Mystery surrounds last week’s air foray into Syrian territory. The Observer’s Foreign Affairs Editor attempts to unravel the truth behind Operation Orchard and allegations of nuclear subterfuge

Perhaps more worrying are the well-sourced claims from conservative thinktanks in the US that there have been ‘instructions’ by the office of Vice-President Dick Cheney to roll out support for a war against Iran.

In the end there is no mystery. Only a frightening reminder. In a world of proxy threats and proxy actions, the threat of military action against Iran has far from disappeared from the agenda.

Peter Beaumont, Sunday September 16, 2007, The Observer

The head of Israel’s airforce, Major-General Eliezer Shkedi, was visiting a base in the coastal city of Herziliya last week. For the 50-year-old general, plus the head of Israel’s Iran Command, which would fight a war with Tehran whether ordered, it was a morale-boosting affair, a meet-and-greet with pilots and navigators who had flown during last summer’s month-long war against Lebanon. The journalists who had turned out in large numbers were there for another reason: to question Shkedi

about a mysterious air raid that happened that month, codenamed ‘Orchard’, carried out deep in Syrian territory by his pilots.

Shkedi ignored all questions. It set a pattern for the days to follow as he and Israel’s politicians and officials maintained a steely silence, even when the questions came from the visiting French Foreign Minister, Bernard Kouchner. Those journalists who thought of reporting the story were discouraged by the threat of Israel’s military censor.
But the rumours were in circulation, not just in Israel but in Washington and elsewhere. In the days that followed, the sketchy details of the raid were accompanied by contradictory claims even as US and British officials admitted knowledge of the raid. The New York Times described the target of the raid as a nuclear site being run in collaboration with North Korean technicians. Others reported that the jets had hit either a Hizbollah convoy, a missile facility or a terrorist camp. CONTINUE

Iran nuclear facilities dry run, News, Operation Orchard, Opinion, Syrian North Korea nuclear equipment

Original post by Jerry Gordon