A Crack in Wall of Silence on Israeli Airstrike

Everyone knows by now that something interesting and important happened in the course of the September 6, 2007 Israeli airstrike on a Syrian facility. The Israelis and US have been extremely tight lipped about the whole thing, which makes sense given the sensitive nature of the raid and what it may have accomplished.

No one wants to provide too many details about how the Israelis knew that this was a nuclear facility, although this report suggests it was because the Israelis had a man on the inside who not only provided details, but photographs.

If this is all true, then the Israeli Mossad may have launched one the most successful missions in its history. Indeed, it might prove to be one of the most spectacular intel missions in history.

A senior U.S. official told ABC News the Israelis first discovered a suspected Syrian nuclear facility early in the summer, and the Mossad — Israel's intelligence agency — managed to either co-opt one of the facility's workers or to insert a spy posing as an employee.

As a result, the Israelis obtained many detailed pictures of the facility from the ground.

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The official said the suspected nuclear facility was approximately 100 miles from the Iraqi border, deep in the desert along the Euphrates River. It was a place, the official said, "where no one would ever go unless you had a reason to go there."

But the hardest evidence of all was the photographs.

The official described the pictures as showing a big cylindrical structure, with very thick walls all well-reinforced. The photos show rebar hanging out of the cement used to reinforce the structure, which was still under construction.
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There was also a secondary structure and a pump station, with trucks around it. But there was no fissionable material found because the facility was not yet operating.

The official said there was a larger structure just north of a small pump station; a nuclear reactor would need a constant source of water to keep it cool.

The official said the facility was a North Korean design in its construction, the technology present and the ability to put it all together.

It was North Korean "expertise," said the official, meaning the Syrians must have had "human" help from North Korea.

A light water reactor designed by North Koreans could be constructed to specifically produce plutonium for nuclear weapons.

It's that latter part that might explain why Syria isn't complaining too loudly over the matter. If they did, it would make things extremely uncomfortable for L'il Kim in North Korea. Therefore, it is possible that North Korea leaned quite heavily on Assad not to talk about the raid for fear that it might derail North Korea's rapproachment with the US in six party talks and the deal that had been hammered out to provide fuel and food in exchange for shutting down North Korea's nuclear program.

Officials in the US, particularly Sec. State Rice and Defense Secretary Gates were both hesitant over a direct military strike by the Israelis against the facility, and alternatives had been considered, including a US raid on the facility with special forces to collect intel and destroy it. The Israelis, however, decided independently that they were going to take out the facility themselves.

UPDATE:
Jules Crittenden notes that this particular report suggests the opposite of what earlier reports indicated, which claimed that the Israelis were the ones with the satellite images and that the US had other intel. Moreover, it's quite possible that these various leaks are designed to see who is leaking, get the Syrians to spend more time figuring out who is leaking by putting all those Syrian scientists and workers under the gun (literally and figuratively), and to further muddy the waters as to what happened.

Hot Air also weighs in.