Bombing the Syrian Reactor: The Untold Story

Commentary ^ | February 2013 | Elliott Abrams

[vette6387]

In reading the whole article, I come away with a bad feeling about Condoleeza Rice! But then we haven’t had a decent Secretary of State for the entirety of my whole life! I’d be interested in other folks take on her.

[3clean]

Thank-You for this thread, I have been wondering for years what that strike was about. Do you have any more information? I always thought that site held the “missing” WMD material.
Could it always have been part of the A.Q.Khan network?

When they said the Syrians bulldozed it days later I figured the site hard to be hot and pieces of the stuff were blowen up and spread around the desert.

One question or maybe comment.... Would I care if I killed 100 syrian kindergarden classes or a million to stop a program.... Not in the least, let me be the first in line. I really dont care how many jihadi children are killed when used as shields, they just grow up to be sucide bombers anyways.

[Empireoftheatom48]

Great article, it highlights some questions about Rice though! Israel needs to act again soon!

[Balata]

In reading the whole article, I come away with a bad feeling about Condoleeza Rice!

You are correct, but this is only one of many instances that does that. On the other hand, Defense Secretary Robert Gates is portrayed even worse.

[Karliner]

She plays the piano well, but nope, no secretary of state. It would be nice to have someone with a military background in there but I doubt that will ever happen.

[Lancey Howard]

This was an excellent example of how policy should be made. Several times, principals—Rice and Hadley, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, CIA Director Michael Hayden, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Peter Pace and Vice President Cheney—trooped over to the president’s living room in the residence section of the White House to have it out before him, answer his questions, and see what additional information he sought.

Whew... A reminder of when grownups were in charge.

[Lancey Howard]

In reading the whole article, I come away with a bad feeling about Condoleeza Rice

Yep. The stench of the communist State Department got all over her.

Wanna bet she's an Ubama voter, too?

[zot]

Important history ping.

[D-fendr]

we haven’t had a decent Secretary of State for the entirety of my whole life!

Me either, and likely I'm older than you. I think that swamp would swallow a good man/woman. The only decent thing would be to fire them all and start over.

[Lancey Howard]

I thought I understood why Gates did not want the United States to bomb Syria: America was a steward of wars in two Islamic countries already, so striking a third one seemed terribly unattractive to him. Why he was almost equally insistent that we prevent Israel from bombing it was never comprehensible to me, nor was Rice’s similar position. It seemed clear to me that if we could not prevent Syria from undertaking a nuclear-weapons program, our entire position in the Middle East would be weakened, just as it was being weakened by our inability to stop the Iranian program. If there were too many risks and potential complications from striking Syria ourselves, we should not only allow but encourage Israel to do it; a Syrian nuclear program in addition to Iran’s should be flatly unacceptable to the United States.
__________________________________________

Gates and Rice were bad enough, but can you imagine what goes on today in the African communist's White House? Yikes...
Thank God for Israel.
I am certain Netanyahu is smart enough to trust the Muslim communist Ubama about as far as he can kick him.

[Lancey Howard]

[PA Engineer]

Thanks for the very important post. BTTT.

[Lancey Howard]

we haven’t had a decent Secretary of State for the entirety of my whole life!

The State Department has been a communist hotbed since at least the 1930s (this is a fact - - if you need confirmation, play around with Google for a little while and do the homework yourself) and I suspect Republican presidents use it mainly for run-of-the-mill diplomacy, cover for CIA desks, and foreign funeral arrangements, etc. I believe most Republican presidents are smart enough to keep the stinking State Department out of the loop on anything critical. At least, I certainly hope so.

[Robe]

bump

[Carry_Okie]

When we found out about the reactor, it was at an advanced construction stage, just a few months from being “hot.”

With all the money we spend on satellite surveillance, cameras that can supposedly distinguish features less than ten inches, nobody in the intelligence apparatus of the United States knew that a long established and implacable enemy of a close ally was building something as big as a nuclear reactor?

Really?

Then why is my BS meter pegging again?

[Fred Nerks]

Looks like Auma Obama, zero and Michelle, and although the colours are somewhat washed-out looking, he's wearing the same islamic garb in the image below:

[Balata]

You are exactly right. This article still leaves part of the story untold.

It has been reported our first clue was an increase in electronic traffic between Syria and N. Korea.

There has also been a report of a defector with early information about this situation.

[Carry_Okie]

The president thought that the “low confidence” judgment would leak, as it surely would have, and the United States would have been attacked for conducting the bombing raid despite the “low confidence” report. That is a reasonable argument, but it explains only why we did not bomb—it does not explain why he urged the Israelis not to do so.

If Israel was going to do it, there is no profit in US complicity insofar as maintaining the status of "honest broker" in negotiations is concerned. Hence, even if Bush wanted Israel to take out the reactor, he would have to maintain even the internal position that he opposed to that and was instead going to the UN. It would take but one phone call to explain that to the Israelis.

Think poker.

So quickly did he accept the Olmert decision that I wondered then, and do still, if the president did not at some level anticipate and desire this result.

Well duh.

Think of how much more dangerous to the entire region the Syrian civil war would be today if Assad had a nuclear reactor, and even perhaps nuclear weapons, in hand. Israel was right to bomb that reactor before construction was completed, and President Bush was right to support its decision to do so.

All that ink on how Bush "didn't want" the Israelis to act and then he has to blow the cover at the end of the article. :-) 'Twas obvious from the beginning.

[Carry_Okie]

See my post after this one. The White House is so leaky that a President must conduct a sort of shadow dance for public consumption, even inside the Situation Room.