You can find it “here”:http://www.dni.gov/interviews/20080424_interview.pdf or “download”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/file_download/12 it.

That’s what it looks like in “this AFP”:http://www.spacewar.com/2006/080426131406.jym0g8it.html story.

I had thought of most of the official’s arguments, but this one jumped out at me:

A *nuclear physicist close to the United Nations atomic watchdog* cast doubt Saturday on the veracity of US intelligence which claimed that Syria had been building a secret atomic reactor.

“When you look at the (US intelligence services) pictures, they show only raw construction,” an expert close to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) told AFP on condition on anonymity.

*”It was just the shell of a site, and the walls did not look like the ones needed for a plutonium reactor.”*

*Walls of a plutonium reactor “need a lot of piping, there was nothing like that on the pictures,”* he added.

Still trying to wrap my head around this, in between doing other things.

Well.

The BBC has “posted”:http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/7366235.stm what looks to be the CIA video briefing about the Syrian nuclear reactor that, as the briefing puts it (with an artful use of the passive voice), “was destroyed in September 2007.” We would, by the way, have an easier way of confirming the CIA’s information about the structure had the unnamed entity not blown it up.

It looks persuasive, but I need to think about it some more. I will note that the video says nothing about a reprocessing facility, without which the Pu contained in the spent fuel means dick.

For its part, the IAEA is a “bit annoyed”:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7366868.stm. ElBaradei

says the US gave his organisation its evidence about the Syrian reactor only on the same day that it briefed legislators on Capitol Hill.

A statement from the IAEA says that Dr ElBaradei “deplores the fact that this information was not provided to the agency in a timely manner”. It is now going to investigate further.

!/images/35.jpg!

Because this isn’t confusing enough already.

The _NYT_ has “published”:http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/27/world/middleeast/27syria.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper&oref=slogin a 2003 image of the suspected Syrian reactor site which shows that the square building was under construction even back then. This begs a host of obvious questions.

And congrats to Mr. ACW for the _NYT_ quote.

Lastly, here’s one of my favorite scenes from The Wire, which also happens to include one of the best Pogues songs ever:

I realize that anyone who cares already knows, but ISIS has images showing that Syria has “removed the building”:http://www.isis-online.org/publications/SyriaUpdate25October2007.pdf suspected of holding the nuclear reactor-to-be. In addition, the Syrians have “buried the building’s foundation.”:http://www.isis-online.org/publications/SuspectSiteUpdate26October2007.pdf

On another note, the _NYT_ had some information “the other day”:http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/25/washington/25weapons.html?ref=todayspaper about the Google Earth images that I “blogged about:”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1535/syria-alleged-reactor-images

bq. The SPOT Image Corporation, a commercial satellite company in Chantilly, Va., said Wednesday that its spacecraft took this picture of the site in August 2006 — a year before the newly released images.