Posted on 10/14/2007 8:47:40 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
Analysts Find Israel Struck a Nuclear Project Inside Syria
By DAVID E. SANGER and MARK MAZZETTI
WASHINGTON, Oct. 13 — Israel’s air attack on Syria last month was directed against a site that Israeli and American intelligence analysts judged was a partly constructed nuclear reactor, apparently modeled on one North Korea has used to create its stockpile of nuclear weapons fuel, according to American and foreign officials with access to the intelligence reports.
The description of the target addresses one of the central mysteries surrounding the Sept. 6 attack, and suggests that Israel carried out the raid to demonstrate its determination to snuff out even a nascent nuclear project in a neighboring state. The Bush administration was divided at the time about the wisdom of Israel’s strike, American officials said, and some senior policy makers still regard the attack as premature.
The attack on the reactor project has echoes of an Israeli raid more than a quarter century ago, in 1981, when Israel destroyed the Osirak nuclear reactor in Iraq shortly before it was to have begun operating. That attack was officially condemned by the Reagan administration, though Israelis consider it among their military’s finest moments. In the weeks before the Iraq war, Bush administration officials said they believed that the attack set back Iraq’s nuclear ambitions by many years.
By contrast, the facility that the Israelis struck in Syria appears to have been much further from completion, the American and foreign officials said. They said it would have been years before the Syrians could have used the reactor to produce the spent nuclear fuel that could, through a series of additional steps, be reprocessed into bomb-grade plutonium.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Ping!
American Liberals including DC Congressional Liberals must be furious that Israel struck one of their allies. Pelosi and Reid must be outraged that Israel had the nerve to strike Syria one of Pelosi’s pals.
Report: IAF strike targeted partly finished nuclear reactor in Syria
Since I'm not gonna register, maybe someone could tell me if that bit about evidence was in the NYT's story.
but it was just for peaceful purposes! The evil Israelis are without mercy! Quick, call Nancypants!
This is a nice story and all, but frankly it does NOT explain how or why Nuclear materials were found at the site, which was the apparent primer for bombing it. If it was under construction, Nuclear materials would have no reason to be on a construction site. This story does not pass the smell test.
More stupid “garbage” from the NY times. The story is not “the target” but the fact that Syria’s air defenses were BLIND. Israel F-15 went across the country, pounded the target and went home and NOTHING HAPPENED TO THEM.
Iran has just spent billions buying the same air defense system from Russia.
What does that tell you about their defenses?
A partially built reactor in Syria was the perfect TEST RUN.
Syria having any kind of nuclear facility is an urgent threat in my mind. I thank Israel for taking it out now rather than later. The problem with waiting until later gives appeasers a chance to gain power and do nothing or even enable the enemy.
“Some senior policy makers still regard the attack as premature.”That statement leads me to ask:1)Was Israel supposed to wait until the reactor was crankin out weapons grade material? and 2)Who are these so called “senior policy expersts”?
“Some senior policy makers still regard the attack as premature.”That statement leads me to ask:1)Was Israel supposed to wait until the reactor was crankin out weapons grade material? and 2)Who are these so called “senior policy experts”?
Good point. Thanks.
If anyone in the GOP can find their GONADS, they need to expose Pelosi for the moronic, anti-American, anti-military disgrace that she is along with her like-minded cohorts.
The state department is full of lefty career officials. The problem is they usually get the Republican secretaries of state over to their way of thinking.
The reactor was probably very close to being operational and therefore was near being loaded with uranium fuel. However, it takes years of operation for an operating reactor to breed enough plutonium for a bomb and then another year or two to separate the plutonium from the spent fuel.
You can of course make a bomb from highly enriched uranium but it is much more difficult and is probably beyond the expertise of jihadi states to produce a bomb made from uranium which is why they prefer Pu.
“Who are these so called “senior policy expersts”?”
State Department, no doubt.
The Clinton’s were particularly concerned about a preemptive strike on Al Queda sponsor states in the nineties and did nothing; result 9-11. Israel can’t wait till the nukes go off, they have nowhere to run to, nowhere to hide.
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