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2 Syria bristles at US
charges By Sami Moubayed
DAMASCUS - For the past 48 hours, the
Syrians have been amused, laughing off United
States accusations that Israel had hit a nuclear
site in Syria in September 2007, operated by the
Syrians and North Korea.
According to the
George W Bush administration, Syria was "within
weeks or months" of completing its nuclear
reactor. Beneath the Syrian laughter at what seems
to be a ludicrous accusation was a certain worry -
fear that these accusations could snowball into
something similar to what happened when Iraq was
accused of developing weapons of mass destruction
(WMD) in 2002-2003.
The Bush
administration managed to keep a straight face while
spinning these tales and
then bombed Iraq on faulty intelligence. Today,
five years on, everybody knows that Saddam Hussein
was not developing WMDs.
The Syrians
cannot tolerate more sanctions and are fed up with
the chorus of accusations coming from Washington
since 2003. First it was harboring Saddam and all
of his henchmen after the fall of Baghdad. These
accusations proved baseless when all of them -
Saddam included - were hunted down, arrested and
executed, in Iraq.
Then came accusations
of sending jihadis into Iraq. Although insurgents
did cross into Iraq through the Syrian border, it
was clear - by 2005 - that Syria was unable to
keep full control of the 605-kilometer border (nor
were the Americans for that matter) and was doing
its best to keep tabs on Islamists entering or
leaving the country, deporting many of them to
their countries of origin.
Colonel William
Crowe, who controls the border between Syria and
Iraq, spoke to reporters at the Pentagon in
January 2007, saying, "There is no large influx of
foreign fighters that come across the border [with
Syria]." One month later, US Senate majority
leader Harry Reid said that based on the National
Intelligence Estimate, "Syria is not causing
strife within Iraq ... the Syrians have nothing to
do with it."
The Americans then said that
Syria was laundering money for the former Iraqi
regime. They sent experts to Damascus but later
gave the Syrians a clean bill of health,
testifying that no money laundering was taking
place at the Central Bank of Syria.
And
now comes the story of an alliance with North
Korea, based on developing nuclear technology. The
US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) released a
10-minute video and photos (obtained from Israel)
based on footage of a building, supposedly in
Syria (believed to be a nuclear operator in the
making) that resembled the North Korean reactor in
Yongbyon.
The report said, "Information we
acquired since 2001 has indicated cooperation
between North Korean nuclear entities and
high-level Syrian officials." They also showed
photos of North Korean scientists with people they
claimed to be Syrian, adding, "It is clear to us
that this cooperation between North Korean
nuclear-related personalities and entities and
high-level Syrian officials began probably as
early as 1997."
The intelligence report
added, "North Korean nuclear officials were
located in the region of the [Syrian] reactor both
early and late in 2007. Our information shows that
North Korean advisors also probably assisted with
damage assessment inference after the reactor was
destroyed [in September 2007]. A high-level North
Korean delegation traveled to Syria shortly after
the reactor was destroyed and met with officials
associated with Syria's covert nuclear program."
Presumably and according to the Americans,
Syria was developing a reactor capable of
producing plutonium to feed a nuclear reactor, but
it was destroyed in its early stages. One senior
US official whose name has not been revealed
explained, "We obviously were looking very closely
at options, and we had looked at some approaches
that involved a mix of diplomacy and the threat of
military force with the goal of trying to ensure
that the reactor was either dismantled or
permanently disabled, and therefore, never became
operational."
The Israelis, he added,
believed that the "reactor posed such an
existential threat" that required a more severe
and immediate response, "As a sovereign country,
Israel had to make its own evaluation of the
threat and the immediacy of the threat, and what
actions it should take. And it did so."
No
mention was made of Syria's sovereignty, and of
the international law violation of carrying out
such assault between two countries - technically
at a state of war - without approval of the United
Nations.
The Syrians do not have a history
of pursuing expensive and costly nuclear
technology, nor are they prime allies with North
Korea to pursue such a project, which would be
politically expensive for both Pyongyang and
Damascus. The entire story comes in the middle of
critical times for both presidents Bashar al-Assad
and Kim Jong-il. The Syrian president is in the
midst of talks with Turkish Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan, debating an offer by Israel to
restart talks on the Golan Heights. The Americans
are not pleased at these talks, and have
repeatedly claimed they are in no hurry for
Syrian-Israeli peace; making a point they would
not encourage it.
Syrian Foreign Minister
Walid Muallem had just met his French counterpart,
Bernard Kouchner, in Kuwait, and the two men
talked about Lebanon months after relations soured
- again - between Paris and Damascus over the lack
of progress in the Lebanese presidential
elections. The Muallem-Kouchner meeting was an
indicator that the French were willing to
re-engage the Syrians over Lebanon.
Former
US president Jimmy Carter had just wrapped up a
24-hour visit to Damascus, which also restored
hope that if the Democrats come to power, a new
channel could be opened between the Syrians and
Washington. The accusations of working with North
Korea will make it difficult for those willing to
talk to the Syrians - whether it is Barack Obama,
the Germans, or Jimmy Carter - to make any future
initiative towards Damascus.
For his part,
the North Korean leader has been involved (since
September 2005) in a series of six-party talks
(North and South Korea, the US, China, Russia and
Japan) aimed at abandoning his country's nuclear
inventory. These talks have been harshly condemned
by the hawks in Washington, mainly former US
ambassador to the UN, John Bolton. North Korea was
supposed to declare the size and capability of its
arsenal (as required by the US) by December 301,
2007, but missed the initial date. The accusations
that both countries have been collaborating on
nuclear technology - if proven or if pushed
through a la WMDs in Iraq - will probably spell
difficult times for both the Syrians and North
Koreans.
In September 2007, the world
speculated that Israel had hit a stockpile of
North Korean nuclear weapons, hidden in Syria. At
first, some said it was a training center for
Palestinian groups based in Syria. Others said it
was a military warehouse for Hezbollah. Some
speculated the Israelis hit ballistic missiles
recently obtained from Russia. Others said it was
a facility for nuclear weapons, developed between
Syria and North Korea. The
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