We came so close to World War Three that day (More Info)

A meticulously planned, brilliantly executed surgical strike by Israeli jets on a nuclear installation in Syria on 6 September may have saved the world from a devastating threat. The only problem is that no one outside a tight-lipped knot of top Israeli and American officials knows precisely what that threat involved. Even more curious is that far from pushing the Syrians and Israelis to war, both seem determined to put a lid on the affair. One month after the event, the absence of hard information leads inexorably to the conclusion that the implications must have been enormous.

That was confirmed to The Spectator by a very senior British ministerial source: ‘If people had known how close we came to world war three that day there’d have been mass panic. Never mind the floods or foot-and-mouth — Gordon really would have been dealing with the bloody Book of Revelation and Armageddon.’

According to American sources, Israeli intelligence tracked a North Korean vessel carrying a cargo of nuclear material labelled ‘cement’ as it travelled halfway across the world. On 3 September the ship docked at the Syrian port of Tartous and the Israelis continued following the cargo as it was transported to the small town of Dayr as Zawr, near the Turkish border in north-eastern Syria.

The destination was not a complete surprise. It had already been the subject of intense surveillance by an Israeli Ofek spy satellite, and within hours a band of elite Israeli commandos had secretly crossed into Syria and headed for the town. Soil samples and other material they collected there were returned to Israel. Sure enough, they indicated that the cargo was nuclear. Three days after the North Korean consignment arrived, the final phase of Operation Orchard was launched. With prior approval from Washington, Israeli F151 jets were scrambled and, minutes later, the installation and its newly arrived contents were destroyed.

So secret were the operational details of the mission that even the pilots who were assigned to provide air cover for the strike jets had not been briefed on it until they were airborne. In the event, they were not needed: built-in stealth technology and electronic warfare systems were sophisticated enough to ‘blind’ Syria’s Russian-made anti-aircraft systems.

What was in the consignment that led the Israelis to mount an attack which could easily have spiralled into an all-out regional war? It could not have been a transfer of chemical or biological weapons; Syria is already known to possess the most abundant stockpiles in the region. Nor could it have been missile delivery systems; Syria had previously acquired substantial quantities from North Korea. The only possible explanation is that the consignment was nuclear. The scale of the potential threat — and the intelligence methods that were used to follow the transfer — explain the dense mist of official secrecy that shrouds the event. There have been no official briefings, no winks or nudges, from any of the scores of people who must have been involved in the preparation, analysis, decision-making and execution of the operation. Even when Israelis now offer a firm ‘no comment’, it is strictly off the record. The secrecy is itself significant.

Israel is a small country. In some respects, it resembles an extended, if chaotic, family. Word gets around fast. Israelis have lived on the edge for so long they have become addicted to the news. Israel’s media is far too robust and its politicians far too leaky to allow secrets to remain secret for long. Even in the face of an increasingly archaic military censor, Israeli journalists have found ways to publish and, if necessary, be damned.

The only conceivable explanation for this unprecedented silence is that the event was so huge, and the implications for Israeli national security so great, that no one has dared break the rule of omertà. The Arab world has remained conspicuously — and significantly — silent. So, too, have American officials, who might have been expected to ramp up the incident as proof of their warnings about the dangers of rogue states and WMDs. The opposite is true. George Bush stonewalled persistent questions at a press conference last week with the blunt statement: ‘I’m not going to comment on the matter.’ Meanwhile the Americans have carried on dealing with the North Koreans as if nothing has changed.

The Syrian response, when it eventually came, was more forthcoming but no more helpful. First out of the blocks was Syria’s ambassador to the United Nations, Bashar Ja’afari, who happily announced that nothing had been bombed in Syria and nothing had been damaged. One week later, Syria’s Vice-President, Farouk a-Shara, agreed that there had, after all, been an attack — on the Arab Centre for the Studies (sic) of Arid Zones and Dry Lands (ACSAD). Brandishing a photograph of the Arab League-run plant, he declared triumphantly: ‘This is the picture, you can see it, and it proves that everything that was said about this attack was wrong.’ Well, perhaps not everything. The following day, ACSAD issued a statement denying that its centre had been targeted: ‘Leaks in the Zionist media concerning this ACSAD station are total inventions and lies,’ it thundered, adding that a tour of the centre was being organised for the media.

On Monday, Syria’s President, Bashar Assad, offered his first observations of the attack. The target, he told the BBC disingenuously, was an unused military building. And he followed that with vows to retaliate, ‘maybe politically, maybe in other ways’. Meanwhile, the Washington Post noted that the United States had accumulated a growing body of evidence over the past six months — and particularly in the month leading up to the attack — that North Korea was co-operating with Syria on developing a nuclear facility. The evidence, according to the paper, included ‘dramatic satellite imagery that led some US officials to believe the facility could be used to produce material for nuclear weapons’. Even within America’s intelligence community, access to that imagery was restricted to just a handful of individuals on the instructions of America’s National Security Adviser, Stephen Hadley.

Why are all sides so reluctant to clarify the details of this extraordinary event? ‘In the Middle East,’ noted Bret Stephens, a senior editorial executive at the Wall Street Journal and an acute observer of the region, ‘that only happens when the interests of prudence and the demands of shame happen to coincide’. He suggested that the ‘least unlikely’ explanation is a partial reprise of the Israeli air strike which destroyed Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981. Another of the ‘least unlikely’ possibilities is that Syria was planning to supply its terrorist clients with ‘dirty’ bombs, which would have threatened major cities through¬out the world. Terrorism is a growth industry in Syria and it is only natural that, emboldened by its Iranian ally, the Syrian regime should seek to remain the market leader by supplying the ultimate weapon to Hezbollah, Hamas and a plethora of Palestinian rejectionist groups who have been given house-room in Damascus.

The Syrians have good reason to up the ante now. The Alawite regime of Bashar Assad is facing a slew of tough questions in the coming months — most particularly over its alleged role in the murder of the former Lebanese leader, Rafiq Hariri, and its active support for the insurgency in Iraq. Either of these issues could threaten the survival of the regime. How tempting, then, to create a counter-threat that might cause Washington and others to pull their horns in — and perhaps even permit a limited Syrian return to Lebanon?

But that does not explain why the consignment was apparently too large to be sent by air. Look deeper and you find an array of other highly plausible explanations. The North Koreans, under intense international pressure, might have chosen to ‘park’ a significant stockpile of nuclear material in Syria in the expectation of retrieving it when the heat was off. They might also have outsourced part of their nuclear development programme — paying the Syrians to enrich their uranium — while an international team of experts continued inspecting and disabling North Korea’s own nuclear facilities. The shipment might even — and this is well within the ‘least unlikely’ explanations — have been intended to assist Syria’s own nuclear weapons programme, which has been on the cards since the mid-1980s.

Apart from averting the threat that was developing at Dayr as Zawr, Israel’s strategic position has been strengthened by the raid. Firstly, it has — as Major General Amos Yadlin, the head of Israel’s military intelligence, noted — ‘restored its deterrence’, which was damaged by its inept handling of the war in the Lebanon last year. Secondly, it has reminded Damascus that Israel knows what it is up to and is capable of striking anywhere within its territory. Equally, Iran has been put on notice that Israel will not tolerate any nuclear threat. Washington, too, has been reminded that Israel’s intelligence is often a better guide than its own in the region, a crucial point given the divisions between the Israeli and American intelligence assessments about the development of the Iranian bomb. Hezbollah, the Iranian/Syrian proxy force, has also been put on notice that the air-defence system it boasted would alter the strategic balance in the region is impotent in the face of Israeli technology.

Meanwhile, a senior Israeli analyst told us this week that the most disturbing aspect of the affair from a global perspective is the willingness of states to share their technologies and their weapons of mass destruction. ‘I do not believe that the former Soviet Union shared its WMD technology,’ he said. ‘And they were careful to limit the range of the Scud missiles they were prepared to sell. Since the end of the Cold War, though, we know the Russians significantly exceeded those limits when selling missile technology to Iran.’

But the floodgates were opened wide by the renegade Pakistan nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, who is revered in Pakistan as the Father of the Islamic Bomb. Khan established a virtual supermarket of nuclear technologies, parts and plans which operated for more than a decade on a global stage. After his operation was shut down in 2004, Khan admitted transferring technology and parts to Iran, Libya and North Korea. Proliferation experts are convinced they know the identities of at least three of his many other clients: Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Syria.

In addition to selling nuclear-related knowhow, the Khan network is also believed to have provided Syria with centrifuges for producing enriched uranium. In 2003, concern about Syria’s nuclear ambitions was heightened when an experimental American electronic eavesdropping device picked up distinctive signals indicating that the Syrians had not only acquired the centrifuges but were actually operating them. If Israel’s military strike on Dayr as Zawr last month was surgical, so, too, was its handling of the aftermath. The only certainty in the fog of cover-up is that something big happened on 6 September — something very big. At the very least, it illustrates that WMD and rogue states pose the single greatest threat to world peace. We may have escaped from this incident without war, but if Iran is allowed to continue down the nuclear path, it is hard to believe that we will be so lucky again.

Douglas Davis is a former senior editor of the Jerusalem Post and James Forsyth is online editor of The Spectator.

"I find it hard to believe that any bombing of such material would NOT result in some kind of release."

I know that it gets physicaly hotter the larger the volume unless seperated. And you can't expose uranium or plutonium metal to oxygen or it burns like thermite. Sort of like phosphorus, which isn't a metal.

Syria might have a whole bunch of holes burned into the ground permanantly that they can't hide. So everybody shuts up waiting for Syria to embarrass itself by complaining. Since they didn't complain, assume it was no other hardware than nuclear.

Also, the Israeli ECM crew has been onto their Russian air defense system before they bought it. The Syrians would have both their ends laughed at.

Iran is watching this. And they know Amidouchebag is too stupid to shut up. There was another general that defected recently.

(Sorry jetters, this isn’t specifically to you, but you summarized the discusion and made a convenient slot for my 2 cents)

1. Several people mention the lack of radioactivity detected from the strike. Could the target have been located in an underground bunker (5 or more stories below ground)? Could it have been hit by a mini-nuke penetrator? Would fall out escape from such an attack?

2. I would have to guess that a nuclear bomb could be destroyed by an explosion with out detonating the bomb. I thought that the timing and forces needed for a fusion reaction were critical (I doubt they have fission)

3. Wasn’t there a few stories about (a?) B-52(s?) armed with nukes in the air around the same time as this strike took place.

4. Weren’t the Russians buzzing England and the Vikings with Bears around this time? (To the ww3 angle)

5. To the post about this being only an exchange between two countries...Does any one really think that if the “jews” nuke a Muslim country, that every moderate to fundamental Muslim with a rock, rifle, or grenade woun’t head to the nearest market place.

Are you in the microwave engineering field? I am. I give the AF, Marines, Navy and Army good airborn radar components and they come back in about 6 months all beat up. Those AC/MC and airlift C-130s have the worst damaged parts. It's not easy repairing that stuff.

I want to go to Iraq and Afghan and talk to the pilots of these AC to find out what they are doing with my stuff. With Rush. In the chow halls in the morning and the O' Club for dinner. I left after my contract for six and want to see what they are doing now.

I want to see a war time flight line.

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I would like to say what my battle plans would be, but that would just start another big fuss over my "over reaction". Lets just say, the N. Koreans wouldn't have a chance to get many rounds off. I believe in overwhelming force. That includes EVERYTHING. The reason I made my first comment was to show I would make the battle short and sweet. I have little patience for playing back and forth body count. I like it more one sided. Also if a couple of nukes were used, maybe other provocateurs would figure I'm not playing around. They set off a nuke to start the mess in the first place.

Everybody's first reaction is conventional warfare. All that does is cause what we are in in Iraq right now. If Iran wants to have nukes, we should supply them with some in Tehran and Natanz. They think we don't have the will to stand up to them is why we are having these problems now. I feel sorry for the people that don't support the regime, but why do we have to wait for a mushroom cloud here before we get "real mad".

Report: Iran worried over Syrian air defense failure in IAF strike 04/10/2007 (exerpt)

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/909608.html

Iran is concerned over the failure of Syria's air defense systems to detect the Israel Air Force non-stealth aircraft that reportedly carried out an attack inside Syria last month, the American weekly Aviation Week reported on its website on Wednesday.

According to the report, Israel was able to disrupt Syria's radar and air defense systems and render them ineffective during the IAF strike. The website reported that Israel used an electronic device, installed in a plane that circled the area, to disrupt Syria's defenses.

The weekly maintained that Iran is especially concerned over the failure of Syria's Russian-made radar systems. Iran has used similar systems in the past, and is slated to purchase more radar equipment in a future deal worth $750 million. This equipment is apparently designated to protect Iran's nuclear facilities against attacks from the air.

"... Also, the Israeli ECM crew has been onto their Russian air defense system before they bought it. The Syrians would have both their ends laughed at.
Iran is watching this. And they know Amidouchebag is too stupid to shut up. There was another general that defected recently..."

This whole business leaves too many questions. The Nork ship was tracked from NK to Syria, but the contents not destroyed until off-loaded and verified, and then it was hit immediately, by Israel.

Everybody knows that the Russian anti-air-crap sold to Syria and Iran doesn't work, so they're easy targets, anytime! Everybody also knows that Iran and Syria have been supplying arms and people, that are killing American Forces yesterday and today.

But it was critical to destroy the Nork stuff quick!

Which means that the Nork stuff was dangerous right-outta-the-box, but whatever other mischief Syria and Iran are working on can be dealt with whenever it becomes too dangerous, or whenever it's politically advantageous to do so.

It seems like we should have disposed of Iran many months ago, and now that the Primary Season is upon us, with the dhimmicRATS losing their 'lose-the-war' impetus, it would be a good time to end the Syrian and Iranian involvement in Iraq.

Lotsa bombs falling would force the candidates to choose between winning and losing, and America loves a winner! .......................... FRegards

The comments on that article are interesting, too, like this one from a guy in Frankfurt:

There is feverish activity in Iran. The mullahs are stressed. They know now that there is no defence against the upcoming havoc. When the stealth bombers and the cruise missiles will arrive from every direction, the mullahs will even not know what happens to them, nor how to make contact with what used to be their forces.

US President Bush has given them a last warning, it is now up to them to make their choice. At the same time US support at home for action against a nuclear Iran is growing. The Holocaust deniers in Tehran are today in the same situation as the Holocaust perpetrators during the spring of 1944: They know it will happen, but they ignore where and when.

Re-write the ROE and it's over.

Lotsa bombs falling would force the candidates to choose between winning and losing, and America loves a winner! ..........................

Now that's some good collateral damage!

>>>Has anyone considered whether this event had anything to do with that huge shorting of the stock market worth something like a billion dollars?

If it was they lost their money. But the dates are close. The airstrike was Sept 6.

**$4.5 BILLION ‘Bin Laden Trade’ STOCK MARKET TO CRASH < SEP 21?** (Reminder: Today’s doomsday)

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