IAEA: Possibility of Nuclear-Related Activities in Syria

New Report Sparks New Speculation, Lacks New Data

by Jason Ditz, February 18, 2010

Though the report did not appear to offer any new data with respect to the investigation, a new IAEA report on the Israeli attack on a building in the Syrian desert speculated that there was “the possibility of nuclear-related activities at the site.”

The report, the first by new IAEA chief Amano Yukiya, makes mention of the “minute uranium traces” the IAEA found at the site in 2008. Diplomats at the time conceded the IAEA team could have tracked the handful of particles in themselves, tainting the sample.

But now this “evidence,” such as it is, is being used to support the Israeli theory that what they destroyed was a gas graphite nuclear reactor. Perplexingly, the uranium traces found appear to have been inconsistent with that sort of reactor.

But the new IAEA report, underscoring Amano’s more pro-West tack, chastised Syria for refusing to allow them to visit three apparently unrelated military sites, and was conspicuously absent, at least to the extent it has been made public, of any criticism of the illegal Israeli attack, a centerpiece of previous reports by former IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei.

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