Members of Congress will be briefed on Thursday about intelligence suggesting that North Korea was helping Syria build a nuclear reactor similar to one it has constructed north of Pyongyang, a U.S. government official said.
The Senate and House intelligence committees were scheduled to be briefed Thursday, and several other panels, including the Senate Armed Services Committee, were expected to be briefed as well, the AP reported.
The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that U.S. intelligence officials will tell the committees that North Korea was helping Syria build a plutonium-fueled reactor. Israeli warplanes bombed a site in Syria on Sept. 6, and private analysts said the targeted area may have been the site of a reactor, based on commercial satellite imagery taken after the raid. The site later was razed.
According to the LA Times newspaper, the CIA officials will tell American lawmakers that they believe the reactor would have been capable of producing plutonium for nuclear weapons but was destroyed before it could do so. One senior administration official said the briefing Thursday was scheduled because intelligence agencies had been deluged for months with congressional requests for information about North Korean activity in Syria and the Israeli airstrike, and they believed the time was right to brief lawmakers.
© 2008 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
