The IAF raid in Syria during September was planned for several months and was postponed a number of times due to heavy US pressure, ABC News quoted American officials as saying on Saturday. According to the report, Israel presented US officials with satellite imagery which clearly shows North Korean nuclear technology in a Syrian facility. According to a US source, Whitehouse officials were astonished by the imagery and by the fact US intelligence had not picked up on the facility previously. "Israel tends to be very thorough about its intelligence coverage, particularly when it takes a major military step, so they would not have acted without data from several sources," said ABC News military consultant Tony Cordesman. A different source told ABC News that Israel had planned the strike as early as July 14, and in confidential meetings with high ranking US officials, debated over the appropriate response. Several officials supported Israel's decision to strike, although others, led by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, firmly opposed it and offered to publicly condemn Syria for operating a nuclear facility instead. US officials who initially opposed the raid, according to ABC News, apparently feared the negative influence it might have over the whole region. Consequently, officials in Washington persuaded Israel to push back the raid, but in September Israel feared that information about the facility might be leaked to the press, and went ahead with the strike, despite objections by Washington. http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1191257234667&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull
Washington Post: Several N. Korean scientists hurt in IAF strike in Syria A top-secret report by the U.S. intelligence services says several North Korean scientists were injured in Israel's strike in Syria last month, top Washington Post columnist Jim Hoagland reported in the paper Sunday. Some two weeks ago, British newspaper The Sunday Times reported that diplomats in North Korea and China believed a number of North Koreans had been killed in the strike, based on reports reaching Asian governments about conversations between Chinese and North Korean officials. In his article about the efforts to dismantle North Korea's nuclear program, Hoagland said the site of the attack was a plutonium enrichment facility for the Syrian nuclear program.According to Hoagland, Israel sent soil samples from the site and other evidence to the United States both before and after the strike on September 6. Hoagland's report appears to corroborate details reported by the Sunday Times two weeks prior. The Washington Post report is based on Hoagland's talks with a senior official in the American defense establishment, and with other sources involved with the attack. Media reports are providing an increasingly fuller picture of the circumstances surrounding the incident, and the activities undertaken at the site. Over the weekend, the American television network ABC reported that President George W. Bush's administration had been involved in the preparations for the strike since the summer. According to ABC, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had objected to the plan, pushing the intended date from mid-July to September. American and British media reported that Israeli special forces were operating near the site during the attack and beforehand to collect intelligence in preparation for the operation. North Korea was one of the first countries in the world to condemn Israel for the strike just several days after it became known. But North Korea and Syria denied that the site was linked to the North Korean nuclear program, which is due to be terminated in accordance with international agreements Pyongyang has signed. http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/910257.html