Israel’s air attack on Syria was directed on Sept. 6 against a site that Israeli and American intelligence analysts concluded was a partly constructed nuclear reactor, apparently modeled on one North Korea has used to create its stockpile of nuclear weapons fuel, according to American and foreign officials with access to the intelligence reports, cited by the New York Times.
The Bush administration was divided at the time about the wisdom of Israel’s strike, American officials said, and some senior policy makers still regard the attack as premature, the report added. Some American officials said the facility was years away from being used to produce spent nuclear fuel that could eventually be used for weapons-grade plutonium. The internal Bush administration debate over a possible Israeli attack on the reactor began last summer, the Times said in Sunday edition.
It remained unclear how far Syria had gotten with the plant before the attack, what role North Korea might have played and whether a case could be made it was intended to produce electricity, the newspaper said.
