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Report: Israel hit Syria nuclear reactor
AP on Yahoo ^ | 10/13/07 | AP

Posted on 10/13/2007 9:10:32 PM PDT by NormsRevenge

NEW YORK - An Israeli airstrike on Syria last month targeted a partially built nuclear reactor that was years away from completion, the New York Times reported Saturday, citing U.S. and foreign officials.

The report said President Bush's administration had intense discussions with the Israeli government before the strike and U.S. officials were divided over whether it would be premature.

Syrian President Bashar Assad has said Israel bombed an "unused military building" in the Sept. 6 raid. Israel has been extremely secretive about the affair. It only recently relaxed censorship to allow Israel-based journalists to report that Israeli aircraft attacked a military target deep inside Syria.

In the weeks that followed the attack, U.S. officials said it was aimed either at a nuclear or missile facility that Syria operated jointly with North Korea.

The New York Times said the nuclear reactor was modeled on one North Korea had used to create its stockpile of nuclear weapons fuel, though the role of any North Korean assistance in building it remains unclear. North Korea has denied involvement in any such activities in Syria.

Satellite photographs detected the partly constructed Syrian reactor earlier this year, the Times said, citing American officials.

The Syrian reactor was years away from be able to produce the spent nuclear fuel that could be reprocessed into bomb-grade plutonium, the newspaper said.

Syria's nuclear program has long been considered minimal, and the country is known to have only a small research reactor.

The New York Times cited American officials as saying Israel's strike may have been intended as a signal to Iran and its nuclear aspirations. In 1981, Israeli warplanes destroyed an Iraqi nuclear reactor being built by Saddam Hussein's regime.

The White House and Israeli officials declined to comment on the report.


TOPICS: Extended News; Foreign Affairs; Israel; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: airstrikes; iaf; israel; newyorktimes; nknukes; nuclear; nyt; reactor; sept62007; syria; syriannukes
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To: Prophet in the wilderness

If Israel had a NY Times there they would have tipped off the Syrians ahead of time.


21 posted on 10/13/2007 10:20:16 PM PDT by sonic109
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To: NormsRevenge

Neighborhood Bully ~ Bob Dylan


Well, the neighborhood bully, he’s just one man,
His enemies say he’s on their land.
They got him outnumbered about a million to one,
He got no place to escape to, no place to run.
He’s the neighborhood bully.

The neighborhood bully just lives to survive,
He’s criticized and condemned for being alive.
He’s not supposed to fight back, he’s supposed to have thick skin,
He’s supposed to lay down and die when his door is kicked in.
He’s the neighborhood bully.

The neighborhood bully been driven out of every land,
He’s wandered the earth an exiled man.
Seen his family scattered, his people hounded and torn,
He’s always on trial for just being born.
He’s the neighborhood bully.

Well, he knocked out a lynch mob, he was criticized,
Old women condemned him, said he should apologize.
Then he destroyed a bomb factory, nobody was glad.
The bombs were meant for him.
He was supposed to feel bad.
He’s the neighborhood bully.

Well, the chances are against it and the odds are slim
That he’ll live by the rules that the world makes for him,
‘Cause there’s a noose at his neck and a gun at his back
And a license to kill him is given out to every maniac.
He’s the neighborhood bully.

He got no allies to really speak of.
What he gets he must pay for, he don’t get it out of love.
He buys obsolete weapons and he won’t be denied
But no one sends flesh and blood to fight by his side.
He’s the neighborhood bully.

Well, he’s surrounded by pacifists who all want peace,
They pray for it nightly that the bloodshed must cease.
Now, they wouldn’t hurt a fly.
To hurt one they would weep.
They lay and they wait for this bully to fall asleep.
He’s the neighborhood bully.

Every empire that’s enslaved him is gone,
Egypt and Rome, even the great Babylon.
He’s made a garden of paradise in the desert sand,
In bed with nobody, under no one’s command.
He’s the neighborhood bully.

Now his holiest books have been trampled upon,
No contract he signed was worth what it was written on.
He took the crumbs of the world and he turned it into wealth,
Took sickness and disease and he turned it into health.
He’s the neighborhood bully.

What’s anybody indebted to him for?
Nothin’, they say.
He just likes to cause war.
Pride and prejudice and superstition indeed,
They wait for this bully like a dog waits to feed.
He’s the neighborhood bully.

What has he done to wear so many scars?
Does he change the course of rivers?
Does he pollute the moon and stars?
Neighborhood bully, standing on the hill,
Running out the clock, time standing still,
Neighborhood bully.

Copyright © 1983 Special Rider Music


22 posted on 10/13/2007 10:22:02 PM PDT by Liberty Valance (Keep a simple manner for a happy life :o)
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To: NormsRevenge

Too damm bad. boo hoo.


23 posted on 10/13/2007 10:35:17 PM PDT by yldstrk (My heros have always been cowboys--Reagan and Bush)
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To: HardStarboard

I agree with your line of thinking.

For the Israeli’s to risk that kind of attack, perhaps they had intel that the “incomplete” facility was in fact made to look that way (straight out of Star Wars), and that the DPRK shipment was nuke material to get it going.


24 posted on 10/13/2007 10:42:06 PM PDT by compuguru (De Oppresso Liber)
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To: NormsRevenge
I’m sure the NYT thinks it was a milk factory.
25 posted on 10/14/2007 12:38:19 AM PDT by elhombrelibre (RUN Paul - a man proudly putting al Qaeda's interest ahead of America's.)
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To: humint
Nazis, Communists, and Islamists are all lying to us...

Nazis, Communists, Islamists and Socialist DemocRats are all lying to us...

There, that's fixed....

26 posted on 10/14/2007 4:16:17 AM PDT by Thermalseeker (Thinking of voting Democrat? Wake up and smell the Socialism!)
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To: dennisw; Cachelot; Nix 2; veronica; Catspaw; knighthawk; Alouette; Optimist; weikel; Lent; GregB; ..
High Volume. Articles on Israel can also be found by clicking on the Topic or Keyword Israel. or WOT [War on Terror]

----------------------------

27 posted on 10/14/2007 7:16:21 AM PDT by SJackson (isolationism never was, never will be acceptable response to[expansionist] tyrannical governments)
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To: El Gato
Personally, I am in the camp that thinks there was some item delivered to that site that required IMMEDIATE destruction or removal.

A half-built reactor that was years away from completion doesn't seem like such an urgent target that would warrant the secret midnight raid.

28 posted on 10/14/2007 7:25:15 AM PDT by Sender (Can I just post until I need glasses?)
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To: Liberty Valance

I think its brilliant. More the words than music - I did not like Dylan’s performance, but curious about others, did you like it? just MHO


29 posted on 10/14/2007 8:50:48 AM PDT by Tolik
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To: Sender

Agreed, this “explanation” is all about kicking this story down the “memory hole” ASAP. It has nothing to do with connecting the dots in any legitimate sense.


30 posted on 10/14/2007 9:05:52 AM PDT by Charles Martel (The Tree of Liberty thirsts.)
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To: Tolik

Not only brilliant but timeless as well.
As to actual performance? well...it’s Dylan. ;o)
I have similar feelings about his ‘Forever Young’ and ‘Union Sundown’.


31 posted on 10/14/2007 9:29:06 AM PDT by Liberty Valance (Keep a simple manner for a happy life :o)
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To: SJackson; NormsRevenge
Thanks for the ping and update....

Anyone see the CSPAN video of Ret Gen Sanchez...? Powerful....and highly distorted in the reporting....by such folks as the NYT....

32 posted on 10/14/2007 1:14:10 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach (No Burkas for my Grandaughters!)
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To: NormsRevenge

This article cites the Source of Truth on earth—the NYT. It’s not final until Times of India also chimes in.


33 posted on 10/14/2007 1:18:02 PM PDT by RightWhale (50 years later we're still sitting on the ground)
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To: NormsRevenge

Israel...just doing the jobs Americans won’t do.


34 posted on 10/14/2007 1:28:22 PM PDT by Recovering Hermit ("A liberal feels a great debt to his fellow man, which debt he proposes to pay off with your money.")
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To: NormsRevenge
Maybe the next time it will the terrorist HQ itself (Damascus)
35 posted on 10/14/2007 5:09:09 PM PDT by M. Espinola (Freedom is never free)
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To: compuguru; mirkwood
>>>...perhaps they had intel that the “incomplete” facility was in fact made to look that way<<<

Whatever it is (was!), it presented a clear and present (thanks Tom Clancy) danger to Israel.

For all that is speculative about this attack, we do know that the Israeli's have the best intelligence in the Middle East. Their continued existence depends on it. Therefore is is a pretty good bet that this joint Syrian, North Korean, Iranian sandbox pile represented a substantial threat in the near term.

Reactors in and of themselves are not a danger. No one launches a reactor at anyone. Its the stuff you can get out of them that is the long term threat.

Seems to me to make little sense for Syria to invest in building a reactor since their butt buddies Iran is in the process of trying to activate one and Libya had one under development and both are under huge pressure from the International Community to quit the process. Libya gave up. Iran is hedging its bet by installing gas centrifuges to obtain uranium. But they are under intense scrutiny and pressure to stop as well as threat of attack from the US and/or Israel.

I don't think Syria wants to sign on for that much grief. It is possible that whatever it was that came off the boat was destined for Iran and it would have given them an ability to strike Israel with something seriously nuclear short of a bomb; ie:(dirty bomb). Very few believe that Iran is close to weaponizing a nuclear warhead for a missile....although I have read that they are evidently doing research along that line.

Alternatively, I wouldn't doubt that Iran has talked Assad into making a strike against the "Zionist Entity" with stuff snuck out of the DPRK prior to the US negotiated shutdown. That way Ahmadinejad thinks he can coax the 12th Imam out of the well without as much risk of retaliation as if Iran had done it themselves. What worries me is that very very few seem willing to admit the level of danger....except Israel.

Weird world! We live in "interesting" times!

36 posted on 10/14/2007 9:33:24 PM PDT by HardStarboard (Take No Prisoners - We're Out of Qurans)
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