by CKR
I have persuaded my colleague MC to expound on why that site in Syria might not have been run by the Syrian government. There is an additional point to be made, as well.
It seems to me that the publicly available facts on the site and on the Israeli raid are as consistent with this hypothesis as with the hypothesis that the site was run by the Syrian government; perhaps more so in places. As I noted about the ISIS report, alternative hypotheses need to be considered in interpreting overhead photos, and, indeed, what informants may provide.
So let’s assume that the installation was a reactor or somesuch producer of dangerous materials. But let’s consider that those constructing it were from a subnational group. Here are my colleague’s reasons, with one of mine thrown in with her permission.
Syria did not anticipate the attack. Syria did not condemn the attack. Syria has not come up with a story line to explain what was going on at al Kibar. A government most likely would have a cover story ready in case the enterprise was discovered. Some in the Syrian government may have known about it or even participated in it, but most likely not in an official capacity.
There seems to have been little or no tracking of this area by satellite. One of the signatures that would draw attention would have been movement of Syrian government traffic. Apparently there was little such movement.
A subnational group would spend and implement the minimal amount needed to get to their goal. They would not spend on security because it would be less added-value and more added-headaches in terms of bringing more people (who might be tracked, who might leak) into a top secret venture. They would not spend a huge amount of money burying a facility underground if their goal was to create enough nuclear material for a handful of weapons.
There is little concern in the facility design for the health of their workers (by having a shorter stack, for one example) which may indicate that the builders didn’t plan to be there long.
A government behaves in certain predictable ways, including putting up fences and guard stations to protect from the curious and for simple bureaucratic routine. How far outside its routine and bureaucratic comfort zone can a government go, even to protect against detection?
Being unaware of such an enterprise would be a major embarrassment to any government. That embarrassment, along with the desire to make the site unavailable to other free-lancers, would account for the rapid and complete clearing of the site by the Syrian government.
I think that this hypothesis is also persuasive with regard to the way the incident has played out internationally. I’ll try to post on that later.