[392cobra]

Why won’t the US dispose of Assad?



DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s sources reported the message made its mark.

Some of the Middle East visitors were willing to ask quite simply: If
Israeli soldiers could purloin a complete nuclear reactor from Syria in
one night, the Americans should not find it too hard to cut down the Assad
regime. They insisted that until the Syrian president was removed, there
would be no end to the Iraqi and Palestinian wars, and Lebanon would
continue to be plagued by political assassination and instability.

Furthermore, the advocates of Assad’s removal maintained that he is not
only regarded as a pariah in the West and cold-shouldered by his Arab
peers, but many people in his own country are ready to see the back of
him. Syrian underground dissidents are only waiting for a green light from
Washington to go into action.

There would never be a better opportunity.

But some of those anti-Assad lobbyists suspect Israel may be behind the
Bush administration’s reluctance to dispose of Assad, lest he be replaced
by an Iranian or Muslim Brotherhood takeover in Damascus . The Syrian
president is therefore regarded as the lesser evil, a huge miscalculation,
in their view.



A reminder from the past



Our Middle East military watchers find striking similarities between
Israel’s Syrian operation, as described in this article, and an IDF action
38 years ago, when a commando-helicopter transport force carried off a
complete P-12 Soviet-made Egyptian radar station shortly after its
installation at Ras-Arab, near the confluence of the Gulf of Suez and the
Red Sea.

It took the paratroops a day to dismantle the seven-ton radar station and
pack its components for removal.

On Dec. 27, 1969, one of two Ch-53 helicopters carried the communications
caravan and radar antenna and the other the radar itself across the Red
Sea to Israel . The secrets yielded up by the system afforded the Israeli
Air Force new countermeasures against Egyptian air defenses. The novel
radar installation was later handed over to the US at a time when the Cold
War with the USSR was at its peak.

Calculated Disinformation
Syria’s Nascent Plutonium Reactor Reopens the Case of Iraq’s Vanished WMD


Two US congressmen, who say they were the only members of the House in
whom the Bush administration confided the secrets of Israel’s Sept. 6 air
attack over Syria - after binding them to confidentiality - nurse a
serious gripe, which is outlined in an open letter to The Wall Street
Journal of Oct. 20.

They are Peter Hokstra, member of the House Intelligence Committee, and
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen - both Republicans.

While sticking to their pledge of secrecy, the two lawmakers’ words
indicate that Israel ’s target was a Syrian-North Korean-Iranian nuclear
installation under construction - and possibly shared with other rogue
nations – for the manufacture of weapons of mass destruction based on
plutonium.

They state in their open letter: “We are concerned that, although the Bush
administration refuses to discuss the Israeli air strike with the American
people or with the majority of Congress, it has not hesitated to give
information on background to the press to shape this story to its liking.

New York Times writer David Sanger authored and coauthored articles on
Oct. 14 and 15 that appeared to reflect extensive input from senior policy
makers. Washington Post writer Glenn Kessler coauthored an article on
Sept. 21 that also cited information from the administration. We believe
this is unacceptable.

DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s sources in Washington interject here that the Bush
administration and Israel are indeed pursuing the strategy of propagating
a false picture of the episode by spreading misleading data. This is not
out of a desire to mislead the US and world media, but a much more
convoluted calculus: By feeding out cock-and-bull tidbits, they are giving
Syrian president Bashar Assad a chance to deny them with complete honesty
and so vindicate his credibility, especially among the very few of his
political and military insiders who know the truth.

US and Israeli government circles believe his credibility must be propped
up if he is to weather the humiliating knock on the head administered by
Israel in its Sept. 6 attack.



The Syrian reactor as back-up for North Korea and Iran



The suspicions cited in the foregoing article are therefore correct: The
Bush administration and Israeli’s political and military leaders, having
concluded that they could do worse than Bashar Assad in Damascus , have
decided it is worth their while to help keep him in power.

The two Republican congressmen are also correct when they say:

If the Israeli air strike last month is related to covert nuclear
collaboration involving Syria and either North Korea , Iran or other rogue
states, this may or may not be an issue that can be easily addressed by
negotiations alone. It is certain, however, that such a serious
international issue will not stay secret forever.

Congress, therefore, needs to be fully briefed, not just on the details of
the air strike but on how to address this matter and how, if press reports
are true, rogue states will be held accountable for what could amount to a
very serious case of WMD proliferation.

The two Republican lawmakers suggest that the Syrian reactor was
manufactured by the same party as the plutonium-producing model in
Yonhboyn, which North Korea is committed by its accords with the US to
dismantle in the coming weeks, albeit not its stockpile of weapons, whose
number is estimated at between 6 and 8 nuclear bombs.

What Congressmen Ros-Lehtinen and Hokstra are saying in effect is this:
The Syrian reactor is meant to provide backup for North Korea ’s use after
its own program has been taken apart, and also for Iran , insofar as its
nuclear program is severely disabled in a military attack.

It also transpires that the Israeli strike served two goals:

Israel’s goal was to demolish the reactor before it was finished in order
to keep atomic weapons out of Syrian hands and deny Iran a back-up
facility for its own project.

America’s goal was to send Pyongyang a warning: Now that the US has proofs
of his nuclear involvement in Syria , Kim Jong Il would be wise not to
slip to Iran or deposit with Syria , or any other Iranian trustee, any of
its stocked weapons.

If he did, it would be blasted to extinction in the same way as Israel
destroyed the nascent Syrian reactor.

But there is one secret which the Bush administration withheld from the
two lawmakers, even after their pledge of secrecy.