Dec 02 2007
Syrian Nuclear Bomb Factory Destroyed By Israel
An Israeli nuclear scientist is making some sound points regarding the Syrian target Israel apparently took out a few months ago:
ISRAEL’S top-secret air raid on Syria in September destroyed a bomb factory assembling warheads fuelled by North Korean plutonium, a leading Israeli nuclear expert has told The Sunday Times.
Professor Uzi Even of Tel Aviv University was one of the founders of the Israeli nuclear reactor at Dimona, the source of the Jewish state’s undeclared nuclear arsenal.
“I suspect that it was a plant for processing plutonium, namely, a factory for assembling the bomb,†he said. “I think the DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] transferred to Syria weapons-grade plutonium in raw form, that is nuggets of easily transported metal in protective cans. I think the shaping and casting of the plutonium was supposed to be in Syria.â€
…
But Even said that purely from scientific observation, he had reached a different conclusion – that it was a nuclear bomb factory, posing a more immediate danger to Israel. He said that satellite photos of the site, taken before the Israeli strike on September 6, showed no sign of the cooling towers and chimneys characteristic of nuclear reactors.
Syria’s haste after the attack to bury the site under tons of soil suggested that hundreds of square yards were contaminated and there were fears of radiation, the professor added.
Since then the Syrians have sealed up the location, levelled the site and diverted curious journalists to a place that had not been attacked by Israel.
If there were no cooling towers it would not be a reactor, but it could be a gas centrifuge center for making weapons grade material – the same approach Iran is pursuing. But if it was a nuclear weapons factory then the world just dodged a major bullet – for now. One way for an axis of evil to hide a nuclear program is to distribute it among different countries so it cannot be taken away in a single act. Of course, that is not true for the United States which can reach out touch anything at anytime. But it is a troubling situation if this is what happened.
The sad thing is that Israel once again saves the world from a nutbag country. They took a lot of heat when they bombed Saddam’s facilities but then as now they did the world a favor. Not that the europeans will admit it. Are we always going to depend on Israel to step up to the plate and take all the flak?
Barbara:
I would not say that. Israel took out Saddam’s reactor and this facility in Syria not because they posed a threat to the world, but because they posed a threat to Israel. The world is better off because these facilities were destroyed, but that was not what inspired Israel.
I wouldn’t be at all surprised if there were a plant for doing exactly the same thing somewhere in the jungle of Venezuela.
Centrifuges are used to enrich uranium not process plutonium.
Processing plutonium from reactor fuel is simply a chemical process, involving nothing more complicated than solvent extraction. But it involves handling highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel.
The Syrian plant was likely not intended to perform the plutonium processing. That would require shipping the spent fuel from NK reactors to Syria and handling dangerously radioactive materials. It would be too easy to spot the movement of this material.
Instead, the Pu processing was likely done in NK, and the resulting product, likely plutonium oxide, was shipped to Syria for conversion to metallic form, casting into pits, etc.
The Pu oxide would have easily shielded radioactive emissions (alpha and beta particles and low energy gammas) and much less volume (hence, more easily hidden).