Connecting the Dots of North Korean Nuclear Proliferation

Last week an Israeli strike on Syria that destroyed nuclear material acquired from North Korea were first reported.  Now the likelihood of this story has grown substantially with more details of the strike becoming known:

IT was just after midnight when the 69th Squadron of Israeli F15Is crossed the Syrian coast-line. On the ground, Syria’s formidable air defences went dead. An audacious raid on a Syrian target 50 miles from the Iraqi border was under way.

At a rendezvous point on the ground, a Shaldag air force commando team was waiting to direct their laser beams at the target for the approaching jets. The team had arrived a day earlier, taking up position near a large underground depot. Soon the bunkers were in flames.

Ten days after the jets reached home, their mission was the focus of intense speculation this weekend amid claims that Israel believed it had destroyed a cache of nuclear materials from North Korea. [Uzi Mahnaimi, Sarah Baxter, and Michael Sheridan, Times of London]

You have to read this entire article because it offers fascinating details about the Israeli strike and the Syrian acquisition of North Korean nuclear technology.  The article claims the strike happened 50 miles up the Euphrates River from Iraq.  I went ahead and scouted 50 miles up the Euphrates River using Google Earth.  The line below represents exactly 50 miles up the Euphrates River from the Syrian-Iraqi border:

Here is a close up of the area:

If you look around the area you can find a few structures along the hill sides such as this that is similar to nuclear sites found in Iran that the North Koreans have been working on:

Google Earth has detailed imagery of the Iranian nuclear sites but since I can’t get the same level of clarity over Syria it makes it difficult to narrow down possible nuclear sites.  Fellow amateur imagery analysts out there feel free to look around and see if you can locate the Syrian nuclear site.  

Anyway beside the details of the strike, here is what I found most interesting in the Times article:

An expert on the Middle East, who has spoken to Israeli participants in the raid, told yesterday’s Washington Post that the timing of the raid on September 6 appeared to be linked to the arrival three days earlier of a ship carrying North Korean material labelled as cement but suspected of concealing nuclear equipment.

Why do I find this interesting?  Well because back in August look what South Korea sent to North Korea:

"North Korea is having difficulties recovering from the floods because of the shortage of construction equipment and materials," he said at a briefing.

Ministers had decided to send cement, iron bars, trucks, fuel and road restoration equipment to North Korea at the earliest possible time, he said.

On Thursday, South Korea delivered its first consignment of emergency relief aid to its northern neighbour. [BBC]

North Korea so desperately needs cement for reconstruction from the floods yet they send a ship loaded with concrete to Syria?  Was the cement sent to North Korea in August by South Korea the same cement popping up in Syria in September?  Also was this cement intended to make the same type of tunnels and bunker systems that the North Koreans have been making for the Iranians?  I maintained last month that the North Koreans were playing up the flood damage for increased aid for a reason and now we may have found what that reason is. 

I just have to wonder if that boat loaded with cement disguising North Korean nuclear materials was in fact South Korean cement does that make Seoul complicit in nuclear proliferation?  This is the result that unconditional and unmonitored aid to North Korea has resulted in for the South Korean government, being accomplices to nuclear proliferation. 

This story is gaining enough traction that even the US State Department has come out on the record claiming it is possible that Syria acquired nuclear material:

Andrew Semmel, a senior US State Department official, said Syria might have obtained nuclear equipment from “secret suppliers”, and added that there were a “number of foreign technicians” in the country.

Asked if they could be North Korean, he replied: “There are North Korean people there. There’s no question about that.” He said a network run by AQ Khan, the disgraced creator of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons, could be involved.

This is a huge admission considering the State Department tends to not want to offend anyone in the name of diplomacy.  The audacity of the Syrians and the North Koreans to pull off such a proliferation stunt just goes to show that these two countries think that President Bush is so politically weak that he would take no action against them if found out.  Such arrogance may end up being the down fall of these two nations. 

If it is proven that North Korea has proliferated nuclear technology severe consequences should be enacted.  Hasn’t the US given Kim Jong-il enough rope to hang himself with?  If this doesn’t justify a naval blockade of North Korea and inspections of all cargo than I don’t know what will.