El-Baradei: Saddam had "Huge Nuclear Program"

I continue not to know what it was the IAF bombed in Syria on September 6th. In spite of my usual conceit of knowing better than all the rest of you, on this, I must sheepishly admit, I don't. If you want to know what it was, you'd be better advised to go to the Washington Post; for this reason, Ruminations has not been much focused on the story.

Today the Washington Post indeed has another bit of information: apparently they've found some experts of such things who are sort of the opinion that perhaps there are aerial photographs of a place in Syria, roughly in the right area, that could perhaps be a nuclear reaction under construction, but then again who knows. So far, so unsatisfying.

What I found tickling was the last paragraph in the report. El Baradei, he of the International Atomic Energy Agency (and, you might want to be reminded, another Nobel Peace Prize laureate), asked for his opinion on the new slant, deplored the whole event obviously ( 'If any of you has the slightest information showing that there was anything linked to nuclear, we would of course be happy to investigate it,'). Then he went on to tell how Israel's attack on the Iraqi reactor in 1981 was the reason Saddam moved his "huge nuclear program" underground:

"When the Israelis destroyed Saddam Hussein's research nuclear reactor in 1981, the consequence was that Saddam Hussein pursued his program secretly. He began to establish a huge military nuclear program underground," he said. "The use of force can set things back, but it does not deal with the roots of the problem."

Huh? Care to run that by me again?