Former CIA Analyst and Weapons Expert Maja Lehnus on Thwarting Syria's Nuclear Program

Intelligence Matters

CBS News

(154991), News, Cbs, Politics, Government

4.6 • 3.3K Ratings

🗓️ 26 May 2021

⏱️ 39 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode of Intelligence Matters DECLASSIFIED: Spy Stories from the Officers Who Were There, former career CIA analyst and non-proliferation expert Maja Lehnus tells the story of one of the intelligence community’s most important discoveries of the last decade – a covert nuclear reactor in the Syrian desert, likely built with support from North Korea. Lehnus tells Morell how U.S. intelligence agencies first acquired intelligence indicating cooperation between North Korean nuclear entities and high-level Syrian officials, and ultimately presented intelligence to the President that the reactor was part of a Syrian nuclear weapons program. Lehnus explains the confidence levels attached to each of the IC’s judgments, as well as why the CIA took the rare step of sharing its findings with the public. Intelligence Matters DECLASSIFIED is a series dedicated to featuring first-hand accounts from former intelligence officers.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Intelligence Matters with former acting director of the CIA, Michael Morel.
0:06.6	Brought to you by Lockheed Martin.
0:08.6	Your mission is ours.
0:10.2	The story is about North Korea, Syria, and a nuclear reactor.
0:15.5	What did we see?
0:16.5	We acquired intelligence indicating cooperation between North Korean nuclear entities and
0:23.0	high-level Syrian officials.
0:25.0	This cooperation between North Korean nuclear personalities and entities and high-level
0:30.6	Syrian officials began probably as early as 1997.
0:36.2	We obtained some amazing handheld photos of the interior and exterior of a building
0:43.5	reportedly in the Derazor region of Syria.
0:46.7	We were able to conclude with high confidence that the handheld photos were of the same
0:51.2	building we'd previously identified on overhead imagery.
0:57.9	We had high confidence that this was a nuclear reactor designed to produce plutonium.
1:03.8	Before the reactor was loaded with nuclear fuel or operated, it was destroyed by an Israeli
1:08.8	strike operation outside the box.
1:16.8	Maya Linus was a career intelligence analyst focusing on foreign weapons developments and
1:22.4	their proliferation around the world.
1:25.2	She headed both the unit at CIA that does this work, as well as the National Accountor
1:30.1	Proliferation Center at the offices of the director of National Intelligence.
1:35.0	Maya just retired from the CIA and joins us today to talk about one of the great intelligence
1:39.8	success stories of the last 20 years.
	...

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