Nuclear mattersIAEA to inspect bombed Syrian site

The UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) says its inspectors are due in Syria between the 22 and 24 June to examine what remains of the facility Israel destroyed in a brilliant and secretive air strike on 6 September 2007. Israel and the United States say it was a nuclear reactor in the making. In April the United States officially accused North Korea of helping Syria build a nuclear reactor that “was not intended for peaceful purposes.” Syria has repeatedly denied it has any nuclear weapons program, or any such agreement with North Korea. Officials have said the site that was bombed by Israel unused military facility under construction. Building on the site had stopped some time before the air strike, the Syrians said. “I look forward to Syria’s full co-operation in this matter,” IAEA director general Mohamed ElBaradei told the agency’s 35-nation board of governors on Monday. In April this year ElBaradei criticized both what he saw as a U.S. delay in releasing information on the Syrian site and Israel’s bombing of the site before the IAEA could inspect it. He repeated this criticism on Monday without naming Israel or the United States. “It is deeply regrettable that information concerning this installation was not provided to the agency in a timely manner and that force was resorted to unilaterally before the agency was given an opportunity to establish the facts,” ElBaradei said. “Nonetheless, I should emphasize that Syria, like all states with comprehensive [nuclear] safeguards agreements, has an obligation to report the planning and construction of any nuclear facility to the agency,” he added. “We are therefore treating this information with the seriousness it deserves and have been in discussions with the Syrian authorities… to verify, to the extent possible at this stage, the veracity of the information available.”

The initial criticism followed a briefing by American security officials to members of the U.S. Congress which showed evidence they said proved Syria was building a nuclear reactor with North Korean assistance. This included pictures — said to have been obtained by Israel — allegedly taken inside the facility showing the reactor core being built. The images showed striking similarities between the Syrian facility and the North Korean reactor at Yongbyon, the United States said. The facility, however, was not yet operational and there was no fuel for the reactor, officials said.

The IAEA has asked Syria for permission to visit four sites. It is not clear what the IAEA inspectors will find at the bombed site, which the United States and Israel say was designed as a plutonium-producing reactor: The Israeli Air Force used powerful bunker-buster bombs to obliterate both the above-ground structures and deeply dug bunkers below them. Witnesses said that nothing was left of the facility except a “huge crater.” Also, within days of the attack, the Syrians bulldozed the site over. The three other sites, all located in military bases, are said to be facilities for enriching uranium (two are said to be complete, the third is still under construction).

One more note: A little-noticed aspect of the 6 September attack was Israel’s use of sophisticated cyberwarfare measures which took down Syrian communication networks for about an hour or so, allowing the IAF planes to come in and leave unnoticed and unmolested.