The disclosure Tuesday, Nov. 1, by the International Atomic Energy Agency - that a spinning factor built in the northeastern Syrian town of Hasaka in 2003 was in fact designed for developing nuclear weapons from enriched uranium - had a purpose: It was intended to crowd Bashar Assad into talking to the leaders of the revolt against him instead of slaughtering them. debkafile's intelligence sources report that Syria procured the enriched uranium and equipment for the plant from Iraq when its ruler Saddam Hussein in early March 2003 when he decided to dispose of the bulk of his nuclear plant and weapons of mass destruction by spiriting them out to Syria, then his closest ally.