CONFIRMED: Israel's 2007 Air Strike in Syrian Desert Destroyed Nuclear Reactor

Initially thought by many to be some sort of a weapons cache, the IAEA had noted in the past that the facility did resemble a clandestine Syrian nuclear reactor project. Now the rest of the world has come to realize a stark reality that had long been suspected in intelligence circles, and that Israel deduced over four years ago...

Operation Orchard was a 2007 airstrike conducted by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) upon a covert Syrian nuclear site in the Deir ez-Zor desert region of Syria. In the wake of the attack, the Bush Administration and CIA confirmed the site was a "military target", while Damascus of course denied it. But it soon came to the fore that the now-incinerated site was actually nuclear in nature... and that the Norks were involved somehow as well. 

before                                           after

The well-orchestrated IDF raid was executed with precision by the Israeli Air Force's 69th Squadron utilizing F-15Is/F-16Is with auxiliary drop-off fuel tanks and armed with 500lb bombs and Maverick missiles, all supported by an ELINT electronic intelligence aircraft.

A unit of elite Shaldag commandos were already on the ground at the Syrian desert site the day before, deployed to lay a kiss-o-death laser beam right on the target, marking it for destruction from above. Other reports had the Sayeret Matkal special-forces -where current PM Benjamin Netanyahu once led- also involved.

Later, an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) investigation in 2008 reported evidence of "significant" traces uranium as well as control-rod graphite, while noting numerous features indicative of an undeclared nuclear reactor. 

But as we came to expect from Mohammed ElBarradei -long a man of dubious principle, competence, and loyalties- his largely ineffective UN agency still somehow failed to confirm or deny the nature of the site, claiming that Syria "failed to provide necessary cooperation with the IAEA investigation".

Syria purported that they "had no nuclear secrets to hide". Back and forth they went, as with preceding/ongoing IAEA charades in Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. Now at at long last they are officially stating that the site that Israel reduced to rubble was in-fact an unfinished nuclear reactor. Earlier this year, photos released by a Washington, DC think tank betrayed a second covert nuclear site in Syria as well.

The Israelis steadfastly asserted that the project was built with North Korean help, but as with Saddam's reactor destroyed in 1983, tiny Israel somehow has saved us all from yet another heinous dictator armed with nuclear weapons... and again, to world condemnation. That's OK, they're used to such ingratitude and strategic ignorance amongst their myriad international critics.

I guess they better get rested-up for Iran- going to be a long night.

IAEA   BBC   AlJazeera   Wikipedia   Wall St Jounal

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ElBaradei 'a Stooge for Iran'

This two-headed snake is not to be trusted... 
if you really need to be told that

While some proud Freedom Agenda conservative scholars -such as Dr Donald Douglas- are genuinely enthused with the recent developments in Cairo, others -such as RS McCain- have from the beginning of the unrest offered numerous notes of caution. Where am I on this?  "mortified" would be an apt way to put it... and I'm not the only one-

Today the director of The Council of Presidents -a US Jewish foreign policy umbrella-group- called former IAEA director, Nobel Peace Prize winner (a sop to the UN, and at the height of the Oil-for-Food scandal), and emerging Egyptian opposition leader Mohamed ElBadaei -who's now working closely with the Muslim Brotherhood to take-over the country- a "stooge of Iran"...

Malcolm Hoenlein, the executive vice-president of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, accused ElBaradei of covering up Iran's true nuclear weaponization capacities while he directed the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN nuclear watchdog.

"He is a stooge of Iran, and I don't use the term lightly," Hoenlein said in an online recorded interview with Yeshiva World News on the Egyptian crisis. "He fronted for them, he distorted the reports." 

ElBaradei, who directed the IAEA from 1997-2009, returned to Egypt after his third term ended. He was soon touted as a possible challenger to the 30-year autocracy led by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak...

During his term as IAEA chief, ElBaradei said Iran was further away from a nuclear weapon than many in the West claimed and castigated western powers -- including Israel -- for suggesting that a military option against Iran was increasingly possible...

Interestingly, back in September of last year an Egyptian newspaper reported ElBaradei received quite a nice chunk-of-change for this shameful duplicity... seven million bucks to be exact. Another point to note would be what they designated the funds for: "political reform in Egypt"...

Source: Al Youm Al SabehSeptember 6, 2010 

The Egyptian Newspaper Al Youm Al Sabeh reports: In a communication to the Attorney General of Egypt, Dr. Yasser Najib Abdel Mabboud, has accused Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei, former Director General of International Atomic Energy Agency and a candidate in the Egyptian presidential elections, of receiving funds exceeding $7 million (US) from Iran’s leadership as support for ‘political reform in Egypt’.

Abdul Mabboud , a candidate of the National Party and who like El Baradei is also running for the Egyptian Presidential election, was informed of the Iranian leadership’s willingness to support ElBaradei financially via an Arab businessman living in Europe. The check in the amount of $ 7 million is said to be meant to cover the financial costs of the election campaign and the activities of the Front for Change.

According to the Egyptian newspapder, a meeting between the Arab businessmen who is said to be close to El Baradei and who has only identified by the initials A. E. and Iranian official took place in a hotel in Bucharest, the capital Romania. After weeks of covert contact, the Iranian regime’s envoy apparently met with the businessman to complete a business deal. Reportedly the Iranian envoy told the businessman to convey to ElBaradei that he has Iran’s complete support.

So ElBaradei fabricated reports re. the Iranian nuclear program in an obvious attempt to buy time for the apocolyptic ogres in-charge in Tehran... and now the payback, he gets to pull a Lebanon and drag Cairo into the Iranian (wholly-owned) lackeys club along with Hezbollah, Hamas, and Damascus.

Claudia Rosett at PJM adds:

Beware. ElBaradei is no Aung San Suu Kyi. 

As head of the IAEA, ElBaradei often looked like a shill for Iran — repeatedly glossing over obvious signs of Iran’s nuclear weapons program, obfuscating the realities, and delaying action. 
In the Jerusalem Post, Caroline Glick gives a good rundown of how, in the U.S. effort to corral Iran’s nuclear program, ElBaradei was not part of the answer, but part of the problem. 

Glick also describes ElBaradei’s cozy relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood — progenitor of al-Qaeda and Hamas — quoting him as giving a recent interview to Der Spiegel in which he claimed the Muslim Brotherhood has “not committed any acts of violence in five decades.”

So IMHO, anybody thinking this unholy alliance of ElBaradei and the Muslim Brotherhood is an improvement over the current regime -in any way- must have bumped their head in the shower or something- because if Mubarak goes, it's an unmitigated disaster for the US, Israel, the west as a whole. 

Oh, and Egypt, as well: membership in the Iranian suicide cult as over the long term means at some point Israel will likely be forced to turn Cairo into a glass-floored, self-lit parking lot- and they'll do it, too. If you all want to meet Allah "in a flash"- hooking up with Tehran would be just the way to do it.

Haaretz   Jerusalem Post   Planet Iran (h/t Gateway Pundit)
American Power  The Other McCain

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