Posted on 10/06/2007 8:56:39 AM PDT by jhpigott
The IAF raid in Syria during September was planned for several months and was postponed a number of times due to heavy US pressure, ABC News quoted American officials as saying on Saturday.
According to the report, Israel presented US officials with satellite imagery which clearly shows North Korean nuclear technology in a Syrian facility. According to a US source, Whitehouse officials were astonished by the imagery and by the fact US intelligence had not picked up on the facility previously.
"Israel tends to be very thorough about its intelligence coverage, particularly when it takes a major military step, so they would not have acted without data from several sources," said ABC News military consultant Tony Cordesman.
A different source told ABC News that Israel had planned the strike as early as July 14, and in confidential meetings with high ranking US officials, debated over the appropriate response. Several officials supported Israel's decision to strike, although others, led by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, firmly opposed it and offered to publicly condemn Syria for operating a nuclear facility instead.
US officials who initially opposed the raid, according to ABC News, apparently feared the negative influence it might have over the whole region. Consequently, officials in Washington persuaded Israel to push back the raid, but in September Israel feared that information about the facility might be leaked to the press, and went ahead with the strike, despite objections by Washington.
ping
Mazal Tov!
Kol tuv, my friends.
Since ABC has absolutely no axe to grind and is thoroughly dedicated to totally unbiased reporting I am sure this story, based on unnamed sources, is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth . . .
FWIW - There have been previous reports that the planning of this strike began this past April or May.
The government just cannot stay out of it. They are more worried about what the MSM will print, than they are letting Israel take care of its own issues.
“Several officials supported Israel’s decision to strike, although others, led by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, firmly opposed it and offered to publicly condemn Syria for operating a nuclear facility instead.”
Or how about a few dozen more USELESS U.N. resolutions???
Another debt we owe the Israelis. Osirak, 1981, was another one.
If this is true,that we did not know about this facility, I would fire the entire CIA. Someone in the CIA had to know what was going on, and hid it, just like they have been operating a shadow gov’t for years. The whole lot of them, beginning with Tenet should have been keelhauled in 2001 after 9/11.
I don’t know why we always try to restrain the Israelis—they are our only true ally in the MidEast.
And we have to attack Iran, sooner than later, or the MidEast will REALLY be destabilized.
Yet, even with direct proof of acts of war committed against our military personnel by the Iranian presence in Iraq, we still jawbone and pussyfoot around. Enough already.
Just do it.
What raid?
DK
Didn’t the Syrians deny the raid cut through their defenses like they didn’t have any and killed any targets that the IAF tried?
“According to the report, Israel presented US officials with satellite imagery which clearly shows North Korean nuclear technology in a Syrian facility.”
Working Link
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1191257234667&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
If there is any merit to the story, I’m sure we’ll see platoons of Democrat politicians marching to the microphones to congratulate the administration for taking their advice about being careful about intelligence and not taking actions that destabilize the region. I mean, they’d never criticize the administration for not acting quickly enough, would they? Oh... they would?
I’m concerned that all the accusations of being trigger happy are producing an administration that’s becoming gun-shy.
If and when we ever get out of the UN I hope we abolish the dept of State too. Totally useless regardless of who is in charge.
How dare you!!!
The US State Dept is NOT “useless”.
It is just pro-terrorist.
“Osirak II?
As for the North Korean theory, evidence for it starts with Pyongyang. The raid, said one North Korean foreign ministry official quoted by China’s Xinhua news agency, was “little short of wantonly violating the sovereignty of Syria and seriously harassing the regional peace and security.” But who asked him, anyway? In August, the North Korean trade minister signed an agreement with Syria on “cooperation in trade and science and technology.” Last week, Andrew Semmel, the acting counterproliferation chief at the State Department, confirmed that North Korean technicians of some kind were known to be in Syria, and that Syria was “on the U.S. nuclear watch list.” And then there is yesterday’s curious news that North Korea has abruptly suspended its participation in the six-party talks, for reasons undeclared.
That still leaves the question of just what kind of transfers could have taken place. There has been some speculation regarding a Syrian plant in the city of Homs, built 20 years ago to extract uranium from phosphate (of which Syria has an ample supply). Yet Homs is 200 miles west of Dayr az Zawr, the city on the Euphrates reportedly closest to the site of the attack. More to the point, uranium extraction from phosphates is a commonplace activity (without it, phosphate is hazardous as fertilizer) and there is a vast gulf separating this kind of extraction from the enrichment process needed to turn uranium into something genuinely threatening.
There is also a rumor — sourced to an unnamed expert in the Washington Post — that on Sept. 3 a North Korean ship delivered some kind of nuclear cargo to the Syrian port of Tartus, forcing the Israelis to act. That may well be accurate, though it squares awkwardly with the evidence that plans for Orchard were laid months ago.”
http://online.wsj.com/article_print/SB119007716759630639.html
[the author Bret Stephens is the former EIC of the Jerusalem Post]
Like, what they are going to be a poor, make nothing, dirt dwelling hucksters that will stab us in the back?
Condi Rice and and all those gay boy lovers in State should just come out and convert.
That could well be true.
There very likely are elements of truth in the story. The MSM usually includes enough of that, but I rarely accept that the truth hasn’t been tailored to suit their agenda. A story like this is easy for the MSM because no one who might contradict it, or put it into perspective is likely to go racing to the microphones to make a correction. The MSM gets a free ride . . .
I am certain that Ron Paul demanded we should hold Israel to the wall of restraint and appeasement.
Same “ABC” story, previously noted from another, at:
ttp://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1907458/posts
Some parts of this story completely contradict earlier reported “informed” sources on the events. Particularly in the area of U.S.-Israeli co-operation on the intelligence that created the concerns about the Syrian site, including the intelligence of the false flag procedure that North Korea had performed on its most recent “delivery” to Syria (they had changed the flag on their vessel to a South Korean flag (as if the US would not know the #’s on the vessel were NOT South Korean).
The “ABC” story is nothing more than State Department disinformation. It is being put out by the permanent government at the State Department with Condi’s blessing, hoping the “Arab street” will believe that Israel acted 100% on their own. That idea is a lie, as well it should be.
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