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Washington: A suspected Syrian reactor bombed by Israel had the capacity to produce enough nuclear material to fuel one to two weapons a year, CIA Director Michael Hayden said on Tuesday.
Hayden said the plutonium reactor was within weeks or months of completion when it was destroyed in an air strike on September 6. Within a year of entering operation it could have produced enough material for at least one weapon.
"In the course of a year after they got full up, they would have produced enough plutonium for one or two weapons," Hayden told reporters after a speech.
The reactor was of a "similar size and technology" to North Korea's Yongbyon reactor, Hayden said, disputing speculation it was smaller than the Korean facility.
"We would estimate that the production rate there would be about the same as Yongbyon, which is about enough plutonium for one or two weapons per year," he said.
Hayden's comments were the first statement on the suspected reactor's capacity, and his first public remarks since the United States released photos of what it said was a secret nuclear reactor built with North Korean aid.
Syria repeated its flat denial of any nuclear bomb bid at the opening of two-week gathering in Geneva on the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
"We remind everyone of the falsifications the US made about mass destruction weapons in Iraq," Syrian Ambassador Faysal Hamoui told the meeting.
Syria has denied the US charges and accused Washington of involvement in the air attack by Israel.
A diplomat close to the UN nuclear watchdog and outside analysts have said the US disclosure did not amount to proof of an illicit arms programme because there was no sign of a reprocessing plant needed to convert spent fuel from the plant into bomb-grade plutonium.
The United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency has also criticised the United States for waiting until this month to share its intelligence. The delay complicates IAEA effort to confirm whether the facility was a plutonium reactor.
Hayden said the United States lacked the liberty earlier to pass on the intelligence, which he said was acquired in a "team effort." ABC News reported in October that Israel had obtained pictures of the Syrian complex from an apparent mole and showed them to the CIA.
"We did not have complete control of the totality of the information," Hayden said.
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