Syria: IAF to blame for uranium traces at suspected nukes site – A depleted uranium mystery?

In Syria, for example, the IAEA was successful in collecting uranium particles at a site that had been “sanitized.” But then the IAEA cavalierly dismissed Syrian explanations that the natural uranium particles found at a bombed suspect site came from Israeli missiles. The agency’s claims that the particles are not of the correct isotopic and chemical composition for missiles, displays an appalling lack of technical knowledge about military munitions based on information from questionable sources. If the IAEA is to be respected it must get proper technical advice. For example deep earth penetrating bombs, not missiles were used in Syria. (February 06, 2013 update 2nd article below)

Image source:  http://inesad.edu.bo/developmentroast/2012/02/guest-roast-cancer-and-condescension-the-case-of-iraqs-imposed-epidemic/

Syrian FM: IAF bombs last September may have contained uranium, West is trying to pressure Damascus.

By The Associated Press | Nov.12, 2008

Syria’s foreign minister suggested on Wednesday that Israel Air Force bombs may have been the source of uranium traces diplomats from the United Nations nuclear agency said were found a suspected nuclear site in Syria.

Foreign Minister Walid Mouallem said the leaks by the UN diplomats about the traces found at the site were politically motivated and aimed at pressuring Syria.

Unnamed diplomats at the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency have said samples taken from a suspected nuclear site allegedly bombed by Israeli planes last September contained uranium combined with other elements that merit further investigation.

“These media leaks are a clear-cut signal that the purpose was to pressure Syria. This means that the subject is not technical but rather political,” Moallem said at a news conference with Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari.

“No one has ever asked himself what kind of Israeli bombs had hit the site, and what did they contain?” Moallem said, adding that the United States had similar acts of using bombs containing depleted uranium in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry had no comment on the matter.

Washington is a harsh critic of Syria, accusing it of not doing enough to prevent cross-border infiltration by militants into Iraq and of destabilizing Lebanon, another neighbor.

An October 26, U.S. commando raid into Syria near Iraq’s border further added to the tensions. U.S. officials have said a prominent Iraqi militant was targeted. Syria said the raid killed eight Syrian civilians.

Syria is still technically at war with Israel although both have in recently months held indirect peace talks through Turkey.

The latest nuclear accusations against Syria were disclosed by unnamed diplomats at the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency. They have said samples taken from a suspected nuclear site bombed by Israeli planes last year contained uranium combined with other elements that merit further investigation.

Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said Tuesday his agency is taking allegations of a secret Syrian atomic program seriously and urged Damascus to cooperate fully with his investigation. He also urged other nations with information that could help the investigation to share what they know.

ElBaradei declined to comment on what the diplomats had said, telling reporters during a visit to the Czech capital of Prague only that his agency still has a number of questions linked to the allegations.

The U.S. has said the facility was a nearly completed reactor that – when on line – could have produced plutonium, a pathway to nuclear arms.

Moallem said the original U.S. contention was that the alleged Syrian reactor was under construction, and not operational. So the question is: From where the traces of enriched uranium came?

Syria has previously denied any covert nuclear program, and al-Moallem said Wednesday Damascus was waiting for ElBaradei’s report to respond.

IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said Tuesday the latest findings on Syria were still being drafted and our assessment and evaluation is still under way. Once the process is finished, the report will be submitted to the IAEA Board of Governors ahead of its next meeting, which is scheduled to take place November 27-28.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/syria-iaf-to-blame-for-uranium-traces-at-suspected-nukes-site-1.285450

Some New Bits On The Syrian Al-Kibar “Reactor”

The convicted criminal neocon Elliott Abrams is writing in Commentary about the 2007 bombing of the alleged nuclear reactor at Al-Kibar in Syria. As was to be expected his story isn’t straight. Indeed there is huge discrepancy in it. He starts with the Israelis coming to Washington to tell what they thought they had found:

[Mossad chief Meir Dagan] showed us intelligence demonstrating that Syria was constructing a nuclear reactor whose design was supplied by North Korea, and doing so with North Korean technical assistance. Dagan left us with one stark message: All Israeli policymakers who saw the evidence agreed that the reactor had to go away.

There then began a four-month process of extremely close cooperation with Israel about the reactor, called al-Kibar. As soon as our own intelligence had confirmed the Israeli information and we all agreed on what we were dealing with, Hadley established a process for gathering further information, considering our options, and sharing our thinking with Israel.

Reading these lines one would think that the U.S. services confirmed the Israeli take that their pictures of that place showed indeed a nuclear reactor.

But much later into the story we learn the opposite. After some month of intense debate Bush decided to not bomb the “reactor”:

[O]n July 13, President Bush had called Prime Minister Olmert from his desk in the Oval Office and explained his view. I have gone over this in great detail, Bush explained on the secure phone to the Israeli prime minister, looking at every possible scenario and its likely aftermath. We have looked at overt and covert options, and I have made a decision. We are not going to take the military path; we are instead going to the UN. Bush recounts in his memoir that he told Olmert, “I cannot justify an attack on a sovereign nation unless my intelligence agencies stand up and say it’s a weapons program” and that “I had decided on the diplomatic option backed by the threat of force.” We will announce this approach soon, Bush said on the secure line, and we will then launch a major diplomatic campaign, starting at the IAEA and then the UN Security Council.

So according to Bush, even month after the initial Israeli visit, U.S. intelligence agencies could NOT confirm that there was a reactor and thereby a nuclear weapons program. That is quite different from what Abrams asserts in the first quote.

But such obfuscation, if not outright lying, is just what one expects from such a man.

Two month after Bush’s phone call the Israeli’s bombed the place. Syria then removed the debris. The IAEA later visited the site and then claimed to have found traces of Uranium there. It rejected Syria’s explanation that that Uranium must have come from the Israeli weapon that hit the place.

Robert Kelly says that the IAEA is wrong in rejecting Syria’s explanation.  Kelly managed the centrifuge and plutonium metallurgy programs at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and was seconded by the US DOE to the IAEA where he served twice as a Director in the nuclear inspections in Iraq, in 1992-1993 and 2002-2003. As he sees it:

In Syria, for example, the IAEA was successful in collecting uranium particles at a site that had been “sanitized.” But then the IAEA cavalierly dismissed Syrian explanations that the natural uranium particles found at a bombed suspect site came from Israeli missiles. The agency’s claims that the particles are not of the correct isotopic and chemical composition for missiles, displays an appalling lack of technical knowledge about military munitions based on information from questionable sources. If the IAEA is to be respected it must get proper technical advice. For example deep earth penetrating bombs, not missiles were used in Syria.

Indeed the “bunker buster” deep penetrating BLU-116 bomb was designed with a heavy core made from depleted Uranium. If Israel used that or a similar weapon at Al-Kibar, as makes sense and as Kelly claims, the Uranium the IAEA found there would be very well explained.

The whole claim of a “reactor” in Al-Kibar is still dubious. The U.S. agencies did not agree to that Israeli assertion and the IAEA’s find of small Uranium particels does not prove that there was a reactor or Uranium at Al-Kibar before the place was bombed.

Posted by b on February 6, 2013 at 12:05 PM

http://www.moonofalabama.org/2013/02/some-new-bits-on-the-syrian-al-kibar-reactor-.html

February 22, 2013 - Posted by arclight2011 | Uncategorized