The Secret Syrian nuclear reactor (Hebrew/English)

"N. Koreans Tapes at Syrian Reactor," Robin Wright, Washington Post, April 24
See: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/24/AR20080424023...

US intelligence officials concluded that a secret Syrian nuclear reactor was expected to make fuel for nuclear weapons and was within weeks or months of being fully operational when it was destroyed in September by an Israeli air strike, officials said today.
"The reactor would have been capable of producing plutonium for nuclear weapons, was not configured to produce electricity and was ill suited for research," concluded an intelligence document released today.

The assessments released to reporters followed similar briefings to members of Congress today about photographs taken inside the secret Syrian facility. US officials said the photographs had convinced the Israeli government and the Bush administration that North Korea was helping to construct a reactor similar to one that produces plutonium for North Korea's nuclear arsenal.

The officials said the photographs of the remote site on the Euphrates River, code-named Al Kibar by the Syrians, show North Koreans inside.... North Korea assisted Syria's covert nuclear program both before and after the reactor was destroyed, according to the document. "Only North Korea has built this type of reactor in the past 35 years," the document said.

A senior intelligence official said North Korea and Syria had been cooperating on the covert program since 1997 and construction on the facility at a remote desert site on the Euphrates River began in 2001. But, he added, the United States was not certain for several years of the facility's purpose.

Several members of Congress complained today that the administration was too slow to share the intelligence with them. But administration officials said that they waited eight months after the reactor was destroyed to give full congressional and press briefings because they feared that any earlier disclosure would pressure Syria to retaliate against Israel and might trigger a wider regional conflagration....

Key congressional officials said the CIA intelligence did not change their support for US diplomatic efforts to convince Pyongyang to dismantle its nuclear program.

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