12 Years Ago, Israel's Air Force Crushed This Nation's Nuclear Weapons Program
Daniel R. DePetris
Security,
Syria was not happy.
Instead of a massive bombardment, the air force used eight aircraft for the mission. When the operation was over, Israel kept the boasting to a minimum and the Assad regime was happy to spin the ordeal as a successful defense of the homeland for domestic propaganda.
It was late on a Wednesday night in Israel when the director of the Mossad placed an urgent telephone call to then–Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in early March 2007. The Assad regime, the Mossad chief reported, was building a nuclear reactor in the middle of the Syrian desert, and the evidence was incontrovertible.
(This first appeared several years ago.)
What followed was a secret, late night Israeli air force operation deep inside Syrian territory that would destroy Bashar al-Assad’s covert effort to build a nuclear weapons program. The actual mission lasted for only a few minutes, but when it was over, Israel would eliminate what one cabinet officer at the time called “an existential threat” to the state. “It was a threat that we couldn’t live with.”
Eleven years later, the Israeli military is finally lifting the veil of censorship and permitting the politicians, ministers, military officers and air force pilots who participated in the operation with the opportunity to talk in public about this highly significant mission. Thanks to reporting from the Israeli media, we now have a more complete picture of what occurred in the lead up to Israel’s airstrike on the Syrian reactor.
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