Bush Administration’s Blackout Can’t Silence Syria-N. Korea Speculation

The latest theory, via  Prof. Uzi Even, an  Israeli scientist interviewed in Haaretz, is this:

“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).  [Haaretz]

Pure speculation, then, and clearly marked as such.   Read and decide for yourself, but  I don’t see a great deal of support for  Even’s theory so much as I see legitimate questions about the prevailing one — that the Israelis bombed a nuclear reactor that was under construction with North Korean help  (which would be bad enough).  The prevailing theory is far from conclusively established because (1) the intel has been kept from nearly everyone, including Congress  [see Update 1]  and most of the intelligence community, (2) no neutral monitor  appears to have  even asked to inspect the site, and (3) it’s a  theory that largely relies on the  conclusions of David Albright.

The plutonium theory has problems of its own.  Wouldn’t an attack of that kind release all kinds of detectable radiation, such as that which followed the Chernobyl disaster?  The Syrian act of burying the wreckage could suggest several kinds of concealment, and the desire to seal the radiation in is only one of them.   In any case, it would come too late to prevent the detection of the radioactive cloud.  The lack of smokestacks and cooling towers  means very little unless someone has  a chance to inspect the site.  The building’s external similarity to a reactor could be a deception, or it  could simply mean that it was an unfinished reactor.     

All of this leaves us pretty much nowhere, except  for the fact that this Administration is getting away with a great deal  of inappropriate silence about a  potentially grave threat to global security.  That secrecy extends to rumored under-the-table agreements between Chris Hill and the North Koreans, meaning Congress doesn’t even know the terms of the deal it will be asked to ratify with appropriations of our money.  Unless the Administration gives Congress the answers it owes, Congress should refuse to appropriate Dime One for Agreed Framework 2.0.