Phantom North Korean Reactor Continues to Oblige
The possibility of a North Korean-supplied nuclear reactor keeps getting play in American papers, despite the lack of corroboration, Bush administration denials and concern about the ramifications on Six-Party talks, and plenty of other interesting revelations. Now, the LAT is amplifying the NYT's Sunday article, where unnamed American and foreign officials talked about hazy intelligence.
Many details remain unclear, most notably how much progress the Syrians had made in construction before the Israelis struck, the role of any assistance provided by North Korea, and whether the Syrians could make a plausible case that the reactor was intended to produce electricity. In Washington and Israel, information about the raid has been wrapped in extraordinary secrecy and restricted to just a handful of officials, while the Israeli press has been prohibited from publishing information about the attack.
The New York Times reported this week that a debate had begun within the Bush administration about whether the information secretly cited by Israel to justify its attack should be interpreted by the United States as reason to toughen its approach to Syria and North Korea. In later interviews, officials made clear that the disagreements within the administration began this summer, as a debate about whether an Israeli attack on the incomplete reactor was warranted then.
The officials did not say that the administration had ultimately opposed the Israeli strike, but that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates were particularly concerned about the ramifications of a pre-emptive strike in the absence of an urgent threat.
But, what does seem interesting is another theory about what Israel did to Syria's air defenses, and what continues to happen in Israel. After all, that the Bush administration's worst enemy is its own infighting is no secret.
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