U.S. DELAYED ISRAELI RAID ON SYRIAN NUKES

Condoleezza Rice opposed Israel's attack on Syrian nuclear site (Times UK)
A MYSTERIOUS Israeli military strike on a suspected nuclear site in Syria last month was opposed by Condoleezza Rice, the American secretary of state, because she feared it would destabilise the region, according to a report this weekend.

Rice persuaded the Israelis to delay their operation, but not to call it off, after US officials were presented with "jaw-dropping" evidence of Syrian nuclear activity, the report said...

According to ABC News, Rice led the opposition inside the Bush administration to the Israeli strike, persuading them to shelve initial plans to hit the Syrian facility in the week of July 14.

Turkish FM to discuss Syria in J'lem (JPost)
Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan is scheduled to arrive in Israel on Sunday following a brief visit to Damascus. High on his agenda in Jerusalem will be Israel's air strike on Syria last month and the American Jewish community's stand on whether the World War I killing of Armenians constituted genocide.

Babacan arrived in Damascus on Saturday, and was scheduled to hold talks during his visit there with President Bashar Assad and Foreign Minister Farouk Shara.

His visit to Damascus came as ABC News quoted American officials over the weekend as saying that the IAF raid on Syria was planned for several months and was postponed a number of times due to heavy US pressure.

According to the report, Israel presented US officials with satellite imagery which clearly showed North Korean nuclear technology in a Syrian facility.

According to a US source, Washington 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 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 , 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.