As the death toll mounts in Syria and the country slides deeper into civil war, the world should be thankful that the Assad regime never succeeded in developing nuclear weapons -- which almost happened in 2007.
The danger presented today by the presence of Syrian chemical and biological weapons is bad enough. Just think how much more dangerous the situation would have been if there were loose nukes lying around.
According to a new history of the Mossad by reporters Dan Raviv and Yossi Melman, Spies Against Armageddon, Israel had become suspicious that the Syrians were building a nuclear facility with North Korean help. The authors said Israel sent Mossad operatives and a special forces unit into Syria several times to take samples of soil, water and vegetation and in March 2007 managed to secure photos taken inside the facility. Who took those photos remains the most closely-guarded aspect of the operation.
According to Raviv and Melman, the images provided clear evidence that Syria was building a graphite reactor similar to North Korea's Yongbyon reactor which was used to build nuclear bombs. The Mossad assessment was that the reactor would become "hot" within a few months and would produce enough plutonium for a nuclear bomb within a year.
Once it went online, the reactor could not have been attacked without the danger of spreading deadly radiation throughout the region.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert visited Washington in June 2007 and asked then-President George W. Bush to bomb the facility. Bush refused and suggested instead that Western countries should instead "expose" the Syrian reactor. This failed to satisfy Olmert and the decision was taken to destroy the reactor -- which happened in a two-minute air raid on the evening of Sept. 6, 2007.
Syria responded to the attack by denying it had been building a nuclear plant. However, the Syrians refused to allow inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency to visit the site until they had cleared away the rubble and replaced the soil. Still, the inspectors were not fooled and found enough evidence to convince them that the structure had contained a North Korean-style reactor.
The IAEA said in a release in June 2011 that the destroyed building "was very likely" a nuclear reactor. "The Syrian Government was given ample time by the Agency to cooperate fully concerning the Dair Alzour site, but did not do so. Nevertheless, we had obtained enough information to draw a conclusion," IAEA director general Yukiya Amano said.
This, of course, was not the first time Israel had saved the Middle East and the world from a dangerous nuclear program. In 1981, Israel destroyed Iraq's Osirek reactor. When Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait nine years later, he did not have a nuclear weapon in his arsenal to deter the United States and its allies who acted to reverse that act of aggression.
The Iraqi and Syrian operations are examples of Israel braving international condemnation to defend its vital security interests. But as the Syrian situation proves today, Israel did the entire world a huge favor in both cases.
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Iran chose the long-path of using uranium reactors, so that it can claim this is for energy purposes. they did this exactly so they could say this. if they had built a Plutonium reactor it would be obvious the only use for it is nukes. so they chose to longer path which takes many more years
Some friends say that i'm a radical atheist, they call me radical because I will not tolerate religion. the only reason that I do not tolerate religion is because it doesn't only brainwash people but it mentally distorts them and their logical way of thinking. everything's ok if you have god on your side... bs
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"Israel has never officially admitted to having nuclear weapons, instead repeating over the years that it would not be the first country to "introduce" nuclear weapons to the Middle East, leaving ambiguity as to whether it means it will not create, will not disclose, will not make first use of the weapons or possibly some other interpretation of the phrase. The "not be the first" formulation goes back to before March 11, 1965, when a cable from the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv to Washington noted "The Government of Israel has reaffirmed that Israel will not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons into the Arab-Israel area." Israel has refused to sign the NPT despite international pressure to do so, and has stated that signing the NPT would be contrary to its national security interests."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_Israel
When your next door neighbor has nuclear weapons (and you don't), then as part of the "keeping up with the Joneses" theory it's only natural that you would want one too as the instinct of self-preservation kicks in.
What's good for the goose should be good for the gander too so I don't see why Israel doesn't allow inspections in order to make sure they don't have nuclear weapons either. We can't have laws applying to 'some' people and not everybody else as well. It's the only equitable solution.
Thats the logical jump we're making here?
No winners ever emerge from a nuclear war, so what's the point in keeping them around anyway?
This is long before the NPT existed.
Israel has ended every other nuclear program in the region.
Israel has formally declared it will not tolerate a nuclear-armed Iran.
And it won't.
If they don't want nuclear-armed neighbors, then they should disarm and disassemble their nuclear weapons too.
Like I said previously, it's a "keeping-up-with-the-Joneses" scenario and if they think that they are just going to use military means to prevent Iran from getting a nuke, then they're gonna' trigger World War III and an ensuing free-for-all around the planet......and if that scenario happens, then whatever primitive device that Iran could ever possibly cobble together would be the very least of Israel's concerns (and everybody else's that happens to live on this planet too!).
I just don't see a reason why BOTH of them can't do away with their nuclear capabilities altogether.