1 post tagged “syria”

Some information is finally beginning to leak out about why Israel bombed a certain place in Syria recently. Some in the U.S. government led by Vice President Dick Cheney believe Israeli intelligence when they claim that the work was nuclear related. Others led by Secretary of State Condolezza Rice and Defense Secretary Bill Gates say the evidence is not conclusive. The New York Times article is here. (this is the best one I have seen on the subject so far)

It has long been known that North Korean scientists have aided Damascus in developing sophisticated ballistic missile technology, and there appears to be little debate that North Koreans frequently visited a site in the Syrian desert that Israeli jets attacked Sept. 6. Where officials disagree is whether the accumulated evidence points to a Syrian nuclear program that poses a significant threat to the Middle East.

Last week, Turkish officials traveled to Damascus to present the Syrian government with the Israeli dossier on what was believed to be a Syrian nuclear program, according to a Middle East security analyst in Washington. The analyst said that Syrian officials vigorously denied the intelligence and said that what the Israelis hit was a storage depot for strategic missiles.

That denial followed a similar denial from North Korea. Mr. Hill, the State Department’s assistant secretary for East Asia and Pacific affairs, raised the Syria issue with his North Korean counterparts in talks in Beijing in late September. The North Koreans denied providing any nuclear material to Syria.

Publicly, Syrian officials have said Israeli jets hit an empty warehouse.

Still, Mr. Riedel said Israel would not have launched the strike in Syria if it believed Damascus was merely developing more sophisticated ballistic missiles or chemical weapons.

“Those red lines were crossed 20 years ago,” he said. “You don’t risk general war in the Middle East over an extra 100 kilometers’ range on a missile system.”

Another former intelligence official said Syria was attempting to develop so-called airburst capability for its ballistic missiles. Such technology would allow Syria to detonate warheads in the air to disperse the warhead’s material more widely.

I find it very hard to believe Syria was attempting to make a nuclear bomb since that attempt would have been detected earlier but this airburst comment suggests that they might be seeking to make a large dirty bomb to put on top of a missile. If so that would be scary.

All analyzes I have seen on dirty bombs assume some terrorist gets a hold of some small amount of reactor produced radioactive material and put that in a small bomb (10 to 20 pounds). None have considered the effect of what a large amount of radioactive material would have if a 500 pound airburst bomb goes off.

For a fine analysis of small dirty bombs see here.

The very good Wikipedia article explaning that dirty bomb material only comes from nuclear reactors is found here.