Prior to last week’s unveiling of the photos, U.S. and Israeli officials had refused to discuss publicly the September 2007 raid. Even now, U.S. officials acknowledge that they’re still withholding key information about the provenance of the photos in order to protect sources and methods. But according to one senior intelligence official, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity, the “handheld” photos taken from inside the reactor were gathered “over a period of time,” indicating that whoever took them was somehow able to breach the building’s inner sanctum on a consistent basis. Among the few photos released to the media: a shot of a fuel-rod system whose design closely resembled the one at North Korea’s Yongbyon plutonium plant.
Intelligence officials briefed select congressional leaders on the Syrian plant after the Israeli bombing raid. At a media briefing last week, a senior official said that the administration decided to keep the public—and the full membership of congressional intel committees—in the dark at Israel’s request, and to avoid provoking Syrian retaliation. Pundits speculated that the timing of the North Korea-Syria disclosures hint at a plot by marginalized administration hardliners, such as Vice President Dick Cheney, to sabotage the nuclear-disarmament deal. But two current U.S. officials said that, in fact, the disclosures are part of a well-crafted diplomatic strategy to nudge Syria toward peace with Israel and to pressure North Korea to disclose its nuclear-proliferation activities. One of the officials told NEWSWEEK that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice briefed Chinese officials about the Syrian reactor project late last year. After examining the evidence, the official said, Beijing agreed to toughen its stance toward Kim Jong Il’s regime.
