Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal broke the story concerning today’s House Intelligence Committee session and briefing by the CIA on who and what was at the nuclear bomb making facility in Syria that IAF planes took out on September 6th, last year. The raid was opposed by Secretary Rice according to a Times on-line report on October 7, 2007, because in was in the face of a critical point in discussions with the North Korea on a deal to have them shut down their nuclear enrichment facilities. These intelligence disclosures derived from a video by an Israeli intelligence ‘mole’ have raised suspicions among some quarter of the US Congress that the North Koreans were not being forthcoming about where the nuclear enrichment technology was being ‘transferred”.

A Los Angeles Times report on these rapidly unfolding events in Washington, today gave credit to House Intelligence Committee ranking minority member, Rep. Peter Hoekstra of Michigan and why Capitol Hill solons may demur from today’s briefing in this comment:

The faces on the video, according to an MSNBC report based on a story by Washington Post writer Robin Wright are definitely Korean and the video clearly has views of a plutonium enrichment facility based on a North Korean design.

Witness this comment in the MSNBC report:

And yet, Wright of the Washington Post, a quasi member of the ‘Shadow Warrior’ journalism set in our nation’s capital, ‘pooh-pooh’s the evidence with this comment from a former UN weapons inspector, David Albright.

David Albright, president of Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) and a former U.N. weapons inspector, said the absence of such evidence warrants skepticism that the reactor was part of an active weapons program.
“The United States and Israel have not identified any Syrian plutonium separation facilities or nuclear weaponization facilities,” he said. “The lack of any such facilities gives little confidence that the reactor is part of an active nuclear weapons program. The apparent lack of fuel, either imported or indigenously produced, also is curious and lowers confidence that Syria has a nuclear weapons program.”

Meanwhile the Syrian Ambassador in Washington raises the ploy that it is analogous to the WMD ‘disclosures’ in Iraq.
Syrian Ambassador Imad Moustapha yesterday angrily denounced the U.S. and Israeli assertions. “If they show a video, remember that the U.S. went to the U.N. Security Council and displayed evidence and images about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. I hope the American people will not be as gullible this time around,” he said.

Funny, as the Syrians we now know secreted some of the more terrifying CBW technology in Syria and Lebanon.
According to this FoxNews report, the Administration purposefully delayed the House Intelligence Committee briefing to ‘cleanse’ the information and not hobble the delicate negotiations with the North Koreans. Witness this comment:

When asked why more members were not briefed sooner, the official explained that the information from multiple sources needed to be scrubbed carefully over time to examine all “alternative explanations.”

There also were concerns that the revelations, if leaked or made public too soon, could encourage opponents of the administration’s attempts to negotiate an end to North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. U.S. diplomats are pressing North Korea to come clean about its nuclear cooperation with Syria as part of those talks but have had little success.
The fallout from today’s House Intelligence could impact on a series of meetings in the Oval office, beginning today with Palestinian President Abbas and with King Abdullah II of Jordan, seeking more assurances about US support for a faltering peace process for a “shelf agreement” between the Israelis and what passes for the Palestinian Authority:
At the same time, Middle East experts in the administration are worried that the timing of the briefing might upstage visits to Washington this week by Jordanian King Abdullah II and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and hurt Arab-Israeli peace prospects with allegations of nefarious activity by an Arab nation with the aid of North Korea, the official said.

In Jerusalem, there is further uproar connected to today’s Washington ‘proceedings’. It has to do with Israeli PM Olmert’s allege plan to give back the Golan to Syria in exchange for ‘curbing terrorists’. Israel National News reported, today, that Knesset politicians in the Olmert’s own Kadima party are calling for a national referendum. Either way, as I had written last summer in an article entitled “The Truth About Syria: The Islamo Mafia State Triumphant,”young reckless Assad couldn’t care less. Assad and his Ba’athist henchmen doesn’t need nor want the Golan, he has other ‘fish to fry’ in milking Lebanon of billions.

As Syrian bio-warfare expert, Dr. Jill Dekker comment in an email earlier today warned us not to trust the Syrians as did John Bolton as far back as 2002:

Again, they are underestimating and ignoring the advanced technology on WMD that Syria posses.–Bolton warned of this in 2002!

Today’s Wall Street Journal Review and Outlook had this trenchant comment on these dizzying developments:

So, Israel had to risk war with Syria to destroy a nuclear facility built with the help of lying North Koreans. But no worries, the U.S. says it can still trust North Korea to tell the truth about its current programs. This makes us wonder if the unofficial U.S. nonproliferation policy is to have Israel bomb every plutonium facility that the North Koreans decide to sell.
If a Democratic President were pursuing the Bush Administration’s North Korean diplomacy, Republicans would hoot him out of town. Mr. Bush should beware of diplomats dangling “legacies” before him. Otherwise, his real legacy on North Korea may be turning nuclear nonproliferation into a global farce.