AP Exclusive: New signs of Syria-Pakistan nuke tie

[Guest guest]

And here it is. Our escuse to go after Syria and deepen our involvement in

Pakistan.

Administrator

http://news.yahoo.com/ap-exclusive-signs-syria-pakistan-nuke-tie-063913337.html

AP Exclusive: New signs of Syria-Pakistan nuke tie

By DESMOND BUTLER and GEORGE JAHN - Associated Press | AP – 5 hrs ago.

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.N. investigators have identified a previously unknown

complex in Syria that bolsters suspicions that the Syrian government worked with

A.Q. Khan, the father of Pakistan's atomic bomb, to acquire technology that

could make nuclear arms.

The buildings in northwest Syria closely match the design of a uranium

enrichment plant provided to Libya when Moammar Gadhafi was trying to build

nuclear weapons under Khan's guidance, officials told The Associated Press.

The U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency also has obtained correspondence

between Khan and a Syrian government official, Muhidin Issa, who proposed

scientific cooperation and a visit to Khan's laboratories following Pakistan's

successful nuclear test in 1998.

The complex, in the city of Al-Hasakah, now appears to be a cotton-spinning

plant, and investigators have found no sign that it was ever used for nuclear

production. But given that Israeli warplanes destroyed a suspected plutonium

production reactor in Syria in 2007, the unlikely coincidence in design suggests

Syria may have been pursuing two routes to an atomic bomb: uranium as well as

plutonium.

Details of the Syria-Khan connection were provided to the AP by a senior

diplomat with knowledge of IAEA investigations and a former U.N. investigator.

Both spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

The Syrian government did not respond to a request for comment. It has

repeatedly denied pursuing nuclear weapons but also has stymied an investigation

into the site bombed by Israel. It has not responded to an IAEA request to visit

the Al-Hasakah complex, the officials said.

IAEA officials contacted Tuesday also declined to comment. State Department

spokeswoman Nuland said that Syria should cooperate with the IAEA.

" We remain concerned about whether Syria is meeting its obligations to the

IAEA, " she said. " Their clandestine nuclear program remains an issue of grave

concern. "

The IAEA's examination of Syria's programs has slowed as world powers focus on a

popular uprising in the country and the government's violent crackdown.

Syria never has been seen as being close to development of a nuclear bomb. There

also is no indication that Damascus continues to work on a secret nuclear

program. If the facility in Al-Hasakah was indeed intended for uranium

production, those plans appear to have been abandoned and the path to plutonium

ended with the Israeli bombing.

But Mark Hibbs, an analyst at the nuclear policy program at the Carnegie

Endowment for International Peace who has spoken to IAEA officials about the

Al-Hasakah complex, said it is important to learn more details about the

buildings.

" What is at stake here is the nuclear history of that facility, " Hibbs said.

" People want to know what did they intend to do there, and Syria has provided no

information. "

Syria has reasons to seek a nuclear weapon. It has been in a Cold War for

decades with Israel, a country believed to have a sizable nuclear arsenal.

" A nuclear weapon would give Syria at least a kind of parity with Israel and

some status within the region, " said Cordesman, a national security

analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

For years, there has been speculation about ties between the Syrian government

and Khan.

A hero to many in Pakistan for developing the country's nuclear bomb, Khan is

considered the world's most prolific nuclear merchant. He supplied Iran with the

basics of what is now an established uranium enrichment program that has churned

out enough material to make several nuclear weapons, although Iran denies it

intends to produce weapons. Libya also bought equipment and a warhead design

from Khan for a secret nuclear program that it renounced in 2003.

In 2004, Khan confessed on TV to selling nuclear technology to Iran, North Korea

and Libya, but he has never spoken of Syria. Khan later said Pakistani

authorities forced him to make the confession.

The former investigator said Syria acknowledged to the IAEA that Khan made at

least one trip to Syria to deliver scientific lectures, as The Los Angeles Times

reported in 2004.

The former official said he has seen letters from Issa, then a deputy minister

of education, written on official letterhead shortly after Pakistan's 1998

nuclear test congratulating Pakistan for Khan's achievement. In subsequent

correspondence, Issa suggested cooperation with Khan and requested a visit by

Syrian officials to Khan's laboratory, the former official said.

Issa, who later served as the dean of the faculty of sciences at Arab

International University, could not be reached for comment.

In a 2007 interview with an Austrian newspaper, Syrian President Bashar Assad

acknowledged having received a letter that appeared to have been from Khan, but

said his government had not responded and did not meet Khan.

IAEA investigators homed in on the Al-Hasakah facility after an intensive

analysis of satellite imagery in the Middle East, sparked by a belief that Khan

had an additional government customer, which had not yet come to light. They

identified the site, the largest industrial complex in Al-Hasakah, after a 2006

report in a Kuwaiti newspaper claimed Syria had a secret nuclear program in the

city.

Satellite imagery of the Al-Hasakah complex revealed striking similarities to

plans for a uranium enrichment facility that were seized during a Swiss

investigation related to Khan. The Swiss were looking into the Tinner family —

Urs Tinner, his brother Marco and their father, Friedrich — who are suspected of

playing a crucial role in Khan's smuggling network.

Another set of the same plans was turned over to the IAEA after Libya abandoned

its nuclear program. Libya told the IAEA it had ordered 10,000 gas centrifuges

from Khan, most of which it intended for a facility that was to be built

according to the plans. Centrifuges are used to enrich uranium in the

weapons-making process.

The investigator said the layout of the Al-Hasakah facility matches the plans

used in Libya almost exactly, with a large building surrounded by three smaller

workshops in the same configurations. Investigators were struck that even the

parking lots had similarities, with a covered area to shield cars from the sun.

But the investigator said he had seen no evidence that centrifuges were ever

installed there. The Hasakah Spinning Co. has a website that shows photos of

manufacturing equipment inside the facility and brags about its prices.

The IAEA asked to visit the site more than two years ago. But it has not pressed

the issue, focusing its efforts on the bombed site.

Nor has the agency ever cited the Al-Hasakah facility in its reports. Three

other sites have been mentioned, but they are believed to have been related to

the bombed reactor, not the Al-Hasakah plant.

IAEA inspectors were allowed to visit the bombed reactor site once, but have not

been allowed back for nearly three years. They issued a strongly worded

assessment in May that said the targeted site was in fact a nearly built nuclear

reactor. The agency's board subsequently referred the issue to the U.N. Security

Council, effectively dismissing Syrian denials as untrue.

yrian officials again refused new inspections after talks with the IAEA in

Damascus last week, diplomats told the AP. The officials said they would provide

new evidence that the bombed site was non-nuclear. Agency officials remain

skeptical because Syria did not describe the new information or say when it

would be provided.

___

Jahn reported from Vienna.