Official defends US monitoring of Syrian site.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A senior intelligence official on Thursday defended U.S. efforts to monitor an alleged Syrian nuclear facility that the U.S. says was built with North Korean help.

Joseph DeTrani, the national intelligence director's mission manager for North Korea, said U.S. intelligence had been watching the reactor very closely and for a number of years.

''This was not a failure,'' he told an audience at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank. ''Action was taken when it was going operational, and they are now out of business.''

Read more