Keyser Soze and the Syrians

Yesterday, I noted satellite imagery showing what many suspect was a Syrian nuclear facility.

Well, it appears that the Syrians didn't like people seeing what they'd built there, and so they have dismantled it. It's quite strange that they'd go ahead and build something so large in such a remote location and then go about dismantling whatever was there, if it was benign.

That is yet another reason to believe that this was done because of what the Israelis did on September 6.

Two photos, taken Wednesday from space by rival companies, show the site near the Euphrates River to have been wiped clean since August, when imagery showed a tall square building there measuring about 150 feet on a side.

The Syrians reported an attack by Israel in early September; the Israelis have not confirmed that. Senior Syrian officials continue to deny that a nuclear reactor was under construction, insisting that Israel hit a largely empty military warehouse.

But the images, federal and private analysts say, suggest that the Syrian authorities rushed to dismantle the facility after the strike, calling it a tacit admission of guilt.

“It’s a magic act — here today, gone tomorrow,” said a senior intelligence official. “It doesn’t lower suspicions, it raises them. This was not a long-term decommissioning of a building, which can take a year. It was speedy. It’s incredible that they could have gone to that effort to make something go away.”

Any attempt by Syrian authorities to clean up the site would make it difficult, if not impossible, for international weapons inspectors to determine that exact nature of the activity there. Officials from the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna have said they hoped to analyze the satellite images and ultimately inspect the site in person. David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, a private group in Washington that released a report on the Syrian site earlier this week, said the expurgation of the building was inherently suspicious.

The speed with which the Syrians acted shows just how paranoid they were that someone might find the true intentions of what the Syrian thugs were up to there.

It also further confirms Israel's intentions in going after this facility. Syria was up to no good.