Wednesday 30 April 2008

Syria Did Not Disclose Building Nuclear Reactor White House says it was destroyed in 2007 in an Israeli air strike

Syrian nuclear reactor
This photo, released by the CIA April 24, shows the covert Syrian nuclear reactor under construction near al-Kibar. (© AP Images)

Washington -- Syria did not tell the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) it was building a nuclear reactor in a remote area of eastern Syria with help from North Korean nuclear scientists and engineers, and after it was destroyed in September 2007, made every effort to bury the evidence, White House press secretary Dana Perino says.

"This cover-up only served to reinforce our confidence that this reactor was not intended for peaceful purposes," Perino said in a prepared statement April 24. "We are briefing the IAEA on this intelligence."

IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei confirmed in Vienna April 25 that his office has been given the U.S. intelligence and that the reactor was not yet operational and no nuclear material had been introduced into it.

"The agency will treat this information with the seriousness it deserves and will investigate the veracity of the information," ElBaradei said. "Syria has an obligation under its safeguards agreement with the IAEA to report the planning and construction of any nuclear facility to the agency."

Syria has been a party to the 144-nation Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty since 1963 and has operated one small research reactor that is subject to regular U.N. inspections.

Senior U.S. intelligence officials said during a White House background briefing April 24 that North Korean nuclear-related officials and high-level Syrian officials began discussing this nuclear reactor as early as 1997. The United States began acquiring definitive intelligence about the project in 2001, but had collected some data going back several years, they said.

"The Syrian regime must come clean before the world regarding its illicit nuclear activities. The Syrian regime supports terrorism, takes action that destabilizes Lebanon, allows the transit of some foreign fighters into Iraq and represses its own people," Perino said.

The nuclear reactor, under construction near al-Kibar along the eastern edge of the Euphrates River in the Dayr az Zawr province, was destroyed in an Israeli air strike early in the morning on September 6, 2007, a senior U.S. intelligence official said. "Syria destroyed the remainder of the reactor building with a massive controlled demolition on October 10, 2007, as part of an ongoing effort to remove all evidence of the reactor's existence," a White House official said.

Earlier in the day April 24, the same senior intelligence officials fully briefed the U.S. Congress with photographs taken before, during and after construction, and showing the damage after it was destroyed in the air strike. In addition, 22 key members of Congress were briefed by intelligence officials in September 2007 and October 2007, a senior administration official said.

The senior administration official said that the regime in Damascus, including Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, has "specifically and forcefully denied that a nuclear facility was destroyed or that it has any undeclared nuclear facilities. Syria has gone to extraordinary lengths to conceal the existence and nature of the al-Kibar reactor, both during its construction and after it was destroyed."

U.S. intelligence shows that Syria was building a gas-cooled, graphite-moderated nuclear reactor that was nearing operational capability in August 2007, and that it was capable of producing plutonium for nuclear weapons, the intelligence official said.

"We are convinced, based on a variety of information, that North Korea assisted the Syrian's covert nuclear activities both before and after the reactor was destroyed," a senior administration official said. "It was not configured to produce electricity and was ill-suited for research."

The only country that has built this type of reactor in the past 35 years is North Korea, the intelligence officials said. And it was built on the same design as the Yongbyon plutonium power reactor in North Korea, they said. Curtain walls and false roofs were added to the Syrian reactor to hide its design, they said.

"Our information also indicates involvement of nuclear-related North Koreans in a project somewhere in the area," the senior U.S. intelligence officials said. "And we also have evidence of cargo being transferred from North Korea, most likely to this reactor site in 2006."

They said the reactor was destroyed in the Israeli air strike before "it was charged with uranium fuel." One of the photographs the intelligence officials showed the press during the background briefing shows North Korean nuclear scientist Chon Chibu, who was involved in development of the Yongbyon reactor, at the site, an intelligence official said.

The senior administration official said during the briefing that this information was not released sooner to avoid "conflict and perhaps an even broader confrontation in the Middle East region. We were concerned that if knowledge of the existence and then destruction of the reactor became public and was confirmed by sources, that the information would spread quickly and Syria would feel greater pressure to retaliate," he said.

As time has passed, the risk of further conflict has receded, and the information was given to the full Congress and made public, the senior official said.

The senior administration official also said that by being public, this information will strengthen the hand of negotiators in the Six-Party Talks with North Korea, allowing them to obtain a more accurate accounting of North Korea's nuclear programs.

"We believe and hope that it will encourage North Korea to acknowledge its proliferation activity, but also to provide a more complete and accurate disclosure of their plutonium activities and their enrichment activities as well," the official said.

Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at an April 25 Pentagon briefing that this situation "should serve as a reminder to us all of the very real dangers of proliferation and the need to rededicate ourselves to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction, particularly into the hands of a state or a group with terrorist connections."

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph Biden said that unless it can be confirmed that North Korea no longer is in the nuclear proliferation business, sanctions should not be lifted. North Korea tested a nuclear device in October 2006.

"Our goals are, and must remain, both shutting down North Korea's nuclear programs and ensuring that North Korea does not transfer dangerous technology to other irresponsible states," Biden said in a prepared statement.

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman called the details of the Syrian-North Korea project disturbing.

"But I don't think they provide a reason to suspend discussions with the North Koreans. Rather, the information that has been released to the public demonstrates the importance of insisting on a verifiable enforcement mechanism to ensure that North Korea honors its commitments to stop spreading the means to create nuclear weapons and to end its nuclear program permanently," Berman said.

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