Why ? US fails to detect the Syrian/Iranian(?)/NoKo Plutonium weapons plant
Gertz:
Maybe we should be spying on Israel to learn what they learn, if we can't raise our own capabilities???Intel failure in Syria raises questions: Can U.S. monitor proliferation?
U.S. intelligence agencies failed to detect the secret Syrian nuclear facility built with North Korean assistance until the factory was almost complete, according to U.S. officials.
The failure is the latest in a string of intelligence failures and raises questions about whether U.S. intelligence agencies can adequately monitor the spread of weapons of mass destruction, supposedly one of the highest national security priorities for the United States.
In 2003 we failed to be accurate about Iraq, now we are failing again and all these things are critical. Why have heads not been rolling? Why has George Bush ACCEPTED such incompetence?
A senior U.S. intelligence official who briefed reporters on the Syria-North Korea nuclear cooperation stated that the facility located on the Euphrates River near al Kibar had been under surveillance since 2001 and that reports indicated Syrian-North Korean cooperation.
An image that U.S. intelligence officials said shows a Syrian nuclear reactor built with North Korean help. AFP/US Gov.
"We received indications in '05 that the Syrians and North Koreans were involved in a project in the Dayr az Zawr region of eastern Syria, but again, no specific information on the nature or the exact location of the work," the official said, noting that suspicions that the cooperation was "nuclear-related" surfaced in 2003.
Despite the indications, U.S. intelligence did not learn conclusively that the facility was a nuclear reactor plant until the spring of 2007, only months before the facility was to be completed.
Oh and we don't know conclusively about Arak and Natanz, either.
"The information included photographs of the interior and the exterior of the building located in Dayr az Zawr showing key features of the reactor," the official said.
The indications that the reactor would be used for nuclear weapons included a lack of infrastructure to produce electricity.
Does the output of 5400 P2 centrifuges in Iran match up to the electrical production need of the nuclear generating stations now being built?
Are we really so foolish and incompetent?
"Internal photographs of the reactor vessel under construction shows that it's a gas-cooled graphite-moderated reactor similar in technology and configuration to the Yongbyon reactor," the official said.
Israel scored the intelligence coup of getting inside the reactor and the photographs led the Israelis to conduct the Sept. 6 bombing raid that destroyed the facility.
U.S. intelligence agencies were biased against accepting intelligence that Syria was building a nuclear reactor because of the intelligence liaison relationship between the CIA and Syrian intelligence, ties that officials said had come to dominate not just intelligence relations but diplomatic relations as well.
Are we?
- Intelligence Chief: North Korea Restarts Plutonium Reactor
Intelligence chief: North Korea restarts plutonium reactor WASHINGTON — North Korea has expanded a uranium enrichment facility and restarted a plutonium reactor that could start recovering spent fuel in weeks or months, the U.S. intelligence...
-
BBC: IAEA: Syria site bombed by Israel 'was likely nuclear' A Syrian site bombed by Israeli jets in 2007 was "very likely" a nuclear reactor, the UN's atomic watchdog says. The International Atomic Energy Agency has been investigating US claims...
- Iaea On Bombed Syrian 'nuke Site' : "three-man Inspection Team Did Not Find Obvious Traces Of Nuclear Material"
Where to begin? Maybe with a middle east as a 'Baradei'en ball of fire? N. Koreans cleaned out Al Kibar site months before IAEA showed up (Today's MENSA News headline!) LONDON -- The International Atomic Energy Agency...
- B4 Ww2, Hitler Paid Stalin To Train The Wehrmacht, And Had Manufacturing Facilities There To Cheat On The Versailles Pact, So Now..
What axis of evil? GERTZ: Iran paid N. Korea for plutonium facility and had scientists based there LONDON -- Western intelligence sources said Iranian scientists were stationed at the Syrian plutonium production plant in Al Kibar,...
- Here's A Sweet Update For Thanksgiving : 'syrian Facility Was Likely Nuclear Bomb Plant, Not Reactor'
Say WHAT? Associated Press Nov. 22, 2007A Syrian site that Israeli aircraft bombed on Sept. 6 was most likely a plant for assembling a nuclear bomb, an Israeli nuclear expert said Thursday, challenging other analysts' conclusions that it housed...