Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad must be pleased at how, within a week, the conversation has shifted from his regime’s alleged use of chemical weapons to an international peace conference on Syria’s civil war.
The idea of ending the bloodshed -- and presumably addressing Syria’s chemical weapons as well -- through an accord similar to that of post-Arab Spring Yemen is certainly worth exploring. Let’s hope Assad’s foreign patron, Russia, has altered its stance enough to make some sort of deal feasible.
The conference, however, cannot become an excuse to sweep the chemical weapons issue under the rug, not to mention the deaths of more than 80,000 in the civil war.… Seguir leyendo »
Bob Woodward wrote a curious op-ed this week about the Bush administration’s response to the secret al-Kibar nuclear reactor built by Syria and North Korea. As officials who participated in the administration’s deliberations, we believe that Woodward’s account — and that of the anonymous sources who gave him background information — represents a revisionist and misleading history. Woodward’s op-ed purports to demonstrate that then-Vice President Dick Cheney, who advocated a U.S. strike to destroy the Syrian reactor, failed to learn important lessons from intelligence failures in Iraq. In fact, it is Woodward who misunderstands the reality of al-Kibar.
First, Woodward’s account of the intelligence about Syria’s nuclear program is woefully incomplete.… Seguir leyendo »
A key lesson of the 9/11 decade for presidents and other national security decision makers is the importance of rigorously testing intelligence evidence: poking holes in it, setting out contradictions, figuring out what may have been overlooked or left out. It is essential to distinguish between hard facts and what is an assessment or judgment.
The so-called slam-dunk case that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction illustrates the failure. If anyone should have learned this, it is former president George W. Bush and former vice president Dick Cheney.
Yet in his new memoir, “In My Time,” Cheney shows he has not fully absorbed that lesson when he writes about the administration’s response to the 2007 discovery of a nuclear reactor in Syria that the North Koreans had helped build.… Seguir leyendo »
“The Agency concludes that the destroyed building was very likely a nuclear reactor and should have been declared by Syria” according to the safeguards agreement.
So writes the International Atomic Energy Agency’s director general, Yukiya Amano, in his May 24, 2011 report to the I.A.E.A. board of governors about the installation the Israeli Air Force bombed in September 2007. Although he does not explicitly say so, Mr. Amano’s finding places Syria in violation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Three years in the making, the I.A.E.A. certainly cannot be accused of a rush to judgment.
Now comes the hard part: At its meeting next week, the I.A.E.A.… Seguir leyendo »
Claims that Syria may be developing nuclear weapons, possibly in collaboration with North Korea, look highly suspect. Officially, Israel is making no such assertion after its still unexplained air strike in northern Syria earlier this month. The nuclear spectre has been conjured largely by American officials, some of whom famously misdirected similar WMD allegations at Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq.
Even Syria's worst enemies have not previously counted it as a serious or current nuclear proliferation risk. President Bashar al-Assad's government is usually portrayed as too weak, too technically deficient, too poor - and perhaps too sensible - to mount such an effort.… Seguir leyendo »
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