Murky nuclear issue lurks in Syria - Part 3

UK paper says Syria had a N. Korean nuclear bomb
Part 2 here

The Times of London reports today what the Israeli news media cannot. The Times says the air raid on a Syrian target last week took out a nuclear facility. The paper starts with a headline "Israelis blew apart Syrian nuclear cache", and continues with a long article, full of hints and glimpses of the details of the air raid which proves only one thing. Israeli war planes penetrated Syrian air space with impunity.

The rest of the Times report leaves the reader with the impression that Syria was getting a nuclear bomb from North Korea and the facility that housed it was destroyed. Syria has no uranium enrichment plant, and its one nuclear reactor is a tiny research facility. The reader is left with a conclusion, by the process of elimination, that the destruction of anything "nuclear" in the raid was a nuclear bomb. What we don't know, if in fact there is a bomb in the mix, whether Syria planned to reveal it as a deterrent or actually use it.

The Israeli press, under a government order not to report too much about the raid, is reduced to reporting what other media outlets in other countries have revealed. One thing is becoming clear and that is the raid was not intended to destroy conventional munitions involving Hezbollah / Iran connections. For its part the Israeli government isn't saying much, but neither are the Syrians. No other new media reports shed any additional light on the Israeli raid.

There's lots of speculation about the raid, but until someone turns up physical evidence of a nuclear device on the ground in Syria, and its gets into the news media, the rest of the world will have to assume the Israelis had very good reasons for the air raid and the Syrians may have learned a terrible lesson about the perils of doing business with rogue nuclear powers. The North Koreans were the only nation to protest the raid, from which one can infer they had interests and people on the ground at the site that was bombed.

Political conservatives in the U.S. are having a field day criticizing current U.S. negotiations with North Korea. For its part the U.S. State Department is saying it will go forward with the six-party negotiations with North Korea.

UPDATE Sunday night 09/16/07

Arms Control Wonk, a reasonably expert guy, debunks the whole thing. We'll need to hear more from him, but for now he thinks it is nonsense.

AP reports that the six-party talks have been postponed. No reason was given for the announcement which was made is Seoul, South Korea.