한국의 언론, 정부, 야당, 李明博 후보까지도 이제는 확실해진 시리아-북한의 비밀 핵개발 사태에 대해서 무관심으로 일관한다. 親北좌파 정부는 북한정권에 불리한 사실은 일체 건드리지 않는다는 정책을 추진해왔으니 그런 태도가 이해가지만 왜 한나라당과 李 후보까지도 이 문제에 무관심한지 알 수 없다.

미국에선 뉴욕 타임스와 워싱턴 포스트가 연일 북한이 시리아에 핵무기 개발용 원자로를 지어주다가 이스라엘의 폭격을 받았다고 보도하고 있으며 美 의회도 부시 행정부가 이 문제를 은폐하고 있다고 비난하기 시작했다. 체니 부통령은 이 문제를 심각하게 다뤄야 한다는 입장이고 라이스 국무장관은 6자 회담의 성공을 위해서 이 문제를 축소하려는 모습을 보인다. 현재로는 부시 대통령이 라이스의 입장을 지지하지만 여론이 변하면 이 문제를 공개적으로 제기하여 北核문제가 다른 모습으로 전개될 가능성을 배제할 수 없다.

그렇게 되면 노무현-김정일의 10.4 합의도 지켜지기 어렵고 남북관계도 악화될 수밖에 없으며 차기 한국 대통령의 행동에도 많은 영향을 끼치게 된다. 부시는 여러 차례 만약 북한이 핵물질을 외부로 이전하면 전쟁도 불사하겠다는 입장을 천명해왔다. 북한이 핵개발 기술과 人力을 시리아에 공급해왔다면 이는 핵물질 移轉과 비슷한 도발이 된다.

한국의 언론은 시리아-북한 핵개발 사태에 대해서 한번도 1면 기사로 다루지 않고 있다. 自國의 안보와 관련된 사안을 먼 나라의 일로 보는 듯하다. 자신의 생존을 지키는 문제를 가볍게 보는 태도가 바로 국방을 외세에 의존하는 사대주의적 자세이다.

노무현 정부와 언론의 이런 직무유기를 따져야 할 곳은 국회뿐이다. 그 국회도 지금 선거판에 휩쓸려 진흙탕 싸움만 한다. 안보를 외면한 정치는 반드시 저질화된다. 정치의 제1주제를 포기한 정치는 반신불수의 싸움판으로 전락하는 법이다. 조선조의 黨爭이 그러했다.



By WILLIAM J. BROAD and MARK MAZZETTI

The mystery surrounding the construction of what might have been a nuclear reactor in Syria deepened yesterday, when a company released a satellite photo showing that the main building was well under way in September 2003 — four years before Israeli jets bombed it.

The long genesis is likely to raise questions about whether the Bush administration overlooked a nascent atomic threat in Syria while planning and executing a war in Iraq, which was later found to have no active nuclear program.

A senior American intelligence official said yesterday that American analysts had looked carefully at the site from its early days, but were unsure then whether it posed a nuclear threat.

In the time before the Iraq war, President Bush and his senior advisers sounded many alarms about Baghdad's reconstituting its nuclear program. But they have never publicly discussed what many analysts say appears to have been a long-running nuclear effort next door.

Yesterday independent analysts, examining the latest satellite image, suggested that work on the site might have begun around 2001, and the senior intelligence official agreed with that analysis. That early date is potentially significant in terms of North Korea's suspected aid to Syria, suggesting that North Korea could have begun its assistance in the late 1990s.

A dispute has broken out between conservatives and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice over the administration's pursuit of diplomacy with North Korea in the face of intelligence that North Korea might have helped Syria design a nuclear reactor.

The new image may give ammunition to those in the administration, including Ms. Rice, who call for diplomacy. If North Korea started its Syrian aid long ago, the officials could argue that the assistance was historical, not current, and that diplomacy should move ahead.

The progress of the site in late 2003 also raises new questions about a disagreement at the time between intelligence analysts and John R. Bolton, then the State Department's top arms control official.

In the summer of 2003, Mr. Bolton's testimony on Capitol Hill was delayed after a dispute erupted in part over whether Syria was actively pursuing a nuclear weapon. Some intelligence officials said Mr. Bolton overstated the Syrian threat.

'There was disagreement about what Syria was interested in and how much we should be monitoring it,' Mr. Bolton said in an interview yesterday. 'There was activity in Syria that I felt was evidence that they were trying to develop a nuclear program.'

Mr. Bolton declined to say whether he had knowledge at the time about the site that the Israelis struck in September.

Spokesmen for the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Council declined to comment.

The new image of the desolate Syrian site was released yesterday by GeoEye, in Dulles, Va. Mark Brender, the company's vice president for communications and marketing, said the picture was taken on Sept. 16, 2003. He added that the image had been collected as part of the company's agenda of building a large archive of global images.

Earlier this week, federal and private analysts identified the precise location of the Syrian site, and since then rival companies have raced to release images. The site is on the eastern bank of the Euphrates, 90 miles north of the Iraqi border.

Images taken in August, before the Israeli raid, show a tall building about 150 feet wide on each side that analysts suspect might have sheltered a half-built nuclear reactor. Also visible is a pumping station on the Euphrates, which may be significant because reactors need water for cooling.

John E. Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a private group in Alexandria, Va., that analyzes satellite images, said the 2003 picture showed the tall building in the midst of early construction, surrounded by churned earth. He put the groundbreaking in 2001.

'It's uncommon to see such activity in the middle of nowhere,' he said, adding that it was sufficiently unusual to have worried American intelligence officials. 'I'd have put it on my suspect site list and kept watching,' he said.

The senior intelligence official said that American spy satellites and analysts had, in fact, watched the site for years.

'It was noticed, without knowing what it was,' the official said. 'You revisit every so often, but it was not a high priority. You see things that raise the flag and you know you have to keep looking. It was a case of watching it evolve.'

Jeffrey Lewis, an expert on nuclear proliferation at the New America Foundation in Washington, said it was surprising from the photos how little progress had been made at the site between 2003 and 2007.

But Mr. Lewis said it was ironic that Syria might have been trying to build a nuclear program just as the United States was invading Iraq in the fear that Iraq was developing nuclear arms.

William J. Broad reported from New York, and Mark Mazzetti from Washington.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/27/world/middleeast/27syria.html?_r=1&oref=slogin


Report: Air Force Destroyed Syrian Nuclear Reactor

by Ezra HaLevi


(IsraelNN.com) Israel’s September 6th operation in Syria, shrouded in mystery and surrounded by rumors, was the destruction of a nuclear reactor that was being built, the New York Times reports Sunday.

Citing unnamed “American and foreign officials with access to the intelligence reports,” the Times writes, “Israel carried out the raid to demonstrate its determination to snuff out even a nascent nuclear project in a neighboring state” – a reference to Iran.

According to the report, Bush administration officials were divided about the strike, believing the attack was premature, as the facility would not have been operational for years.

The Times also confirmed that Israel proved to the US that North Korea assisted Syria in its nuclear program. The British press reported early on that elite Israeli reconnaissance forces, dressed as Syrian military, gathered nuclear materials as evidence, prior to the strike.

“North Korea has long provided assistance to Syria on a ballistic missile program, but any assistance toward the construction of the reactor would have been the first clear evidence of ties between the two countries on a nuclear program,” the report says. “North Korea has successfully used its five-megawatt reactor at the Yongbyon nuclear complex to reprocess nuclear fuel into bomb-grade material, a model that some American and Israeli officials believe Syria may have been trying to replicate.

“In apparent confirmation that Israel was right when it said that North Korea had set up nuclear facilities in Syria, a high level North Korean delegation arrived in Syria Saturday for a visit. U.S. intelligence sources said that the delegation was visiting to inspect the facility destroyed in the Israeli raid last month.”

The report quotes an unnamed Israeli official saying the attack was meant to “re-establish the credibility of our deterrent power.”

The New York Times report is not accepted in all circles. Unnamed sources in the IDF say that Israel's northern enemy was about to launch a massive missile strike on Israel's populace, and the IDF's surprise invasion struck Syrian missile capability. Senior Syrian military figures were killed in the attack, according to the source.