Israel Comes Clean: We Destroyed Syrian Nuclear Reactor In 2007

After more than a decade of ambiguity, Israel has confirmed that it was responsible for the destruction in 2007 of a nuclear reactor built at al-Kibar in the northeastern Syrian province of Deir al-Zor. Previously, the Israel Defense Forces Military Censor blocked publication of details of the attack, and the decision-making process that led to it, even though various alleged facts periodically were revealed in the foreign press and, notably, in the memoir of former U.S. president George W. Bush. According to information released, the Mossad, after three years of intelligence-gathering, confirmed the nature of the structure in March 2007 and subsequently sent agents into Syria on a covert mission to obtain additional conclusive evidence. Thereafter, then-Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert attempted to convince Bush to target the facility, to no avail. So, on September 5 of that year, the Israeli security cabinet green-lighted Operation Orchard and in the early hours of the next morning Israeli jets dropped some 17 tons of bombs on the reactor. Given the ongoing carnage in Syria and the usage of chemical weapons by Bashar al-Assad’s regime, Israel’s destruction of the country’s nuclear program—not unlike the IDF’s attack in 1981 on the Osirak nuclear reactor in Iraq during the rule of Saddam Hussein—has taken on added significance. Moreover, some analysts believe that the timing of the revelation is no coincidence, effectively constituting a tacit warning to Iran that Israel will do whatever is necessary to prevent the Islamic Republic from obtaining atomic weapons.