All Still Quiet on the Syria Bombing

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/04/AR2007110401226.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

By Jackson Diehl
Monday, November 5, 2007; Page A19

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.


http://www.abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=3821889&page=1

New Satellite Surveillance System Was Key Israeli Tool In Syria Raid
Israeli F-16 fighter takes off from airbase in Southern Israel. (AP Photo) By DAVID A. FULGHUM, ROBERT WALL and DOUGLAS BARRIE
Nov. 5, 2007

Share Israel pulled out all the stops technologically in its recent raid on Syria, employing several new intelligence-gathering and strike systems in a chain of events stretching from satellite observations to precision bombing of a target thought to be a nuclear facility.

Israel used electronic attack in air strike against Syrian mystery targetSyria's internal politics might have contributed to the apparent success of the Sept. 6 mission. The target was so highly classified in Damascus that the military wasn't briefed and, therefore, air defenses were unprepared, says an Israeli official.

But the absence of a dense air defense around the facility didn't stop Israel from digging deep into its technology quiver, drawing on the newest technologies in its arsenal.

The first piece of the puzzle is linked to the launch of a new reconnaissance satellite this summer. It allowed the integration of several advanced technologies, including electro-optical imaging from space, image enhancing algorithms, scene-matching guidance for precision weapons, and the use of advanced targeting pods carried by the Israeli air force's two-man F-16Is, which are not yet available on its F-15Is.

And from the images that I have seen, I think that we used a very specific air-burst tactical nuke.

There was no crater at the site.

This fucking bunch of crazies is at it's own perfect Strangelovian Climax.

Heaven help us all.

Believe it or not conventional bombs are quite effective at destroying man made structures.