Syria Denies U.S. Claims Of Secret Nukes

President Scoffs At Reports That His Country Was Building Reactor At Site Attacked By Israel

(CBS/AP)  Syria's president scoffed at U.S. claims that his country was building a nuclear reactor at a site attacked by Israel seven months ago, according to excerpts of an interview published Friday.

President Bashar Assad questioned the logic of such allegations and insisted that the site was an unused military facility.

"Is it logical for a nuclear site to be left without protection and not guarded by anti-aircraft guns?" Assad told the Qatari newspaper Al-Watan.

"A nuclear site under the watch of satellites in the middle of Syria in the desert and in an open location?" Assad said.

Syria accused the U.S. of involvement in last September's Israeli air strike on what the CIA says was a nuclear reactor being built with the help of North Korea, reports CBS News correspondent Robert Berger. Syria urged Washington to stop creating "more crises in the Middle East."

He reiterated that the site destroyed by the Israelis was "a Syrian military position under construction and not a nuclear reactor."

The full interview with Assad, to be published Sunday, was conducted Tuesday, the day U.S. intelligence officials said they would show House and Senate members evidence supporting their case that Syria was building a nuclear reactor with North Korean assistance before Israel destroyed it.

Assad did not specifically address the allegations that North Korea was aiding Syria.

Top U.S. intelligence officials said in Washington on Thursday that the United States became aware North Korea was helping Syria with a nuclear project in 2003. The critical intelligence that cemented that conclusion came last year after dozens of photographs taken from ground level showed the construction both inside and outside the building, said the intelligence officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the matter's sensitivity.

After the September attack, the U.S. alleged Syria tried to bury evidence of its existence and erected a new building to hide the site. The building is not believed to house a new reactor, the officials said.

A top U.S. official told The Associated Press that the alleged Syrian reactor was within weeks or months of being functional when Israel destroyed it. The facility was mostly completed but still needed significant testing before it could have been declared operational, said the official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

However, both the U.S. intelligence officials and independent analysts said there was no reprocessing facility at the site - something that would be needed to extract plutonium from spent reactor fuel for use in a bomb. That gives little confidence that the facility was meant for weapons development, they said.

Syria's government has staunchly denied the U.S. allegations. On Friday, it repeated its stance and accused Washington of misleading Congress about the country's nuclear activity.

Senior U.S. officials said the U.S. military was not involved in the attack, and the U.S. government, although informed in advance, did not approve it.

Israel has maintained almost total silence since the Sept. 6 airstrike.

The head of the U.N. nuclear monitoring agency angrily criticized Israel for the bombing and chastised the U.S. for withholding information on the site.

Mohamed ElBaradei, who heads the International Atomic Energy Agency, did not criticize North Korea or Syria in his statement.

In Washington, the State Department brushed aside ElBaradei's complaint and said the IAEA should begin investigating the matter.

[leftyintexas]

guadalcanal3,,,, If you are a good liar in the United States, you can be a republican President or nominee

Posted by j-whitman at 04:59 PM : Apr 26, 2008

You forgot the most important pre-requisite... a toe tapping, self-righteous, imcompetent,thief.

[guadalcanal3]

Actually if you are a good lier...you can be a Democratic party nomminee as well....(not to mention the Communist party etc.etc.etc....)

[j-whitman]

guadalcanal3,,,, Actually, if you are a bad liar you can be a republican President or a nominee --- Bush even lowered the goal post on that

[j-whitman]

guadalcanal3,,,, If you are a good liar in the United States, you can be a republican President or nominee

[guadalcanal3]

Denial...denial...denial...that pretty much sums up the Arab world for you...everybody lies to everybody..did you ever shop in an Arab market?...it''s all about lying,cheating etc.....anything to get that $$$ out of your hand..and...into theirs..."Thou shalt not lie" is only in the Jewish/Christian Ten Commandments...if you are not a good lier in the Arab world you fall very quickly to the bottom of the barrel...No disrespect meant to Arabs...but..that''s simply the way it is.

[j-whitman]

factsearcher,,,, You''ve been wrong -- The White House is now directing their administration to get rid of the Islamofobic launguage & stop calling it a Jihad ----- They say it "Emboldens the Enemy"

Your ignorant term of Islamo-Fascist is out the window also.

[factsearcher]

Very entertaining to read the postings of jihadists propagandist denying this was a nuke facility. haha
and 9/11 didnt happen either, right?

[neoconrcrazy]

Look how well that has worked for the US in Central and South America!

Riiight!!

Posted by gkc99

dude, how many dead American soldiers do have in Central & south America today? How many billions wasted?

think before you speak!

[gkc99]

"we have had examples of it in this administration when Wolfowitz (israeli-american) ordered the abolishment of the iraqi army and baathist party saying:

"these organizations are similar to the nazi party and german wehrmacht of hilter''''s germany"

look at the result of such faulty thinking in iraq."--Posted by neoconRcrazy



Oh by all means we should be encouraging "these organizations are similar to the nazi party and german wehrmacht of hilter''''s germany"!

Look how well that has worked for the US in Central and South America!

Riiight!!

[neoconrcrazy]

"The facility was mostly completed but still needed significant testing before it could have been declared operational, said the official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. ""

we''re back to "anonymous" officials..... and "undisclosed" intel sources..... and
well, simply lies, like before.

[neoconrcrazy]

Andrewsan is just another bullpschitting anti-Semitic contributor to these Comments.

Posted by juwboy

posters such a "juwboy" should find help to get over their "holocaust trauma" - it distorts their thinking and we have had examples of it in this administration when Wolfowitz (israeli-american) ordered the abolishment of the iraqi army and baathist party saying:

"these organizations are similar to the nazi party and german wehrmacht of hilter''s germany"

look at the result of such faulty thinking in iraq.

[ourplanet]

Reminds me of the manufactured video of Mobile Labs in Iraq that was presented in UN to Prove the existence of WMD in Iraq. A nice story for idiots to believe.

[juwboy]

The BBC report and the accompanying photographs confirn everything that''s been reported by the CIA in the last few days.

Andrewsan is just another bullpschitting anti-Semitic contributor to these Comments.

[cfin5]

Posted by Andrewsan at 04:34 AM : Apr 26, 2008------It''s still there. They buried it.

[andrewsan-2009]

Please consider this key point. The raid occurred 6 September - BBC reported on 26 October that 24 October satellite photos showed no facilities. I can assure you that it most positively would not be possible to get the necessary heavy equipment to that site and remove a nuclear facility in that timescale. Nuclear facilities have extremely complex, deep and heavy structures - they would take many months to remove. Check it out...!

[apprxam]

Colin Powell spent an hour showing photos of ice cream trucks telling us they were WMD''s. Backstage Rumsfeld, Cheney and Wolfowitz were laughing with school yard glee. This year late, unsubstantiated bomb is simply NeoClown mission creep and is not credible. Israel, the CIA and BuShit can''t be trusted regarding anything with "east" and "middle" in it.

[rebelscout]

Here we go again, A new war to kill our best and brightest! STAY THE COURSE!!

[cdfoxtrot]

Looks a bit like the satellite imagery used for the fiction that Powell used at the UN to get support for the illegal war. This admin. has zero credibility on any topic at this point. I''d believe President Assad before our own president.

[j-whitman]

Looks more like this administration is hell bent on spinning intel to wrap around their policies.

[j-whitman]

Start thinking folks & ask the important questions;

1... This topic is a year old, why would the administration pull it out now other than for electioneering ??

2... Why didn''t Israel make a big stink out of it instead of wanting it hushed up ?? -- It''s not the international incident Bush is proclaiming & it aggrivates the problems.