Uranium Traces in Syria - Laughable Nonsense
Reuters wants us to react to this:
U.N. investigators have found traces of uranium at a Syrian site Washington says was a secret nuclear reactor almost built before Israel bombed the target last year, diplomats said on Monday.
...
"It isn't enough to conclude or prove what the Syrians were doing but the IAEA has concluded this requires further investigation," said one diplomat accredited to the IAEA."It was a man-made component, not natural (ore). There is no sign there was already nuclear fuel or (production) activity there," another diplomat told Reuters.
Let's determine the validity of this.
This news is obviously not an IAEA finding but something someone planted with Reuters. The information was leaked by diplomats and "The International Atomic Energy Agency and Syria had no immediate comment."
The IAEA has such fine instruments that it can detect artificially altered, i.e. man-made, Uranium atoms about everywhere in the world. Thanks to the two nuclear bombs the U.S. dropped on Japan in 1945 and lots of open air nuke testing in the following years the existence of man-made components of uranium is inevitable and meanwhile provable anywhere on this planet.
The alleged reactor in Syria was supposed to be a copy of the North Korean Yongbon type which is a copy of the UK's Magnox reactor.
That type uses natural uranium to breed bomb-quality U235 and plutonium. To moderate the process such a reactor needs tons of graphite. If the alleged Syrian whatever was loaded with natural uranium or graphite, lots of such would have been found in detectable traces in the nearby environment.
As there is no leak or factual report that points to increased levels of
natural uranium or graphite in the samples the IAEA took around the site
after the Israelis bombed it, one can only conclude that the Syrian
installation, if it was a reactor at all, was not a filled reactor near operational capability.
Instead some diplomats, i.e. Israeli, U.S. and U.K. operatives accredited to the IAEA in Vienna, now leak that the IAEA found some traces of man-made Uranium around the site.
That might well be correct. They would have found such in my living room too. But that fact would neither prove that my toaster is a nuclear something nor does it prove that my TV was build with the intend of converting it into a reactor.
There is so far nothing, zero, nada that would prove that Syria had one or another kind of nuclear program at all. There was a "Box on the Euphrades" that some Israeli bombers hit for whatever reason. There is zero believable prove that the site had to do with WMDs or other nefarious things.
The Reuters story will sell well. The journalist who was used as propaganda tool by some diplomats will be lauded by his bosses because the news s/he created will be printed everywhere. There is no reason for Reuters to verify the basic physics as it will make a nice profit with the involved scare-mongering.
The whole motive behind this scare is an Israeli plot to maneuver Syria into a corner where it is seen as a WMD proliferation danger. That tactic, bare of facts, has worked well with regard to Iran.
Iran has an open and IAEA supervised civil nuclear program to create energy on a self sustained basis. Such a program could at a point be abuse for some tiny nuclear weapons program as could similar programs in the Netherlands, Japan, Brazil and elsewhere.
But Syria does not even have the rudimentary infrastructure for a civil nuclear energy program and certainly not for a military one.
Asserting otherwise may help the Zionist racist cause and Reuter's profits. Don't fall for it.
Posted by b on November 10, 2008 at 22:51 UTC | Permalink
Not only Reuters, but the Associated Press as well: Diplomats: Uranium found at suspect Syrian site These anonymous diplomats do seem to get around, don't they?
Funny that a guest blogger on the Arms Control Wonk had this to say only a few days ago:
A while back, sitting down over a cup of coffee with a friend in Vienna, I heard how the Agency had structured its investigations. Keen to avoid leakage to the wider community and the press, the probe is handled by a small and tight-lipped group of people within the Department of Safeguard’s Middle East Division. Indeed, the Syria analysts keep to themselves, and do not share or discuss their findings with the rest of the division. This has caused disgruntlement amongst some within the Agency, who argue that there are risks with keeping information tight. Eventually the group sees what it want to see.
And anonymous spinny-leak seems to be an epidemic in the diplomatic community. Back in September it was UN diplomats 'voicing suspicions':
UN investigators believe Syria may have buried under concrete traces of what Washington suspects was a covert nuclear reactor at a site bombed by Israel a year ago, diplomats said.
Posted by: Alamet | Nov 11 2008 1:09 utc | 2
Then there is this:
Documents linking Iran to nuclear weapons push may have been fabricated
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has obtained evidence suggesting that documents which have been described as technical studies for a secret Iranian nuclear weapons-related research program may have been fabricated.The documents in question were acquired by U.S. intelligence in 2004 from a still unknown source -- most of them in the form of electronic files allegedly stolen from a laptop computer belonging to an Iranian researcher. The US has based much of its push for sanctions against Iran on these documents.
The new evidence of possible fraud has increased pressure within the IAEA secretariat to distance the agency from the laptop documents, according to a Vienna-based diplomatic source close to the IAEA, who spoke to RAW STORY on condition of anonymity.
(snip)
More than one side can play the no-names game, obviously, but they aren't all treated to the same kind of coverage.
Posted by: Alamet | Nov 11 2008 1:16 utc | 3
Based on the track record with regard to the Georgia/Russia conflict, I am expecting that on or about February 10, 2009 the NYT will breathlessly publish a front-page story about how this was all much ado about nothing.
Posted by: Maxcrat | Nov 11 2008 1:17 utc | 4
Could the uranium have been planted along with the story? Hmm--who in the region has uranium that has not been inspected by the IAEA and could not be traced back to a known source?
Also, it would be instructive for the pundits to ask why Syria might want a nuke. Any use of a nuke on Israel would mean immediate blowback, in terms of Israeli retaliation and probably also in terms of actual blowback of radioactive particles.
This whole story defies logic but is consistent with psyops.
Posted by: JohnH | Nov 11 2008 3:35 utc | 5
TYPE PAD TYPE PAD TYPE PAD TYPE PAD TYPE PAD TYPE PAD TYPE PAD TYPE PAD TYPE PAD
A few years back we had an environmental company sample our site before we could build. They came back with impossibly high levels of lead. I asked them for their notes. It said, "broken vehicle battery" next to the hot sample! I asked them why they didn't pick up the battery and take it to the dump like a road crew picking up batteries off the freeway, instead of classifying the entire seven acre site as a hazmat! The environmental guy blinked, and stuttered, "Because it was contaminated!"
And because his boss knew a "green" opportunity when he saw it. Killed the project!
In today's economy, everyone in government is busy looking like they're managing, but the only "managing" they're doing is managing to avoid the meat axe hitting US,
when clearly they were not, as here, what, eight years after 9/11, they final cancel foreign visa flight training in the US!
Cuba just went through three major hurricanes in one season with over $10B in property damage and didn't lose a single soul. Yet here in the USA, over 10,000,000 are homeless, 15,000,000 real unemployed, with another 4,000,000 evictions coming, and millions more behind them upside down, under water, the so-called 'richest country on earth' (most deadbeat, most incompetent, largest welfare tax dole Soviet, if that's how you define 'rich') can't match Fidel's poor Cuba for true efficiency, which is 'most work for most benefit', not the NeoZi's 'most profit for least wages' inversion perversion.
Marco Polo describes a bridge to Kublai Khan, stone-by-stone.
"But which is the stone that supports the bridge?" Kublai Khan asks.
"The bridge is not supported by one stone or anther," Marco answers,
"but by the line of the arch that they form."
Kublai Khan remains silent, reflecting. Then he adds:
"Why do you speak to me of stones? It is only the arch that matters to me."
Polo answers: "Without stones (PEOPLE) there is no arch (ECONOMY)."
Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino
TYPE PAD TYPE PAD TYPE PAD TYPE PAD TYPE PAD TYPE PAD TYPE PAD TYPE PAD TYPE PAD
Posted by: Julip Mentha | Nov 11 2008 6:59 utc | 6
Thank you kindly, b, for the link to Magnox -- I was unaware, in fact, surprised to learn that natural, or "virgin" uranium could be used in a reactor, although, if I turned my brains on more often, I'd have known better...
The point here, as I understand it, is that, assuming that there was a NK class reactor in the box the Isralis bombed, there would be a lot of natural uranium laying around and "man made" (=enriched) uranium would in fact be counter indicative.
One thing I noticed in the Wiki article is that, although their Magnox reactors (whose prime purpose was to produce plutonium for bombs) was promoted by the Brit gov't in the '60s as a source of electricity -- this was despite the fact that electricity produced by these plants was 50 to 100% more than coal fired plants. The reason, of course, was to pressure the coal miners...
This last is interesting because we are going to see more and more efforts to promote nuke-fired power plants as a "solution" to global climate changes.
Posted by: Chuck Cliff | Nov 11 2008 7:10 utc | 7
@1 - I can see how this planted story could help the Israeli government in its "peace" negotiations with Syria, but how does that make it a "Zionist racist cause"?
"Greater Israel" - colonizing the Golan Heights - never to give them back to Syria because Syria is "bad".
Gareth Porter: Documents linking Iran to nuclear weapons push may have been fabricated
May have been?
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has obtained evidence suggesting that documents which have been described as technical studies for a secret Iranian nuclear weapons-related research program may have been fabricated.The documents in question were acquired by U.S. intelligence in 2004 from a still unknown source -- most of them in the form of electronic files allegedly stolen from a laptop computer belonging to an Iranian researcher. The US has based much of its push for sanctions against Iran on these documents.
...
Documents linking Iran to nuclear weapons push may have been fabricated
Gareth Porter
Published: Monday November 10, 2008
Print This Email ThisThe International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has obtained evidence suggesting that documents which have been described as technical studies for a secret Iranian nuclear weapons-related research program may have been fabricated.
The documents in question were acquired by U.S. intelligence in 2004 from a still unknown source -- most of them in the form of electronic files allegedly stolen from a laptop computer belonging to an Iranian researcher. The US has based much of its push for sanctions against Iran on these documents.
The new evidence of possible fraud has increased pressure within the IAEA secretariat to distance the agency from the laptop documents, according to a Vienna-based diplomatic source close to the IAEA, who spoke to RAW STORY on condition of anonymity.
The laptop documents include what the IAEA has described in a published report as technical drawings of efforts to redesign the nosecone of the Iranian Shahab-3 ballistic missile “to accommodate a nuclear warhead.” The documents are also said to include studies on the use of a high explosive detonation system, drawings of a shaft apparently to be used for nuclear tests, and studies on a bench-scale uranium conversion facility.
These technical papers, along with some correspondence related to the alleged secret Iranian program -- referred to by the IAEA as “alleged studies” -- have been the primary basis during 2008 for the insistence by the US-led international coalition pushing for sanctions against Iran that the Iranian case must be kept going in the United Nations Security Council.
Handwritten Notes
At the center of the internal IAEA struggle is an Iranian firm named Kimia Maadan, which is portrayed in the documents as responsible for studies on a uranium conversion facility, called the “green salt” project, as part of the alleged nuclear weapons program under the Iranian Ministry of Defense.
...
Further evidence damaging to the credibility of the letter and the handwritten notes was provided to the atomic energy watchdog last January by the Iranian government. According to Iran, Kimia Maadan was not working for the Defense Ministry but for the civilian Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI).The new Iranian documentation, described in the February 22, 2008 IAEA report, proved to IAEA’s satisfaction that the Kimia Maadan Company had been created in May 2000 solely to carry out a project to design, procure and install equipment for an ore processing plant.
...
As the contradictions between the new Iranian evidence and the laptop documents relating to Kimia Maadan became apparent, some IAEA officials argued that the Agency should distance itself from what they now suspect are forgeries.
"This last is interesting because we are going to see more and more efforts to promote nuke-fired power plants as a "solution" to global climate changes."
Chuck Cliff, you mean like http://www.technologyreview.com/Energy/15865/?a=f>these?
Posted by: anna missed | Nov 11 2008 8:25 utc | 10
Well,anna missed, I must say, I am again surprised by something I didn't know. Since El Baradei supports, in fact seems to promote the idea, in all honesty I can't, despite my immediate skepticism, reject it out of hand.
However, what is not clear here is just what fuel will be used for these plants -- and what are and is to be done with and what are the waste products? Also, although they are called, "small", what is their size and output? The question of thievery of radioactive materials is supposed to be taken care of by orbital cameras -- well, yes, but what about regime change, and what about people who don't want to steal but just blow it up and spread the shit around?
Finally, I strongly question that nuke-fired power plants are as CO2 neutral as promoted.
The fuel is not dug up and refined, prepared and transported free of charge -- likewise all the lead and concrete don't appear magically without the use of (a lot of) fossile fuel -- all this sort of thing, along with the storage of spent fuel should be taken into account in determining the real footprint of a pile of concrete, lead and uranium with a (supposed) lifetime cycle of 30 years.
I drive a 20 year old junker of a car, and some folks tell me that I pollute -- well yes, I do, of course, but a brand new car pollutes a lot just to get made and sit in the showroom of the car dealer. Since, I drive less than 10,000 km / year, I don't see it as necessarily a positive for enviroment and certainly not my bankbook to buy some brand new thingie that only gets twice as much millage...
Posted by: Chuck Cliff | Nov 11 2008 11:39 utc | 11
You know why bankrupt america elected Obama..?
He was the only one to spare some change..
Posted by: Stephane | Nov 11 2008 15:24 utc | 12
Since it's looking more and more like Israeli will never be able to survive on its own as an independent nation and since it's looking more and more like the US will remain hellbent on keeping a foothold in the Middle East, then it's clearly in the best interest of both the US and Israel to make Israel the 51st state of the US.
All parties involved would benefit from this arrangement. The US would benefit by Israelis being contributors rather than drainers of the federal tax base. The US would also benefit by keeping a foothold in the Middle East without having to occupy other nations in this region. Israelis would benefit by being able to live and work directly under the security blanket of the US. And last but not least, Palestinians would benefit by living as full-fledged citizens under American law rather than as second class ones under Israeli law.
Posted by: Cynthia | Nov 11 2008 19:16 utc | 13
IAEA responds:
Watchdog criticises Syria nuclear disclosures
The U.N. nuclear watchdog criticised on Tuesday diplomatic disclosures that it had found uranium traces at a Syrian site under investigation, saying this was an effort to prejudge the agency's conclusions.It was a rare open expression of irritation within the agency about news leaks, which some say risk putting a political spin on its technical findings in probes of nations suspected in the West to be illicit nuclear proliferators.
(...)"We regret that people are trying to prejudge the IAEA's technical assessment. We are, however, accustomed to these kinds of efforts to hype and undermine the process before every meeting of the IAEA board (of governors)," Fleming said.
(snip)
Posted by: Alamet | Nov 12 2008 0:00 utc | 14
@ 13, it's not nice of me, Cynthia, to poke at your snark, but it's not unknown that people can be 2nd class, heck, maybe even 3rd class citizens in the United State of Arrogance.
Posted by: Chuck Cliff | Nov 12 2008 7:38 utc | 15
Interesting theory and quite possible. Did IAF bombs contain depleted Uranium? Syria blames IAF for uranium traces found at suspected nuke site
Cynthia #13,
I guess it doesn't matter what the people who live there want.
Posted by: Rick | Nov 12 2008 13:21 utc | 17
Cynthia #13,
I guess it doesn't matter what the people who live there want.
Posted by: Rick | Nov 12 2008 13:21 utc | 18
What idiot(s) writes this typepad stuff? It would be a simple fix to prevent these double posts.
Posted by: Rick | Nov 12 2008 13:44 utc | 19
Chuck Cliff,
The "A" in the the "US of A" may stand for Arrogance, but I still believe that if the US were to annex Israeli, Israeli Jews would stop being so damn arrogant towards Israeli Palestinians.
Posted by: Cynthia | Nov 12 2008 16:40 utc | 20
Rick,
And the people of Israel will continue to not have a say about their country so long as Israel remains a puppet of the US.
Posted by: Cynthia | Nov 12 2008 16:43 utc | 21
The comments to this entry are closed.
I can see how this planted story could help the Israeli government in its "peace" negotiations with Syria, but how does that make it a "Zionist racist cause"? Do the people planting this story want to oppress ethnic Arabs wherever they live? Do they want to absorb Syria into greater Israel?
Posted by: Pyesetz the Dog | Nov 11 2008 1:03 utc | 1