A brother could love

According to the New York Times:

Given the international uproar that unfolded after the bombing, “we can assume it’s not a reactor,” said David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, a private group in Washington that has analyzed the Syrian site.If international inspectors eventually get to the site, he added, they will have a more difficult time looking for nuclear evidence. “The new building,” he noted, “covers whatever remained of the destroyed one.”

is it clear from this statement what Dr. Albright thought about the previous Syria site? Here’s how the Washington Post reports Albright’s statements. (These statements are more complete, though he apparently offered different quotes to each newspaper.):

“It would be very unlikely for this to be a reactor, and we would be very surprised if they tried to put a reactor inside this building,” said David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, who analyzed the images and provided a copy to The Washington Post.Albright said the new facility appears significantly different from the earlier one, having slightly larger dimensions and a vaulted roof. There are no visible signs suggesting a nuclear purpose, he said.

The new construction could complicate future efforts by outsiders to determine the purpose of the original building, Albright said. He added that it is possible that Syria might have constructed the facility to allow the country to secretly excavate all traces of the original building out of the view of spy satellites.

Getting back to the New York Times, it’s pretty clear that they skimped on presenting Dr. Albright’s full views (and I believe that he’s somewhat skeptical of the charge) about the Syrian site and then the reporter adds

Skeptics have criticized the nuclear accusation, saying the public evidence that has so far come to light was ambiguous at best. They noted, for instance, that at the time of the attack the site had no obvious barbed wire or air defenses that would normally ring a sensitive military facility.

So Syria didn’t seem to protect the site. Still why bolster the doubts but why play this up when Syria’s whole approach to the bombing has been somewhat suspicious? Now Syria’s building a new structure that is clearly unlike the first one and will make it that much harder to discover what’s underneath. If it was an agricultural facility that Israel bombed (and even the NY Times reporter seemed somewhat skeptical of the claim) why didn’t the Syrians complain louder? Why did the North Koreans complain at all? It’s wrong for the Times to play up the doubts without giving a full accounting of the reasons to suspect the Syrians of playing nuclear games.

The Astute Bloggers (astutely) point out:

Transparency is central to International Security. Assad’s tyrannical terrorist-enabling regime has no transparency, and this is why we must act preemptively: better safe than sorry.

(via memeorandum)

In other words, despite the Times effort to play down the threat because of uncertainty, the uncertainty is all the reason to be more concerned.

At the end of a disturbing post about Syria efforts to rebuild in the area of the structure that was destroyed in September by Israel (covered by the Tank at NRO), Daled Amos asks of Nobel Laureate Mohammed El Baradei:

Is El Baradei is equally chummy with Iran?

The answer, I think, comes from a recent news report:

In an unprecedented meeting, Iran’s top leader told the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency on Saturday that the UN Security Council had no remaining justification for focusing on the country’s nuclear program, state-run television reported.Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say on all state matters in Iran, told Mohamed ElBaradei that the IAEA should exclusively handle Iranian nuclear questions, saying resolution of the controversy would be a “great success” for the UN nuclear watchdog.

My guess is that if Iran is seeking the jurisdiction of the IAEA over its nuclear program(s), it must feel awfully brotherly towards El Baradei too.

For more background on the shattered Syrian nuclear ambitions see Mere Rhetoric.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.