Back when there were the initial reports that Israel had struck a Syrian nuclear facility, I was skeptical. I didn’t doubt that Israel had struck inside Syria, I just doubted that the target was nuclear.
But as more details emerged, I grew convinced that the target was nuclear. When reports emerged that Syria was cleaning up the site and that there were satellite photographs of the site, it became that the target was likely nuclear. Throughout it all, though, the IAEA seemed awfully incurious about the bombed site.
Now as a number of bloggers have noted, the IAEA is getting interested.
Syria has a rudimentary declared nuclear program revolving around research and the production of isotopes for medical and agricultural uses, using a small, 27-kilowatt reactor, and the uranium traces might have originated from there and inadvertently been carried to the bombed site. But taken together, the uranium and the other components found on the environmental swipes “tell a story” worth investigating, said the diplomat.
The second diplomat said the findings would figure in a report on Syria that will be presented to the IAEA’s 35-nation board next week ahead of a scheduled two-day board meeting starting Nov. 24.
What’s fascinating is that all along the IAEA seemed to be avoiding any sort of confrontation with Syria, now they’ve reached a point of concern. (This concern isn’t shared by the MSM. The Washington Post hasn’t covered this at all and the NYT only published an excerpt of the AP article cited above.)
Noah Pollak argues that those who have been proven wrong ought to pay the price in a loss of credibility. Like Seymour Hersh has any shame.
Crossposted on Yourish.
