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    UN Struggles to Understand Raid on the Euphrates
    By Maurin Picard
    Le Figaro

    Wednesday 07 November 2007

Even though it was the victim of aerial bombardment, Syria refuses any visit from the IAEA's nuclear experts.

    On Thursday, September 6, at the first glimmerings of dawn, four Israeli Air Force F-16s penetrated Syrian airspace and conducted a raid against secret installations on the banks of the Euphrates, in the Northwest of the country. Two months later, the mystery around this strange incident thickens. Initially silent, Damascus ended up denouncing the "unjustified aggression" of the Hebrew state, which confirmed with a delay that it had conducted an offensive action in Syria, not far from the town of Deir es-Zor.

    Simultaneously, the Anglo-Saxon press revealed that the raid had been motivated by ongoing construction of a nuclear gas-graphite reactor of North Korean origin, capable of producing plutonium. The British Sunday Times even asserted that Israeli commandos had removed nuclear materials from the site. However, even though Damascus has been catalogued as a pillar of the "Axis of Evil" by the Bush administration, Washington as well as Tel-Aviv have chosen to throw a veil of chastity over this martial exploit.

    A Detail Creates Havoc

    In Vienna, at the seat of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the consternation is palpable. Charged with the struggle against nuclear proliferation, this UN agency depends on the collaboration of Member States' intelligence services. But no one has rung the alarm bell. This general silence has enraged IAEA Director General Mohammed ElBaradei. "Bombing first and asking questions later ruins our entire system (of anti-proliferation)," he declared October 28.

    His services are striving to assemble the pieces of the puzzle, to rule out the rumors linking Deir es-Zor to the Iranian nuclear program or to arms trafficking intended for the Lebanese Hezbollah. The only available data, two commercial satellite photographs, were unveiled October 24 by the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) in Washington. For David Albright, director of this think tank, there is no doubt: there had been "a nuclear reactor of North Korean design in construction" there.

    At the IAEA, that conclusion is deemed hasty. "It is very difficult to make determinations about the nuclear nature of a site solely on the basis of satellite photographs, without sending inspectors on the ground," says one source close to the agency. A signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Syria denies all nuclear intentions, apart from a little active research reactor.

    On the detail, however, creates havoc: the photos show that the site has been hastily razed by the Syrians after the raid. That point has awakened the IAEA's interest, as it has already had a similar experience in Iran: in 2004, its inspectors who wanted access to the Lavizan site were only able to see a complex that had been ... razed. They found residues of radioactive substances there. "That's why we would be entirely disposed to come inspect the site" in Syria, an IAEA representative indicates. But Damascus is playing deaf. Yet, "Syria could easily have invited the IAEA immediately after the raid to exonerate itself," notes Ben Rhode, a researcher at London's International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).

    The United States also has reasons not to make too much noise about the Syrian affair: A year from the end of his term, dragging along the Iraqi ball and chain, President Bush is going to attempt to relaunch Israeli-Palestinian peace talks at the end of November in Annapolis (Maryland), and has invited Damascus to join. At the other end of the planet, a fragile nuclear agreement has been concluded with North Korea that could explode, should North Korea's involvement in Syria be proven.