(1)
When Israel bombed an alleged nuclear facility in Syria in September 2007, everyone concerned kept their lips firmly sealed. There was not an official peep out of either Israel or the U.S. Nobody even confirmed that a bombing had taken place, much less what was bombed or why. Even Syria kept silent.

The Bush administration has not commented on the Israeli raid or the underlying intelligence. …
[...]
Unlike its destruction of an Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981, Israel made no announcement of the recent raid and imposed strict censorship on reporting by the Israeli media. Syria made only muted protests, and Arab leaders have remained silent. As a result, a daring and apparently successful attack to eliminate a potential nuclear threat has been shrouded in mystery.

Then suddenly this week, for reasons that are not entirely clear (anybody have a clue?), the Bush administration decided to break radio silence. They bragged about the raid and our role in it to the press. And they promised to brag about it to Congress, complete with show-and-tell:

A video taken inside a secret Syrian facility last summer convinced the Israeli government and the Bush administration that North Korea was helping to construct a reactor similar to one that produces plutonium for North Korea’s nuclear arsenal, according to senior U.S. officials who said it would be shared with lawmakers today.

The officials said the video of the remote site, code-named Al Kibar by the Syrians, shows North Koreans inside. It played a pivotal role in Israel’s decision to bomb the facility late at night last Sept. 6, a move that was publicly denounced by Damascus but not by Washington.

Sources familiar with the video say it also shows that the Syrian reactor core’s design is the same as that of the North Korean reactor at Yongbyon, including a virtually identical configuration and number of holes for fuel rods. It shows “remarkable resemblances inside and out to Yongbyon,” a U.S. intelligence official said. A nuclear weapons specialist called the video “very, very damning.”

“A video taken inside a secret Syrian facility”! Boy, exciting stuff!

Syria, of course, reacted predictably:

Syrian Ambassador Imad Moustapha yesterday angrily denounced the U.S. and Israeli assertions. “If they show a video, remember that the U.S. went to the U.N. Security Council and displayed evidence and images about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. I hope the American people will not be as gullible this time around,” he said.

Can’t blame them. The unfortunate legacy of Colin Powell is that we have left ourselves open to that kind of thing for a good long time.

And then a funny thing happened. There was a loud clash of cymbals, and that video evaporated:

“In regards to a videotape, I’ll let the intelligence community talk about that,” said Perino, in reference to news reports about the centerpiece of the briefings.

A US official, requesting anonymity, told AFP: “There are still photographs of the facility as part of the video, but it’s a video presentation, like a Powerpoint presentation. It’s not a video of the facility.”

Even Dana Perino decided she couldn’t spin this one?

Okay, so the “video taken inside a secret Syrian facility” turned out to be “a video presentation that includes photographs of the facility”. What about those North Koreans the video was supposed to show inside the Syrian facility? Funny we should ask:

A U.S. official, who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to discuss classified matters, said that among the intelligence the United States has was an image of what appeared to be people of Korean descent at the facility.

Oh, we have one image of what appear to be people of Korean descent? Nice work, guys. (The last quote was taken from a Reuters story that has since been surreptitiously edited to remove this sentence, that is to say: without any acknowledgment of a revision or update.)

(2)
To be fair, it sounds like the Congressional show-and-tell may have been actually fairly compelling. Here’s how Reuters’ revised story reads:

The United States on Thursday released photographs of what it said was a Syrian nuclear reactor built with North Korean help, in an effort to pressure Pyongyang to fully disclose its nuclear activities.
[...]
In detailed briefings to U.S. lawmakers and reporters, U.S. officials produced before-and-after aerial photographs of the suspected reactor in eastern Syria as well as detailed interior images that they said showed key parts of its components.
[...]
One of the photographs presented to lawmakers and reporters showed what U.S. intelligence officials described as a senior North Korean nuclear expert standing side by side with a key Syrian atomic official inside Syria.

Why was it necessary to hype this by making wildly exaggerated claims? Does anybody in this administration have a clue? About anything?