Last September, in an incident Bush administration officials have been very reluctant to talk about, Israeli jets attacked a facility in Syria, destroying what was believed to be a nuclear site, created with apparent support from North Korea. Today, the WaPo had a front-page item about an explosive new video that would have a dramatic effect.
A video taken inside a secret Syrian facility last summer convinced the Israeli government and the Bush administration that North Korea was helping to construct a reactor similar to one that produces plutonium for North Korea’s nuclear arsenal, according to senior U.S. officials who said it would be shared with lawmakers today.
The officials said the video of the remote site, code-named Al Kibar by the Syrians, shows North Koreans inside. It played a pivotal role in Israel’s decision to bomb the facility late at night last Sept. 6, a move that was publicly denounced by Damascus but not by Washington.
Sources familiar with the video say it also shows that the Syrian reactor core’s design is the same as that of the North Korean reactor at Yongbyon, including a virtually identical configuration and number of holes for fuel rods.
That was this morning. This afternoon, apparently, there is no video. White House and CIA officials briefed top congressional leaders today on the suspected nuclear site, and North Korea’s role in helping Syria develop the facility, but the highly-touted video was nowhere to be found.
“In regards to a videotape, I’ll let the intelligence community talk about that,” said [White House press secretary Dana Perino], in reference to news reports about the centerpiece of the briefings.
A US official, requesting anonymity, told AFP: “There are still photographs of the facility as part of the video, but it’s a video presentation, like a Powerpoint presentation. It’s not a video of the facility.”
Wait, it gets worse.
Reuters added:
A U.S. official, who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to discuss classified matters, said that among the intelligence the United States has was an image of what appeared to be people of Korean descent at the facility.
People in a still photograph looked like they might be Korean?
In the WaPo article this morning, the Syrian ambassador is quoted as saying, “If they show a video, remember that the U.S. went to the U.N. Security Council and displayed evidence and images about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.”
Noting the ambassador’s quote, David Kurtz added:
Ouch. Isn’t there some sort of statute of limitations on our goof? I mean it’s been five years since Colin Powell’s UN presentation. And look at all we’ve done since: brought peace and stability to Iraq, made real progress on the Israel-Palestinian conflict, calmed world financial markets.
You’d think they could overlook this one little hiccup in light of all our other good deeds. Not to mention the catharsis we’ve undergone here at home: the extensive congressional hearings on the misuse of intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq invasion, Dick Cheney’s teary apology in the well of the Senate, Bush’s re-election in 2004. Look at the disgrace it has brought to the Republican Party: John McCain is barely running even with the Democrats in national polls.
Can’t the world see? We’ve changed.
And the Bush administration seems completely unable to understand why it lacks credibility on the global stage.
The Bush gang probably didn’t need another incident dealing with questionable intelligence about weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East, but it looks like they have one anyway.