US president George W. Bush refused an Israeli request to strike a
suspected Syrian nuclear facility in 2007, favoring diplomacy instead, according
to his memoirs, set to be released on Tuesday.
In the book, called
Decision Points, Bush writes that he phoned then-prime minister Ehud Olmert
after receiving an intelligence report about a “suspicious, well-hidden facility
in the eastern desert of Syria.”
Bush says he and Olmert debated over
what to do about the facility, and in the end, the US president decided that
“bombing a sovereign country with no warning or announced justification would
create severe blowback,” and recommended using diplomacy and the threat of force
in dealing with Syria over the issue. Bush and his national security team
weighed launching a covert raid on the site, but decided that getting personnel
in and out of Syria undetected would be too risky, his book
said.
According to the memoirs, Olmert was not pleased at Bush’s decision
and told him, “Your strategy is very disturbing to me.”
Bush denies that
he encouraged Israel to launch the attack on the facility, saying “Prime
Minister Olmert hadn’t asked for a green light, and I hadn’t given one. He had
done what he believed was necessary to protect Israel.”
The raid,
code-named “Operation Orchard,” took place on September 6, 2007. Though Israel
has never confirmed its role in the raid, the air force is widely suspected of
attacking the al-Kibar site in the Syrian desert. In the days following the
raid, Turkish media released pictures and video of what they said were spent
Israeli fighter jet gas tanks dropped in the desert. The site is believed to
have been a Syrian nuclear reactor, possibly built with the assistance of North
Korea.
Last week, Military Intelligence chief Maj.-Gen. Amos Yadlin
hinted that Israel had a role in striking the facility, when he told the
Knesset’s Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defense that he had been in two wars
and dealt with the nuclear programs of two states.
Bush writes in the
memoir that he believes that Olmert’s “execution of the strike” made up for the
humiliation and loss of confidence that Israelis had suffered following their
2006 war against Hizbullah in Lebanon, which Bush feels was bungled.