Powerpoints of mass destruction

By Fester:

I am not sure if Cernig should be cooking a fine dinner of roasted crow just yet concerning the Box on the Euphrates that the Israelis bombed last year.  According to Agence France Presse the briefing to Congress does not contain a video of the interior of the Box before it was bombed.  Instead it is a video presentation that includes some still photos.  Basically the presentation will be a well prepared Powerpoint. 

A US official, requesting anonymity, told AFP: "There are still photographs of the facility as part of the video, but it's a video presentation, like a Powerpoint presentation. It's not a video of the facility."

The New York Times and The Washington Post, had earlier cited unnamed senior US officials saying a video showing North Koreans inside the Syrian reactor would be shown at the hearings

As BJ at Northman's Fury points out dripping this news out against both an honorary member of the Axis of Evil and a founding member of the club cripples any chance of diplomatic progress for the remainder of the term.  And this is seen as a good thing by certain neoconservative factions within the Administration.  But I want to focus on something a little bit different.

In 24 hours we have gone from certain confirmation of a clone of a North Korean reactor in the Syrian desert, to a clone with video evidence, to still photos gussied up to be made to look good, to Korean looking people were seen at the site, therefore it must be a nuclear site. 

Let me see if I can remember any other time this administration put on a great powerpoint to describe a serious nuclear, chemical and biological threat.  Ahhh yeah, the Colin Powell presentation to the United Nations where theoretically our best intelligence was presented.  We were shown indisputable visual evidence of WMD activity and presence in Iraq.

I think Cernig is giving too much credence to the Bush Administration when they only deserve pronounced skepticism on this topic. 

There is a strong internal incentive to lie and a demonstrated history in the run up to the Iraq War to deceive, mislead, and overstate objective favorable intelligence while downplaying any contradictory reports.  The Bush Administration had a reservoir of goodwill and credibility to draw upon the first time it wanted to hype a nuclear, chemical and biological weapons threat. 

That reservoir disappear to most observers by March 2003 when the UNMOVING and IA EA were finding nothing and asking for a little more time to verify that there was nothing of consequence in Iraq when Bush ordered them out to start the bombing.  It was empty for most people by the Fall of 2003 when the total sum of the WMD finds were a buried and rusted cache of 20 year old artillery shells sufficient for two minutes of fire by a single artillery battery and Botox. The only people who still should believe that Bush and his senior intelligence leadership is uniquely and unquestionably credible are those who believe that the WMDs were shipped to Syria five years ago. 

Right now we have an assertion by the Bush administration that the Box on the Euphrates was a reactor site.  We do not have proof by outside, credible and trusted third parties. 

Comments

[1MaNLan]

I was suspicious that this was just a Colin Powell redux as well and will consider this whole Syria nuke thing to be another case of royal BS that serves whatever agenda its intended to...until its proven to be otherwise, anyway. To approach it any other way just "wouldn't be prudent" at this point, given the individuals involved and their demonstrated pattern of obfuscation.

[BT]

NBC Nightly News has posted the entire video presentation. Have at it Cernig!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032619/#24300852

[Cernig]

Thanks, BT,

Watching it, I was struck by how much was asserted without evidence and by the way in which key claims were qualified as "probable". I've a probem with the post strike imagery too. It doesn't seem to shoe a collapsed curtain wall and reinforced core at all. Nor does it show any sign of the alleged fuel-rod floor, which should show up as a pattern of stippled shadows in the center. It's far from slam dunk.

Regards, C

[zenpundit]

What "it " was is a "sensitive" site that neither the Syrians nor the Israelis were particularly keen to be transparent about in the wake of the bombing.

The Bush administration has an obvious interest in playing up a security threat angle but Syria was up to something unusually shady at the site to be so exceptionally closedmouthed instead of trumpeting protests against "Israeli aggression". Nukes are a possibility but there are number of others that Israel might consider "targetable" that relate to terrorism.

If it had been an aspirin factory, Bashar Assad would be giving the MSM personal tours

[fester]

Zen -- completely agree with your comment that there was something interesting/shady that was or could have been occurring at the BoE. HOWEVER I have my reasons to be suspicious of anything coming out the Bush's administration's mouth when they say 'trust us' and 'trust our analysis that we can't show you our methods' Other possible and reasonable interpretations of that box include some type of Scud/IRBM production or enhancement facility, some type of CW/BW warhead production facility etc.

[Eric Martin]

Zen makes a good point, and the one that has stuck in my craw from the beginning. Syria sure is acting guilty about something.

[anderson]

b at MoA (via Arms Control Wonk) has a breakdown of the photos, many of which appear to be highly questionable. Of especial note is the claim -- now being broadcast almost everywhere -- that Koreans are visible "inside the facility."

Murdoch Times:

"a video taken inside the Syrian al-Kibar facility in which Korean faces were said to be visible."

The lies in that one passage are numerous:

A) There is no video.
B) There is no video "taken inside" anything, let along the facility in question.
C) the one photo taken of someone with a "Korean face" appears to have been doctored (see MoA link above).
D) The location of that photo is unknown, though it is asserted that the doctored photo was taken "in Syria" somewhere.

The whole thing reeks.

[anderson]

I would also say, that, yes, Syria's behaviour is suspicious. No doubt about that. But I'm inclined to stay with the story Sy Hersh fleshed out awhile ago.

[CKR]

Eric, it could be that Syria is acting guilty, or it could be that they would like (1) the Golan Heights back and (2) not to be bombed again by Israel.

On (1), at the time of the bombing, there was some movement toward negotiation, and (strangely?) there is now discussion on that point. Point (2) speaks for itself, when you have a country that feels it has a right to bomb its neighbors for any old pretext and not justify it to the international community.

I do think that it could also be that Syria was up to something they'd rather not see on the front page of the New York Times, but I don't see a way to eliminate the other two possibilities, or some combination of them.