Syria has granted the International Atomic Energy Agency permission to inspect the site bombed by Israel last September. Word has since leaked out that the site contained a North Korean designed nuclear reactor:
Syria will allow in U.N. inspectors to probe allegations that the country was building a nuclear reactor at a remote site destroyed in an Israeli airstrike, the International Atomic Energy Agency said Monday.
IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei did not say whether his inspectors would be granted access to the site during the planned June 22-24 visit. But a senior diplomat familiar with the details of the planned visit said agency personnel had been told they could visit the facility. The diplomat spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
The building was flattened by Israel in September. Neither the United States nor Israel gave the IAEA information about the site until late April, about a year after they obtained what they considered to be decisive intelligence: dozens of photographs from a handheld camera that showed both the interior and exterior of the compound in Syria's eastern desert.
Since that time, Syria had not reacted to repeated agency requests for a visit to check out the allegations, using the interval to erect another structure over the site - a move that heightened suspicions of a possible cover-up.
This is all for show, of course, since our satellites caught the Syrians cleaning up the site in the aftermath of the bombing. it's not likely there is much left for ElBaradei and his nuclear enablers to find that would be incriminating.
We've been down this road before with Iran and the IAEA; first comes denial, then comes the invitation to inspect (after they've had time to scrub the site), then comes praise from ElBaradei for the apparent cooperation, then the inspectors find nothing and the country - Syria in this case - is given a clean bill of nuclear health.
Why we continue to go through this charade is beyond me.
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