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.
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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 North Koreans strongly objected to the accusations, and harshly condemned the Israeli attack on Syria. The Syrians claimed these accusations were fabricated by Washington for political reasons, mainly targeting Pyongyang rather than Damascus.
The international media were busy justifying the attack - aggression on a sovereign state - rather than condemning it. The North Korea story started when Andrew Semmel of the US Department of State claimed Syria "might have" obtained nuclear equipment and noting "there are North Korean people there [in Syria]. There is no question about that."
Originally in 2004, it was rumored that the Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadir Khan, who provided gas centrifuges and uranium hexafluoride to North Korea, operated from Syria. No evidence was ever provided that the Khan network worked in Syria, and several people at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) were quoted saying they had no information in that regard. Bolton, then under secretary for arms control, trumpeted the accusations against Syria. Mohammad ElBaradei, the head of the IAEA, was brought on board, and in June 2004 said, "We haven't gotten any piece of information on why we should be concerned about Syria."
Journalists in the US jumped on the story, claiming that Kim Jong-il was hiding his weapons in Syria; forgetting that the North Koreans trusted nobody- certainly not the Syrians, with their nuclear technology. Some newspapers in the US said that days before the attack on Syria, North Korean material labeled as "cement" had unloaded in Syria. This material was supposedly nuclear equipment. Joseph Cirincione, author of Bomb Scare: The history and future of Nuclear Weapons and senior fellow and director of nuclear policy at the Center for American Progress, noted, "This story is nonsense!" Syria's ambassador to Washington Imad Mustapha labeled it as "ridiculous".
This time, although many analysts were skeptical of the American "evidence" (all citing the faulty information used by Collin Powell, the US secretary of state, to justify the invasion of Iraq in 2003), the IAEA said it "deplores the fact" that Washington had been silent about the suspected nuclear site in Syria.
Why had the Americans kept their silence for six months? The IAEA was equally critical of Israel for bombing the site before inspectors could investigate the intelligence report's authenticity. In terms of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), to which Syria is a signatory, the Vienna-based IAEA should be informed of such findings and it alone has the authority to inspect suspected nuclear sites.
The IAEA added, "Under the NPT, the agency has a responsibility to verify any proliferation allegations in a non-nuclear weapon state party to the NPT." It must be noted that Israel has not signed the NPT, while North Korea did, then violated the agreement, and withdrew. Syria has repeatedly complained about Israel's own nuclear program and refused to sign "additional protocols of inspection" by the IAEA (which are voluntary) until Israel signs the NPT.
Rising to the defense of Syria was Scott Ritter, the famous chief UN inspector in Iraq from 1991-1998, who gave the Iraqis a clean bill of health with regard to WMDs in 2003 and has been very critical of the US decision to invade Baghdad on faulty intelligence. Ritter wrote, "Even if the US intelligence is accurate ... Syria had committed no crime, and Israel had no legal justification to carry out its attack."
Bound by the NPT, Syria is required to provide information "as early as possible before nuclear material is introduced to a new facility". There is no evidence, however, that Syria had reached - or even intended to reach - that stage when the Israeli planes flew into its airspace. Ritter adds, "While vexing, the Syrian position is totally in keeping with its treaty obligations, and so it is Syria, not Israel, that was in full conformity with international law at the time of Israel's September 6, 2007 attack."
The IAEA will investigate the latest US allegations, saying, "We will treat this information with the seriousness it deserves and will investigate the veracity of the information." Syria, seemingly very confident, has shown no objection, upholding its commitments to the NPT.
Speaking to the Qatari daily al-Watan, Assad downplayed the accusations, saying: "Is it possible that there is a nuclear site [in Syria] that is not guarded by anti-aircraft guns? A nuclear site? Watched by satellite? In the middle of Syria? In the desert? And in open space?! How can there be a nuclear site when satellites monitor ever single meter that you build? They are searching for an alibi."
He added that neither the Israelis nor the US knew what the site that was hit in September 2007 actually was, noting, "They hit a site that was empty!" When asked how Syria would respond, both to the actual air invasion and the US accusations, he said, "A response doesn't have to be a missile for a missile. Or a bomb for a bomb. Or a bullet for a bullet. In reality we have ways with which we can respond; they understand what we mean."
In addition to Powell's story at the UN, another has surfaced regarding US intelligence over North Korea's nuclear activities. In 1998, US intelligence obtained images of a project at Kumchang-ri (northwest of Yongbyon), and claimed this to be a nuclear facility. Kim Yong-il agreed, under pressure, to allow inspection of the site, in exchange for aid in building a new potato factory in North Korea. Inspectors found nothing, prompting Robert Carlin, a North Korea expert at the CIA, to note the "endemic weakness" in US intelligence.
The Americans, therefore, got it wrong on North Korea in 1998. They got it wrong on Iraq in 2002-2003. They got it wrong on Lebanon in 2006, during the Israeli war on Hezbollah, and again in 2007, when they believed Syria was behind the Sunni fundamentalists at Naher al-Bared. There is no evidence to prove that they have it right this time, on Syria in 2008.
But if they want to push through with such a story - as in the case with the WMDs of Iraq - in what remains of George W Bush's term at the White House, then nothing in the world can prevent them from doing so. It would not really matter whether Syria is innocent; this would fall neatly in line with everything that has happened between Syria and the US since 2003.
British writer Hector Hugh Munro, known by his pen name Saki, once said, "A little inaccuracy sometimes saves a lot of explanations." That probably best sums up why Israeli planes invaded Syrian airspace, with the approval of the United States, and fired at certain targets within Syria.
Sami Moubayed is a Syrian political analyst.
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