It wasn’t nuclear but we’ll clean it up anyway

So after showing a bunch of credulous reporters an agricultural site, Syria’s now cleaning up the real site of the Israeli attack.

Syria has begun dismantling the remains of a site Israel bombed Sept. 6 in what may be an attempt to prevent the location from coming under international scrutiny, said U.S. and foreign officials familiar with the aftermath of the attack.Based on overhead photography, the officials say the site in Syria’s eastern desert near the Euphrates River had a “signature” or characteristics of a small but substantial nuclear reactor, one similar in structure to North Korea’s facilities.

Interesting, now there seems little doubt what the facility was for.

The dismantling of the damaged site, which appears to be still underway, could make it difficult for weapons inspectors to determine the precise nature of the facility and how Syria planned to use it.

You think?

While U.S. officials express increasing confidence that the Syrian facility was nuclear-related, divisions persist within the government and among weapons experts over the significance of the threat. If the facility was a nuclear reactor, U.S. weapons experts said it would almost certainly have taken Syria several years to complete the structure, and much longer to produce significant quantities of plutonium for potential use in nuclear weapons. Nuclear reactors also are used to generate electricity.”This isn’t like a Road Runner cartoon where you call up Acme Reactors and they deliver a functioning reactor to your back yard. It takes years to build,” said Joseph Cirincione, director for nuclear policy at the Center for American Progress. “This is an extremely demanding technology, and I don’t think Syria has the technical, engineering or financial base to really support such a reactor.”

And that’s a reason why Israel ought to have waited and made sure that it wasn’t a threat before acting. Well maybe Syria can’t support a reactor.

While expressing concern over the prospect that Syria may have decided to launch a nuclear program in secret, some weapons experts question why neither Israel nor the United States made any effort before the secret attack — or in the six weeks since — to offer evidence to the International Atomic Energy Agency, a move that would trigger an inspection of Syria by the nuclear watchdog.”The reason we have an IAEA and a safeguard system is that, if there is evidence of wrongdoing, it can be presented by a neutral body to the international community so that a collective response can be pursued,” said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association. “It seems to me highly risky and premature for another country to bomb such a facility.”

Could it be that it’s because the IAEA is an effective international body. What would that collective response be? A written expression of disappointment? That’s bound to be quite effective. Surely it would deter someone who’s assassinating politicians in a neighboring country in order to affect that country’s internal politics.

The article later notes:

Some experts speculate that Israeli and U.S. officials may have calculated that reporting their intelligence to the IAEA would have produced only limited repercussions, the equivalent of a diplomatic slap on the wrist to Syria, which might have decided to build the facility anyway.

I really don’t think you need to be an expert to come to that conclusion.

Foreign sources familiar with the attack say Israel wanted to send a strong message to Iran about the price of developing a secret nuclear program. Israel is increasingly alarmed about Iran’s intentions and frustrated that the international community has not persuaded Tehran to suspend its uranium enrichment program.

(emphasis mine)I think this confirms what those “experts,” quoted above, were arguing.

If North Korea is shown to have helped with the construction of a Syrian reactor, it would suggest that the Pyongyang government has been secretly hawking its nuclear know-how to the Syrians for years, several experts said. But even if North Korea’s involvement is proved, it is unlikely that the Bush administration would halt negotiations with Pyongyang over dismantling its nuclear program, the experts said.”The Bush administration has clearly decided not to let this incident deter them from trying to limit North Korea’s nuclear activity,” said Gary Samore, a National Security Council member under President Bill Clinton who is now with the Council on Foreign Relations.

Yes, but if North Korea was involved it may change how the United State would to to limit North Korea’s nuclear activity.

The Raw Story has gone to town with a statement President Bush made about not remembering the Israeli attack on the Iraqi reactor. (via memeorandum)

Maybe the President doesn’t. But the Vice-President does. And Israel certainly does to. Syria presented a threat, maybe not an immediate one. Nothing was going to deter Syria short of denying it its program. So Israel acted.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.