Posted on 11/05/2007 5:27:34 PM PST by joseph20
It was two months ago tomorrow that Israeli warplanes bombed what Israel and the United States believed was a nascent Syrian nuclear complex along the shore of the Euphrates River. But the political shock waves that should have accompanied that remarkable event -- which was both an audacious act of preemption and a revelation of an apparent Syrian bomb program-- have been bottled up by the decisions of the Israeli government and the Bush administration not to speak publicly about the strike.
Now Israeli and U.S. officials are quietly debating whether to go on the record and allow those shock waves to explode across the Middle East and beyond. At stake are not only Israel's tense relations with Syria, which so far has chosen not to retaliate, but a host of other pressure points: Israeli-Palestinian negotiations; the integrity of the International Atomic Energy Agency; Western leverage over Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad; and -- not least -- the fragile U.S. nuclear bargain with North Korea, which is believed to have aided the secret construction.
For the Israeli government of Ehud Olmert, the decision to suppress news of the strike in September -- including the military censorship of Israel's aggressively free press -- was pretty straightforward. Trumpeting the successful attack not only would have prompted global denunciations of Israel but might have pushed Assad into launching an attack on the Golan Heights or a missile at Tel Aviv. The architect of the attack, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, is a former head of Israel's most elite clandestine commando squad, and he remains convinced that military special operations are best kept secret.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
O.K. So why has Assad kept quiet? Isn’t this a tacit admission of guilt after having been caught with his hands in the nuclear cookie jar? Usually the guilty are the only people who are compelled to silence.
I saw speculation the other day that the site was taken out by a tactical nuke. On the surface, that story seems very unlikely. However, I’m sure such an event would make the party on the receiving end to think long & hard about the next action to take or even word to utter.
Any noise he makes would draw attention to the fact that Syria is defenseless against Israel.
Have fun.
I wonder if there is seismic data from that time period that would lend any credence to this.
The "speculation" of the use of a nuke came from an Arab source who don't have a clue about cause and effect in nuclear explosions and assume equal ignorance among their readers / viewers.
Congressman Billybob
So he wouldn't feel pressured by his countrymen and fellow arabs to exact revenge and "do something" which he would then regret.
Since there are no editorials and commentaries in the arab press exhorting him to do something, he doesn't have to.
Yes, I did say it was very unlikely. No doubt the EU, the Russians, and others have technical means to detect such an event. I doubt that Bush would risk the political firestorm that would accompany use of a nuke, even a tactical one, unless it were the gravest of circumstances.
Why no mention of North Korea?? (at least in the lead)
or rather, “detailed reference to North Korea”. (Correction)
Surely the jump in radiation from even a tactical nuke would mean there would be lots of people claiming they had evidence of this. Also I believe that Israel had guys on the ground infared marking the target, not something you would want to do if it were to be hit by a nuke?
9/6 ping
The question is "who died in the attack." There is a historic tradition in that area of using your enemies to take out your political rivals.
What if Assad put all his bad eggs in one basket...and then dropped the basket?
Any noise Assad made would point out that Iran is equally vulnerable, having bought the same Mickey Mouse air defense systems from Russia, so Ahmadinejad has also declared silence on the matter.
“I saw speculation the other day that the site was taken out by
a tactical nuke.”
My naive prayer:
Israel, not bound like the US Military, ignored Worst-President-Ever
Jimmy Carter’s loopy moralizing...
and built and finally deployed one heck of a NEUTRON bomb a couple of
weeks ago.
And would let us buy some on credit if needed.
? Don’t neutrons leave the architechture and expend the personnel?
“? Don’t neutrons leave the architechture and expend the personnel?”
Yes.
And (on the very long odds) if Israel used one, it would be a way
to send a message “Scientists of the world: don’t help rogue regimes”.
And I’ve got to eat crow if Wikipedia is correct.
Sounds like Reagan revived the neutron bomb program; all have now
been destroyed/moved from US inventory. I INCORRECTLY thought Carter
had stopped production and it wasn’t resumed
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_bomb
Development was subsequently cancelled by President Jimmy Carter
in 1978, but again restarted by President Ronald Reagan in 1981.[3]
Three types were built by the United States[4]. The W66 warhead
for the anti-ICBM Sprint missile system was produced and deployed
in the mid 70s and retired soon thereafter along with the missile system.
The W70 Mod 3 warhead was developed for the short-range, tactical Lance
missile, and the W79 Mod 0 was developed for artillery shells.
The latter two types were retired by President George Bush in 1992
due to the end of the Cold War.[5][6] The last W70 Mod 3 warhead was
dismantled in 1996[7], and the last remaining neutron bomb (W79 Mod 0)
was dismantled by 2003 when the dismantling of all W79 variants was
completed.[8].
Thanks for the ping.
Assad wants to avoid doing anything that would result in a smackdown. So, he is practicing Mind over Matter - he doesn’t mind, so it don’t matter.
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