intelligent enough to know that a million lives is hardly a far-fetched estimate.

Read up on the Battle of Okinawa, then get back to me.

We were in a declared war and it is the leadership's responsibility to use whatever means available to destroy the enemy's will and ability to fight with the least amount of cost to their own side. Something our leadership appears to not comprehend nowadays.

 

[Shogun]

even if it means using mustard gas and genocide?

Would you agree that bombing japan with nukes pretty much opened the door the nuclear escalation during the cold war and is probably why EVERYONE wants them now? Is the first estimate of a million worth the fallout of a couple million more a couple decades later? perspective, dude. perspective.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

even if it means using mustard gas and genocide?

Would you agree that bombing japan with nukes pretty much opened the door the nuclear escalation during the cold war and is probably why EVERYONE wants them now? Is the first estimate of a million worth the fallout of a couple million more a couple decades later? perspective, dude. perspective.

You are such a idiot. Remind me of the millions killed so far by nuclear weapons. Remind me how YOU think it is ok to give nutjobs that commit suicide to kill their enemies nuclear weapons. That we are a bigger threat then they are because 60 years ago in a declared WORLD WAR that had already cost about 50 million lives we ended it by killing a couple hundred thousand enemies with 2 bombs instead of hundreds of fire bombs. You are aware more Japanese died to fire bombing, more cities were destroyed due to fire bombing then those 2 nukes, right?

After Pearl harbor we should have just surrendered right? It was our fault Japan attacked us cause we quit selling them scrap metal and oil, right?

 

[Annie]

Imagine that ...

It may have been more than a partially constructed nuclear reactor. The bombing, lack of response from both US and Israel makes one wonder.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/926815.html

...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. On the basis of an analysis of the same satellite photos, which have been published in the media and on Web sites and are accessible to everyone, he believes that the structure that was attacked and destroyed was not a nuclear reactor. Even, a former Meretz MK, is a chemist who until 1968 worked at the nuclear reactor in Dimona (KAMAG - Hebrew for the Nuclear Research Center). For years he has been keeping track of, and writing about, Israel's nuclear policy and the proliferation of nuclear weapons worldwide.

Even's questions relate to several substantive issues. First, in the reactor in Yongbyon, one can clearly see a chimney, which is necessary for the emission of the radioactive gases (incidentally, based on the emission of the gases experts can determine the capacity of the reactor). In the satellite photos of the structure in Syria there is no chimney. It could be claimed that the Syrians may not have had time to build it. This is a reasonable answer, but it is overshadowed by the fact that there is evidence that the structure was under construction already four years ago. There are satellite photos of the site from 2003. In these photos one can clearly see in one of the building walls openings, which disappeared in the 2007 photos. "We can assume that construction began even before 2003," says Even. "In all those years, five years or even more, a chimney had still not been built? Very strange."

No less strange in his opinion is the fact that the "reactor" did not have cooling towers. The pumping station seen in the photos, 5 kilometers from the site, cannot, according to him, be a substitute for such towers. "A structure without cooling towers cannot be a reactor," he says, pointing to the satellite photo from Yongbyon, in which one can clearly see the cooling tower, with steam rising from it.

Another structure essential for a reactor is missing from the Syrian photos: a plutonium separation facility. As mentioned, the reactor is fueled by enriched uranium of fuel rods, which undergo a process of radiation. In order to turn them into plutonium, they have to be processed chemically in a plutonium separation facility.

And there is an additional question. If this was, in fact, a nuclear reactor, whose construction was not completed, clearly it would have taken the Syrians several years until they were able to operate it and produce plutonium. Why was Israel in a rush to attack a reactor that was under construction, years before it would have become operational? Was it willing to risk an all-out war with Syria because of a reactor in stages of construction? (A war Israel was afraid would erupt last summer, even without any connection to the nuclear issue.) This is very unlikely.

To give an example, the attack on the Iraqi reactor in 1981 was carried out very shortly before it would have become operational. From this, we may conclude that a nuclear reactor under construction, which is far from endangering Israel, should not have been a worthy target for attack.

Even more dangerous

All these explanations and others lead Even to believe that what was destroyed was not a nuclear reactor. If this is the case, what was the purpose of the structure?

"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).

Processing the plutonium and assembling the bomb require utmost caution, because plutonium is one of the most toxic and radioactive materials. One microgram can kill one person, and a gram is capable of killing a million people. Handling it requires special lathes, but because of its lethal nature nobody is allowed to come into direct contact with plutonium or with the lathes. That is why there is a need to build labs containing dozens of glove boxes, which isolate and separate the worker from the material and the equipment.

What reinforces Even's suspicion that the structure attacked in Syria was in fact a bomb assembly plant is the fact that the satellite photos taken after the bombing clearly show that the Syrians made an effort to bury the entire site under piles of earth. "They did so because of the lethal nature of the material that was in the structure, and that can be plutonium," he said. That may also be the reason they refused to allow IAEA inspectors to visit the site and take samples of the earth, which would give away their secret....

 

[RetiredGySgt]

WHO is the only nation to ever USE a nuke, again?

Indeed, it's hard to point a finger at syria with our track record, dude.


Funny how you accuse the ARABS to disrespecting sovereignty... After all, it sure was the ARABS who decided to carve a nation for itself out of indigenous peoples.. yup.. Just like those pesky fucking injuns just didn't appreciate the sovereignty behind the Louisiana purchase!

Your beloved UN did that.

 

[Shogun]

yes. the UN happens in a vacuum too. There was no involvement by europe and the US. nope.


I tellya.. the UN.. what a bunch of non-charitable ATHIESTS..

 

[GHook93]

Do WE have any of those? does Israel? (especially Israel) does China? Russia? India? pakistan? So why should they be different??? Because you ( and a whole bunch of other idiots) think they are more of a threat than ourselves?

When one gets to old there minds go feeble and they forget that everything is not black and white, its grey.

So now, Syria and Lebanon are one and the same?--- If that wasn't your point, what was???

God get an education old man. Hezbollah is funded and Armed by Syria and Iran. So yes in a sense they are the same!