What larger significance does this have?

I know a lightning air-raid across national boundaries is a big thing, but neither the Syrians nor the Israelis appear eager to highlight this. What are we hoping to learn, and what do we hope to -do- with that knowledge?

Just as an aside, hotels are large squarish buildings frequently built near water. So this is totally stupid.

Hint to 3rd World Countries: Build your secret stuff deep inside mountains.

Reminds me of the "pyramid inch" and Martin Gardner's response, the "Washington Monument Inch" [*].

Cranky

[*] A measurement based on the Washington Monument which would be used to "prove" every UFO theory ever advanced.

It's not spin from Dick Cheney's shop, which is a point in its favor, but it's also a million miles from conclusive.

Kevin, I think your attempt to overpoliticize the issue of Israels bombing of Syria isn't going to fly. Normally, we should defer to experts on analyzing questions like this. In this case, Albright and Brannan, both experts on nuclear reactors and North Korea, have concluded that this was a North Korean made nuclear reactor. We should, at the very least, defer to the opinion of the experts Albright and Brannan for now and accept their view as correct.
Certainly, we shouldn't question their judgment based on some doubts of bloggers. For example, if someone had tooth pains and a dentist said he needed the teeth pulled, would we question the dentist merely because some blogger told us we should? Of course not. Same thing here on whether or not Syria had North Korean made nuclear reactors.

Obviously the presence of a truck in the area confirms all the suspicions...

For those with Google Earth, the coordinates are:

Latitude: 35° 42' 31.02" N

Longitude: 39° 49' 58.50" E

Zooming into the site shows, as the article says, only the big square building. You have to pay to get the more recent photos.

One interesting point is that when you switch on the "DigitalGlobe Coverage" markings on Google Earth (showing all the satellite photo frames), there seems to be a large conglomeration of photos from August in this specific vicinity. Somebody in charge of selecting photo sites has been looking closely at this area.

This is all just educated speculation, to be sure. What would help nail it down would be public satellite photos of this same site showing bomb damage. It might be some time before those show up. At least that would end Syria's odd attempts to claim there was nothing at all at the site of the attack.

> This is all just educated speculation, to be sure.
> What would help nail it down would be public
> satellite photos of this same site showing bomb
> damage. It might be some time before those show
> up. At least that would end Syria's odd attempts
> to claim there was nothing at all at the site of
> the attack.

If Israel revealed some of its super-duper SEAD technology and burned some credits with Turkey in order to blow up a few empty warehouses, Syria would have every reason not to say anything about it.

Cranky

Tall building? Trucks? Water? Pumping station?

Holy Crap! The Sears Tower is a nuclear reactor!

*sheesh*

The only thing of significance you quoted is from Mohamed ElBaradei. Israel committed a war crime, and all that their fellow travelers are trying to do is obfuscate that fact.

cranky: I don't follow. If that were the case, wouldn't Syria point and laugh?

Mohamed ElBaradei: "Frankly, I venture to hope that before people decide to bombard and use force, they will come and see us to convey their concerns."

I think, given the record so far with Iran, Israel is well-aware of how utterly useless that would be.

I wonder if the Native American longhouses, which were also rectangular, incited European immigrants to make preemptive attacks against them. I have read Native Americans descended from the same people as the Koreans, so perhaps it was that connection that the Europeans used to justify their unprovoked attacks on Native Americans.

As I have posted before, something doesn't smell right about this - especially the Bush Administration's muted response to the whole thng. If Syria were developing nukes, don't you think Cheney, Rice and Bush himself would be beatin' the drums of war louder than hell?? They haven't said boo about this in public. For that reason alone, I don't think it was a reactor.

Do I also have to remind anyone about the satellite imagery that Colin Powell presented at the UN, purporting to show Saddam's WMD caches? Utterly bogus. There is something strange going on here that isn't being reported or analyzed. I stll think it was Israel getting in some bombing practice, before they turn Iran into a radioactive sheet of glass.

Yes, these pics are the "mobile weapons labs" all over again, and the same dumbshits are falling for it all over again.

The spinner at WaPo, Robin Wright is well known inside the Beltway to entertain "great relations" with Syria's (recent) archnemesis, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It all feeds from the Cheney shop!

The section you quote, unless it's a typo, makes this sound pretty raw indeed. Saying that something 24x22 meters (if it exists) is about the same size as something 32x24 meters is on a par with saying that a prius has about the same length and width as a hummer.

The imagery sounds as if it doesn't rule out the possibility that the buildings were nuclear-related, but that's good only compared to the Bush administration's utter contempt for facts.

I agree with Deflator: Something is very wrong about this whole thing. Very whack.
Israel crosses into Syria and bombs some shit and nobody thinks it's a big deal at all. Assad: no biggie Bush admin: no biggie Israel: no biggie

WTF? I am awake...right??

I think, given the record so far with Iran, Israel is well-aware of how utterly useless that would be.

By your logic, Iran should be equally frustrated with the IAEA's inability to prevent and then monitor Israel's nuclear program, and should therefore be equally justified in launching airstrikes against Dimona.

You quoted the wrong part of the story, Kevin:

""When the Israelis destroyed Saddam Hussein's research nuclear reactor in 1981, the consequence was that Saddam Hussein pursued his program secretly. He began to establish a huge military nuclear program underground," [the IAEA guy] said. "The use of force can set things back, but it does not deal with the roots of the problem."

Imagine that: "The use of force can set things back."

And of course Israel, of all countries, should trust the United Nations and the world community of nations to protect it from kooks with nukes.

So now we have North Koreans helping the Syrians build a site that independent experts say looks remarkably like... a North Korean nuclear weapons factory.

And you STILL think this is so murky?

There's a reason, yanno: and you won't like hearing what it is.

It was President Ahmadinejad who made the argument that the UN will not protect Iran and countries like Venezuela from kooks with nukes: the US and Israel. It is the Israelis' nuclear weapons that creates demand for other countries in the region to obtain them. After what Israel did to Lebanon last year, with hardly any opposition by the world community, every one of Israel's targets should seek to possess nuclear weapons.

Here's my take.

1) The Syrians were building a reactor.
2) The Israelis thought the Syrians were building a reactor.
3) The Israelis attacked.
4) The Israelis now subsequently believe that it WASN'T a nuclear reactor, but they THOUGHT it was (they screwed up) and if news comes up of another Olmert screw up he's gone.
5) The Syrians don't want to say anything for fear that the Israelis (and others) will find out it really WAS a DPRK-assisted reactor.

So everyone just hints and tries to find out for themselves and otherwise shuts up.

How much is this story being Judy Miller'd by the White House
...Then, a journalist friend of mine -- not at the New York Times -- confided to me that they were being pressed by the White House and by fellow travelers of the Cheney gang to pump up the Syria nuclear story. This is one of several people who actually used the term "being Judith Miller'd" to me to describe how they felt in their interactions with the administration....

...And you STILL think this is so murky?...theAmericanist at 2:30 PM

Thx for the link, Mike.

yegads! looks like one of Powell's diagrams at the UN where he asserted that Iraq had WMD's.

my friends, whatever you read is invariably not true...

Syria makes bombs, Syria doesn't make bombs, Israel attacked Syria, Israel didn't attack, US set Israel up, Israel set the US up....

Hence, it is incumbent on you to make up your own reality-- our pal GWBush does it all the time.

So I'm reading the pdf report, and right there on page 1 they say, in footnote, "we shared a draft of this report with the Washington Post, and two days later WaPo reported that "experts and officials" think things just like are in this report." So it must be true!

Didn't the White House do that in the runup to Iraq war? Dispel info, then say "it's been reported so it must be true"?

Um, looking at the images 4 and 5, the inner rectangle dimensions... clearly in the NK image, they reflect a taller section of building. In the Syria image, there is no shadow and the 'design' of the roof is geometric and symmetrical. And flat (no shadow).
That suggests these buildings are not the same.

Probably just a dummy site to have a little fun with the Israelis and the Texas gunslinger. Best to build real reactors underground when within range of Israeli bombers.

Where are all the ancillary buildings? If you look at Yongbyon in North Korea or Calder and Chapelcross in the UK (all Magnox reactor sites) you will see lots of extra buildings for such mundane things as changing rooms, canteens, offices, etc. Has that notoriously bureaucratic country, Syria, foregone all of these?

That should be Calder hall.

Kevin, GMAFB.

The building "may" also be the Aspiration of the Virgin Mary. Just as plausible, based on this speculation.

Mike Leyden, where are you? Are your tactics becoming more subtle?
No yellow cake this time, even from Dunkin Hines?

I agree with Deflator: Something is very wrong about this whole thing. Very whack.
Israel crosses into Syria and bombs some shit and nobody thinks it's a big deal at all. Assad: no biggie Bush admin: no biggie Israel: no biggie

WTF? I am awake...right??
Posted by: desaparecido on October 24, 2007 at 2:10 PM

That should be Calder hall.
Posted by: blowback on October 24, 2007 at 8:59 PM

====

Hmmm... Calder.
Hey, I know what's going on, it's an art installation project in the desert!
http://www.nga.gov/feature/artnation/calder/images/navigation/vert_constellation_hp.jpg
(Vertical Constellation with Bomb)

A loosely related follow-up on the fancifully alleged Iranian "threat" -- some remarkably damning insights from two Bush administration insiders:

The Secret History of the Impending War With Iran That the White House Doesn't Want You to Know
By John H. Richardson [Esquire]

Two former high-ranking policy experts from the Bush Administration say the US has been gearing up for a war with Iran for years, despite claiming otherwise. It'll be Iraq all over again. ...
.

All of this seems a remarkably tortuous way of saying, "All I know is, I don't know."

And frankly, in the face of the very REAL threat of this Fascist White House junta instigating yet another utterly senseless, possibly NUCLEAR, war of aggression in the Middle East -- against Iran -- I'm fairly content to let the "mystery bombing" in Syria remain just a curious sideshow.

Why speculate on the unknown, when there are so many absolutely devastating KNOWNs to ponder??

The only thing of significance you quoted is from Mohamed ElBaradei. Israel committed a war crime, and all that their fellow travelers are trying to do is obfuscate that fact.

Disputo: Thank you for cutting directly to the heart of the matter. That, when all is said and done, is ALL that is truly known at this juncture. The rest is merely conjecture -- educated mental masturbation..

And need I REALLY point out to the perpetually uninformed Al that John Pike, featured prominently in the rebuttals, is HARDLY "just a blogger"? SHEESH!

If the Syrians or the Iranians or whoever wanted to be really sneaky, they'd disguise their nuclear reactors by constructing them in buildings that are...

... ROUND!

Seems like there was a genuine reason for Israel to take out the Nuclear reactor in Syria. Go back and look at all the posts and discover who the 'clueless' people really are. They post here nonsense and mock the US and our President.

Now the question remains, was this a Nuke Reactor build and funded by Sadam Hussien and placed in Syria because Iraq was under constant surviellence. If so, it will prove Bush was correct after all even in the beginning.