On Capitol Hill, the Bush administration has presented lawmakers with intelligence it says proves North Korea and Syria colluded on a nuclear facility that Israel bombed in September. A senior intelligence official said the US believed the site was nearing operational capability. But the Washington Post reports another senior official said US intelligence had formally declared only “low confidence” the site played a role in a Syrian nuclear program. The sole photograph publicly released of Syrian and North Korean officials does not appear to come from the site in question. Republican Congressmember Peter Hoekstra criticized the White House briefing.

Rep. Peter Hoekstra: “A trusting environment between the administration and Congress does not exist. I think many people believe that we were used today by the administration, not because they felt that they had to inform Congress because it was their legal obligation to do that, but because they had other agendas in mind. Remember, it is the legal responsibility of the administration to keep
Congress fully and currently informed on the issues that the administration is dealing with.”

Earlier this year, New Yorker correspondent Seymour Hersh reported there is no evidence the site was involved in nuclear weapons. Hersh said Israel did not know what it was targeting and was mainly hoping to send a message to Iran.