Bush administration comes in for criticism for not sharing information on the Syrian issue with IAEA earlier; Syrian President refutes US’s claims, says Israel hit military target, not a nuclear facility
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    • Speculation surrounding the Syrian nuclear reactor continued during the week. The Bush administration came in for criticism for not sharing the crucial intelligence with the IAEA earlier. Sen. Diane Feinstein, a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence expressed ‘surprise’ that information about the Syrian programme had not been given to the IAEA earlier1.

    Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on his part denied claims made by the US and Israel that the site raided by Israel in September 2007 was a nuclear reactor under construction. He asserted that Israel had hit a military site under construction, not a nuclear site. Taking on the claims made by the US, Assad pointed out that it did not make sense to build a nuclear facility in the desert and not protect it with anti-aircraft defences. He added that Syria did not want a nuclear bomb even if Iran acquired one2.

    CIA Director Michael Hayden meanwhile claimed that the alleged Syrian nuclear reactor destroyed by an Israeli air strike would have produced enough plutonium for one or two bombs within a year of becoming operational3. However, other reports quoting independent experts indicated that the Syrian facility was nowhere near completion. Experts pointed out that for a plutonium reactor, one needed a processing plant, but the destroyed site did not even have any proper roads connecting to it. Further, the Yongbyon reactor technology was over 40 years old, and that Syria could lay its hands on much better and advanced technology4.

    In other development, North Korea agreed to blow up the cooling tower attached to its Yongbyon nuclear facility within 24 hours of being removed from the US list of state sponsors of terrorism. Pyongyang has also tentatively agreed to release thousands of pages of documents, dating back to 1990, concerning the daily production records of the facility. The records were intended to help US experts determine how much plutonium was produced at the facility and thus verify the North Korean claims. North Korea on its part claims that it has produced more than 30 kgs of plutonium as opposed to Washington’s claim that Pyongyang produced about 50 kilograms of plutonium5.

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