Yourish.com

via memeorandumInvestigative reporter, Seymour “Sy” Hersh has an exclusive for the New Yorker, “A strike in the dark,” alleging that Israel didn’t really know what the nature of the facility it bombed last September in Syria was. (As is the nature of the New Yorker, the article appears in its “Fact” section, even though the nature of the essay is highly speculative.)

The only solid piece of evidence he seems to present against the idea that the structure was possibly nuclear is what he writes about the ship Al Hamed, that reportedly offloaded cement at the Syrian port of Tartous a few days before Israel bombed the Syria site.

But there is evidence that the Al Hamed could not have been carrying sensitive cargo—or any cargo—from North Korea. International shipping is carefully monitored by Lloyd’s Marine Intelligence Unit, which relies on a network of agents as well as on port logs and other records. In addition, most merchant ships are now required to operate a transponder device called an A.I.S., for automatic identification system. This device, which was on board the Al Hamed, works in a manner similar to a transponder on a commercial aircraft—beaming a constant, very high-frequency position report. (The U.S. Navy monitors international sea traffic with the aid of dedicated satellites, at a secret facility in suburban Washington.)According to Marine Intelligence Unit records, the Al Hamed, which was built in 1965, had been operating for years in the eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea, with no indication of any recent visits to North Korea. The records show that the Al Hamed arrived at Tartus on September 3rd—the ship’s fifth visit to Syria in five months. (It was one of eight ships that arrived that day; although it is possible that one of the others was carrying illicit materials, only the Al Hamed has been named in the media.) The ship’s registry was constantly changing. The Al Hamed flew the South Korean flag before switching to North Korea in November of 2005, and then to Comoros. (Ships often fly flags of convenience, registering with different countries, in many cases to avoid taxes or onerous regulations.) At the time of the bombing, according to Lloyd’s, it was flying a Comoran flag and was owned by four Syrian nationals. In earlier years, under other owners, the ship seems to have operated under Russian, Estonian, Turkish, and Honduran flags. Lloyd’s records show that the ship had apparently not passed through the Suez Canal—the main route from the Mediterranean to the Far East—since at least 1998.

This is very slick, but thanks to Captain’s Quarters, who links to a Telegraph story, that last assertion is highly suspect. The Telegraph reported:

Since leaving Tartous, one of Syria’s main ports on the Mediterranean, the ship’s trace has disappeared and it is not known whether western intelligence agencies are tracking the vessel.”I became suspicious after the first reports from Syria about the attack so I traced all traffic into Syrian ports in the days prior to the incident,” Mr Solomon said.

“There were five ships but the interesting one was the one with a connection to North Korea – the Al Hamed.”

He said he cross-referred to other maritime databases to establish the ship was not a regular visitor to the Mediterranean but had come through the Suez Canal in late June. (emphasis mine)

It had registered itself for the Suez transit as a South Korean vessel but Mr Solomon said this was standard procedure for North Korean ships seeking to avoid international constraints on North Korea.

Mr. Solomon, is Ronen Solomon, an Israeli who tracked the movements of the ship, Al Hamed until he lost track of it sometime after it left Tartous. In other words, any possibly incriminating evidence that might have been aboard the ship was gone. Also, Solomon established, contrary to Hersh, that the ship had indeed passed through the Suez.

But even without this contradiction, Hersh’s report doesn’t seem to support his basic claim. For one thing he makes much of the Israeli silence after the bombing, but he doesn’t even bring up the fact that North Korea protested the Israeli raid. He acknowledges the presence of North Korean workers but dismisses the importance of their presence in Syria, attributing it to a military agreement between the two countries.

In fact that’s how Hersh builds his case. He emphasizes the sources who agree with his conclusion and dismisses those who disagree.

Here’s another bit from Hersh.

It is unclear to what extent the Bush Administration was involved in the Israeli attack. The most detailed report of coöperation was made in mid-October by ABC News. Citing a senior U.S. official, the network reported that Israel had shared intelligence with the United States and received satellite help and targeting information in response. At one point, it was reported, the Bush Administration considered attacking Syria itself, but rejected that option. The implication was that the Israeli intelligence about the nuclear threat had been vetted by the U.S., and had been found to be convincing.

Indeed there was an ABC report in mid-October that includes all of the information that Hersh included. But it included an even bigger bombshell.

A senior U.S. official told ABC News the Israelis first discovered a suspected Syrian nuclear facility early in the summer, and the Mossad  Israel’s intelligence agency  managed to either co-opt one of the facility’s workers or to insert a spy posing as an employee.As a result, the Israelis obtained many detailed pictures of the facility from the ground.

The official said the suspected nuclear facility was approximately 100 miles from the Iraqi border, deep in the desert along the Euphrates River. It was a place, the official said, “where no one would ever go unless you had a reason to go there.”

But the hardest evidence of all was the photographs.

The official described the pictures as showing a big cylindrical structure, with very thick walls all well-reinforced. The photos show rebar hanging out of the cement used to reinforce the structure, which was still under construction.

There was also a secondary structure and a pump station, with trucks around it. But there was no fissionable material found because the facility was not yet operating.

The official said there was a larger structure just north of a small pump station; a nuclear reactor would need a constant source of water to keep it cool.

The official said the facility was a North Korean design in its construction, the technology present and the ability to put it all together.

It was North Korean “expertise,” said the official, meaning the Syrians must have had “human” help from North Korea.

Now how did Hersh miss this? This is a claim that Israel knew that the building was a reactor of North Korean design because they had pictures taken by a spy in the facility. Did Hersh just go to page 2 of the ABC report and skip the first page?

I can’t speak to the veracity of this report, I have no way of judging it. Hersh doesn’t even address it! It would be one thing if the report of the Israeli spy appeared in some other source that Hersh cited, but this claim that directly contradicts his conjecture appears in the very same article that he cites and he doesn’t even challenge it.

One of the biggest problems with this story, is that he builds up Dr. David Albright, an independent expert who believes the building bombed by the Israelis was indeed the beginning of a nuclear facility. Only once does Hersh challenge Albright, except to parse a later statement of Albright’s and conclude that Albright wasn’t as certain about his identification of the facility.

The challenge comes from the IAEA, who seemed like they’d have trouble identifying the noses on their respective faces and led by a man who considers Assad his “brother.” I can’t say that the credibility or independence of the IAEA ranks higher with me than Albright does.

I know that Hersh is hailed as an investigative reporter. But in this case he doesn’t seem to have come up with any big scoop. Instead he selectively used sources to emphasize his conclusions. Sure there was some investigation involved, but for all his work there’s not much of conclusion there. I could have speculated just as effectively as he did. Is there such a thing as a speculative reporter?

Noah Pollak was skeptical about Hersh’s big scoop, with good reason

Crossposted at Soccer Dad.