Alleged reactor could have armed weapons: Hayden

CIA Director Michael Hayden said on Monday the alleged Syrian nuclear reactor destroyed by an Israeli airstrike in September would have produced enough plutonium for one or two bombs within a year of becoming operational.

US intelligence and administration officials publicly disclosed last week their assessment that Syria was building a covert nuclear reactor with North Korean assistance.

They said the alleged reactor was modeled on the shuttered North Korean facility at Yongbyon, which produced a small amount of plutonium, and was within weeks or months of being operational.

“In the course of a year after they got full up they would have produced enough plutonium for one or two weapons,” Hayden told reporters after a speech at Georgetown University.

Neither the US nor Israel told the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) about the Syrian site until last week, about a year after they obtained what they considered to be decisive intelligence.

The intelligence included dozens of photographs from a handheld camera that showed both the interior and exterior of the mysterious compound located in Syria’s eastern desert.

From the CIA’s perspective, that intelligence was not the US’ to share with the UN nuclear watchdog, Hayden said.

“We’ve made it clear we did not have complete control over the totality of the information because obviously it was the result of a team effort,” he said.

“One has to respect the origin of the information in terms of how it is used,” Hayden said.

The head of the UN nuclear watchdog agency chastised the US on Friday for withholding information on the alleged Syrian reactor.

One of the IAEA’s missions is to try to prevent nuclear proliferation and it depends on member states for information to carry out that task.

A senior administration official told reporters last week that the US kept the information secret after the Israeli strike because it feared that revealing it might provoke Syria to strike back at Israel.