by Dan Raviv
The mystery began to be solved. It truly was a nuclear project.
The teams returned there on several reconnaissance missions and obtained, every time, additional information. It became clear that North Korean experts were helping Syria build a nuclear facility. Unknown was whether it was a collection of centrifuges, which would take a long time to enrich uranium for bombs. Or was it a nuclear reactor, which could, alarmingly, provide plutonium for bombs more quickly?
Whatever it was, how close to completion was the project? The answer would be significant. Israeli leaders might feel they had to bomb the building urgently, or they might decide they had time to wait and see.
In March 2007, irrefutably incriminating evidence arrived. These were photos taken inside the mysterious building. Who took the photos is the most closely guarded secret of the operation. It could have been Mossad combatants who managed to penetrate the facility. The Israelis also might have recruited a Syrian, or even a North Korean, to take snapshots inside and provide them to the Mossad. The most likely scenario: Israelis extracted the photographs from a laptop computer or a memory drive carelessly carried abroad by a Syrian official.
There was now strong pictorial evidence that Syria was building a graphite reactor of the Yongbyon type, used by North Korea to make its own nuclear bombs. Israel understood that the Communist pariah state, always desperate for hard currency, did it for the money.
Even more important and troubling was the assessment by the Mossad’s non-conventional weapons department that the reactor could be ready to “go hot” within a few months, and then it would take a little over a year to produce enough plutonium for a nuclear bomb.
One more piece of evidence was troubling. Large pipes and a pumping station, for cooling the reactor with Euphrates River water, seemed to be complete—ready for use.
An additional item of data contributed to Israel’s decision-making process. The Mossad concluded that Iran had no role whatsoever in the construction of the reactor. Despite a growing friendship between Syria and Iran, the Iranians were not privy to the secret. An alliance between nations, however close, still can be constrained by a large degree of compartmentalization.
That was the information that Dagan and his chief intelligence officer were bringing to their briefing for Olmert in Tel Aviv—the meeting that concluded with a consensus that the building would have to be flattened.
That was, of course, much easier said than done.
The burden of decision-making was now slowly shifting from the intelligence community to the IDF and, above all, to a political process led by Olmert and his cabinet.
Faced with a huge decision, any Israeli prime minister, early on, tests the waters of the Potomac to hear what the American administration has to say on the subject. Almost all major choices were made by Israel after consulting with or telling the United States—although the Israelis rarely stood still for a long period to field questions and get bogged down in soul-searching and indecision.
They saw George W. Bush’s administration as the most friendly to Israel since the Reagan era. But being entangled in two wars, in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Americans might react in unexpected ways.
It was traditional to send the director of the Mossad to Washington to test those waters. Olmert dispatched Dagan, who showed the CIA and the Pentagon a dossier and asked: Do you Americans know about this?
They did not.
Olmert, paying his own visit to Washington in June 2007, addressed President Bush face to face: “George, I am asking you to bomb the compound.”
Bush decided, however, that bombing Syria without obvious provocation would cause “severe blowback.” He suggested that Western countries should instead expose the Syrian reactor project, by providing photographic evidence to the world’s media, to force the Damascus government to dismantle it.
Olmert’s reply to the president, in July, was: “Your strategy is very disturbing to me.”
The prime minister concluded that, if action were needed, Israel would have to do it alone. Olmert found himself suddenly in the same position as was the late Menachem Begin in 1981. Olmert had to decide whether he would follow in the footsteps of his predecessor and enforce the Begin Doctrine—that no enemy of Israel would be allowed to have nuclear weapons.
Consulting with very few advisors, Olmert reached his own decision that he would follow the Begin line. It was almost instinctive, based on strategic analysis and a sense of Jewish history, that Israel needed to maintain a nuclear monopoly in the Middle East. Still, many questions needed to be resolved.
The preferred option would be sabotage: to send a very limited number of Israelis to destroy the facility. That was removed from the table, when IDF special forces and the Mossad said they could not reliably get there with all the explosives and other materials they would need.
The discussion itself recalled 1981, when the option of sending a large contingent of soldiers was ruled out: too visible, too risky, and the probability of success unknown.
Attention turned, as it did then, to an aerial attack. Analysts in Israel’s air force started applying their specialty—using the mathematics of operational research—and calculated how many planes would be needed, what load to carry, what routes to fly, and what air-defense hazards they might encounter.
The political decision-making process, in the meantime, got into full gear. The first question was one of timing. The Mossad’s non-conventional weapons department determined the window of opportunity to be a matter of just a few months, running only to the end of autumn of 2007. At that point, the reactor would become operational.
The very few Israelis privy to the secret were shaken by that. They feared that if the reactor were bombed after going hot, radiation would spread. That would cause the worst possible pollution in the Euphrates River, which flows from Turkey, via Syria, to Iraq, and provides the livelihood for millions of people.
If such contamination were to happen, Israel would be blamed for a colossal ecological disaster. International reactions might be reminiscent of old anti-Semitic accusations that Jews poisoned wells. The Muslim world would be up in arms.
Olmert slightly expanded the number of people who were involved in these discussions. Over a matter of weeks, he hosted five serious meetings of his inner cabinet—14 people in all—with every minister encouraged to express his or her genuine views.
The ministers were helped to come to a conclusive decision by the knowledge that the Israeli intelligence community and the military, this time, spoke with one voice. That was a huge difference from the deliberations leading to the Osirak attack 26 years earlier. All the intelligence agency chiefs, their deputies, and their top analysts now favored demolishing Syria’s reactor project—including Dagan, the Aman chief General Amos Yadlin, who was one of the pilots who struck Iraq in 1981, and the IDF chief of staff, Lt.-General Gabi Ashkenazi.
A strong consensus seemed to be emerging. Ministers supported Olmert’s position that—in the spirit of Begin—Syria would have to be stopped from getting nuclear weapons. But there was one very prominent exception.
To the astonishment of his colleagues, Defense Minister Ehud Barak kept voicing strong objections. He did not say that he was, in principle, opposed to bombing Syria; but he suggested that Israel still had time, that there was no need to rush.
Barak even tried to prevent other generals from expressing their views in cabinet meetings, saying that he would be the sole defense or military voice. Olmert overruled him on that claim.
A rift between the two Ehuds was growing. Olmert tried to figure out Barak’s true motives. He reached the conclusion that these were selfish political interests, and that Barak was prepared to sacrifice national interests for his own good.
Looming over the debate were tensions left by the Lebanon war in the summer of 2006, when Israel battled Hezbollah and many Israelis criticized the political and military decisionmakers’ deficiencies. An investigatory committee was due to release its report in
January 2008. Olmert, Dagan, and Ashkenazi could not avoid the conclusion that Barak was waiting for that release—probably hoping that Olmert would be forced to resign and Barak could be prime minister again, or he could be defense minister in a cabinet that would give him more influence.
Barak argued against those suspicions, saying his true concern was that Olmert made hasty and unreliable military decisions.
Dagan, however, lost all faith in Barak. And that would make a difference in future crises.
The decisive factor regarding whether to bomb the reactor was the question of Syrian retaliation.
Israeli intelligence knew that Syria’s powerful missiles were always on standby, and if an order were given, they could hit any target they chose in Israel. Destinations, it was believed, were pre-set: from the Dimona reactor, to the Kirya military headquarters in Tel Aviv, to the Knesset in Jerusalem, as well as air bases, power stations, and other key facilities.
If Israel believed there was a likelihood of Syrian retaliation, then preparation of the home front would normally be necessary. That would require mobilization of reservists and civil defense workers, which would be detected by the Syrians. That could lead to a miscalculation. Syria might even pre-emptively strike Israel, and an all-out war could result.
That lethal scenario almost happened in 1996, and the man responsible was a faker within the Mossad.
Yehuda Gil was considered a living legend within the spy agency. Born in Libya and fluent in Italian, Arabic, and other languages, he became a role-model case officer who recruited Palestinian agents to fight terrorism and Arab military officers to spy on their own countries. In addition, as an instructor in the Mossad academy, he shared his lifetime of experience and escapades, training new generations of up and coming case officers.
Gil was considered a star katsa: embodying all the skills of that job in locating, contacting, persuading, then running a foreign agent. In 1974, he was tasked with recruiting a Syrian general who was on a trip to Europe. That was shortly after the Yom Kippur War, and Israel desperately needed a new crop of agents in Arab countries. The general proved to be irresistibly corruptible.
Gil, operating with the Mossad tradecraft of false-flagging, introduced himself as an Italian working for a corporation with close ties to the NATO alliance. He started showering the general with gifts, including a refrigerator that was imported for him from the United States.
The general was requested to provide some information, as a test of his willingness to go along. Very quickly, it was clear that while he was greedy he was not treacherous. He agreed to give some data that might be helpful to a corporation, but he refused to betray his country’s big secrets.
Gil was faced with a dilemma. Being proud of his track record, he did not want to return to headquarters in Israel as a failure. He started writing reports based on his own speculation, imagination, and knowledge he gained from reading newspapers. Gil certainly knew what his bosses would expect to hear from a senior Syrian general.
As for the money he was supposed to pay to the agent, Gil kept that at home under his mattress.
Luckily for him, the general was not able to leave Damascus too often: maybe once a year, to visit his daughter in Europe. Gil did not have to invent too many reports. Since the general was considered a high-quality agent, Mossad headquarters expected great stuff—but not too often.
There were authentic meetings, and they continued even after the general retired. The Syrian still refused, however, to reveal significant secrets. He also rejected Gil’s offers of money and did not seem to feel that he was a spy in any sense. The meetings petered out.
Gil also retired, but the Mossad employed him part-time to run the senior Syrian source. Gil kept stuffing his reports with made-up details, even as he kept stuffing money into his mattress.
Whenever it was suggested that he be accompanied by another case officer or by a military specialist from Aman who could ask more precise questions, Gil refused to permit that. He argued that the Syrian general would not meet anyone but him.
In 1996, 22 years into the bogus operation, Gil fabricated his most dangerous report. Advised by Aman that he should ask about certain movements of Syrian military units, he answered with one of his imaginative, intelligent guesses.
That report set the Israeli military on fire. Aman analysts concluded—based on Gil’s false information—that Syrian forces planned a quick invasion to grab part of the Golan Heights. In response to that chimera, Israel’s army was mobilized in the north, preparing for war.
Luckily, the Syrians did not miscalculate, and their reaction was mild. There was no war by mistake.
Red flags about Yehuda Gil went up in both the Mossad and Aman. After several internal investigations, the organizations concluded that he was probably inventing things. At one point, he was followed on a supposed mission by a Kidon tracker—using the best, since Gil knew how to detect and avoid surveillance. It was apparent that Gil was not meeting with anyone.
Back in Israel, he was arrested and put on trial. Gil was sentenced to five years in prison.
Now, in the summer of 2007, with a looming nuclear threat in Syria, the fear of miscalculation was even greater. Israel, after all, was about to do something quite provocative—and likely to be considered an act of war prompting a Syrian response.
The decision required on the part of Olmert and his cabinet seemed momentous. Ministers spoke of the possibility of the Israeli people facing thousands of retaliatory missiles flying in from Syria and from Hezbollah in Lebanon. Some might even carry chemical weapons.
Despite those dark thoughts, the inner cabinet voted, 13 to 1, in favor of an attack. Even Barak voted yes. The only no was cast by the former Shin Bet director, Avi Dichter, now a cabinet minister, who feared the bloody toll that might be inflicted on Israeli civilians by Syrian retaliation.
Despite all the deliberations, meetings, and up to 2,500 Israelis involved in planning, the secret was not leaked or even hinted—quite astounding for a talkative society.
Everyone trusted with knowledge about the plan was required to sign a special secrecy pledge, even those who already had the highest security clearances, such as cabinet ministers and heads of intelligence agencies. The only one exempted was Prime Minister Olmert.
On the night of the attack, September 6, Olmert was in the “Bor” (the Pit), the IDF’s situation room, flanked by a few assistants and military generals. Eight F-16s took off from a base in northern Israel, flying westward, northward, and then eastward into Syria.
Unlike the “stupid” heavy bombs dropped in the Osirak attack in 1981, this time Israel used “smart” weapons. Shortly after midnight, the pilots fired precision missiles from a safe distance. Within two minutes, the attack was over.
To keep the Israelis safe, their advanced electronics jammed and blinded Syria’s air-defense system. This time, on top of what Israel had accomplished before, the electronic warfare was raised to a new level. The Syrian radars seemed to be working, just fine, even when they were not. Syria’s defense personnel had no idea that their system, which detected absolutely nothing, was down.
The Israeli pilots adhered to radio silence and communicated with headquarters only after about 30 minutes. Olmert, other top politicians, and generals were relieved and delighted to hear that the target was destroyed.
Despite their analysis that Syria would not retaliate, they could not rule out the possibility. To minimize the chance, a firm decision was made to keep the entire affair secret. If President Assad were not publicly humiliated, he would probably decide to do and say nothing. Indeed, Israel still has never publicly confirmed that it hit Syria that night.
A war of misinformation would follow. The Syrians apparently did not know what to make of Israel’s silence. Fearing that Israel might announce it first and embarrass them, the Syrians declared they had repelled an Israeli air incursion. Later, they said that Israel had bombed a deserted military structure. They also pointed to the one
mistake the Israeli air force made as evidence of the incident: One of the pilots released an auxiliary fuel tank from his F-16, on the way home. The tank was found in a field in Turkey; it had Hebrew markings on it. Deniability would now be more difficult.
After Syria’s government started talking about an Israeli attack, word leaked from Israel that the target had been a nuclear facility. Syrian officials adamantly denied that. They refused, for months, to let the International Atomic Energy Agency visit the site; in the meantime, the Syrians cleared away all the rubble and replaced the soil. Finally, when international inspectors were allowed there, they detected a few traces of uranium. Syria claimed these were from uranium-tipped Israeli missiles, but the IAEA did not believe that fiction.
The inspectors concluded that the structure, now gone, had contained a North Korea-type nuclear reactor. This finding was bolstered by a fairly complete report made public by the CIA. Intelligence agencies discovered that dozens of people were killed when Israel bombed the building, both Syrians and North Koreans. North Korea never said a word about it.
Israeli intelligence prepared files to be sent to foreign government leaders and friendly intelligence agencies. The cooperative relationship that meant the most was with the United States. Olmert spoke by phone with President Bush, and Dagan flew to Washington to give briefings—even meeting the president at the White House. Both sides seemed comfortable with the fact that Israel had not informed the Americans, in any detailed way, before the bombing raid. Deniability was preserved.
Intelligence professionals at the CIA and in the Pentagon praised Israel for having precise information and for being decisive and leak-proof.
While Israel proved to the Middle East that the Begin Doctrine worked for a second time, the mission was incomplete for Dagan and his Mossad.
On August 1, 2008, President Assad’s close aide, General Suleiman, was felled by one bullet. He was sitting on the terrace of his villa on the Syrian coastline, enjoying the Mediterranean breeze while entertaining guests for dinner. They apparently did not notice that an Israeli naval vessel was anchored offshore, with an expert sniper on deck. The ship was bobbing on the sea, of course. Yet one shot, at a great distance, did the job.