The Destruction Of Syrian Nuclear Ambitions That Proved Israel Right And The Intelligence Community—And Thereby US Politicians–As Glad-Handed Fools
We say in the military that no battle plan survives first contact. While true, the lesson learned from that experience is often misunderstood by amateurs because the takeaway is not that it is a waste of time doing planning, but all the time spent working contingencies is never in vain.
Which is why the planning cycle almost always takes up the time available and no set timeline other than mandatory production deadlines…
With the recent conclusion of ongoing secret negotiations between the US and Syria and very interested third party Israel, the potential debacle represented by the Israel takeout of the Syrian nuclear reactor in 2007 comes full circle a scant 19 years later.
For those paying attention at home this may come as a total surprise–a shock to the system—that Syria has nuclear material in the form of yellow cake somewhat laying around like so much garage storage that must be dispositioned to safeguard the remains of their-ahem–Barney Rubbled peaceful nuclear reactor site.
The Tinkers to Evers to Chance part of the back story roughly follows the ascent of Syrian President Assad to power, his involvement in the assassination of Lebanon’s President Saad Hirari in 2005, Assad’s touted ambition to build a “peaceful” nuclear reactor program to provide winky, winky peaceful energy for his people that he cared deeply about, the dispute between President Bush and the Israeli’s over the wisdom of allowing the site to become active, and the super-secret, could have heard a pin drop, winky, winky attack by Israel that disrupted Assad’s plans by making it a pile of rubble before it went active.
President Bush–with little to no apparent help from a now over bloated (redundancy intended) Intelligence Community–represented by the relatively recent establishment of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI,) rebuffed and stiff-armed Israel concerns over the idea of a strike.
Still somewhat clinging to the folly at all costs of a Middle East breakthrough via the Gaza initiative to appease the Palestinians and pursue the delusion of democratizing the Middle East, as the “W” Bush presidency second term was playing out under conditions where the president was spending his “capital” garnered from re-election that he ham handedly declared to the American people.
The optimism of an administration with a straw in its own bath water despite all evidence to the contrary in the wake of Hariri’s assassination.
I’ve written about this period in brief before, but it is a classic tale of how we civil servants go about our business–taking care of business—notwithstanding that the effort sometimes requires a bit of holding the proboscis and keeping thoughts to oneself.
These 2007 events were remarkable as we became increasingly aware that the construction of the Syrian Nuclear Reactor was at a tipping point construction-wise.
While China and North Korea were the original mole-people countries with a penchant to deeply bury their strategic industrial capability like nuclear production facilities, the Middle East had taken up the technique with vigor and premeditation.
Iran’s strategic weapons production construction increasingly followed this model across a number of winky, winky suspected nuclear sites.
While Syria’s advertised peaceful Nuclear Power construction was building out along similar lines indicating a very wide and deep construction effort that clearly evidenced a very deeply buried structure that far exceeded any rational expense warranted or necessary for “peaceful purposes.”
Our analysts responsible for reporting on such matters (particularly Marsha M) were like the Maytag Repairman, with such little action ongoing on the Syria counter proliferation front that many were detailed to secondary reporting responsibilities: it was not an active account.
Leading up to the Israel action there was activity in and around known bunkers associated with Weapons of Mass Destruction in the form of sightings of the Soviet BRDM-RKH chemical marking and detection vehicle, and associated DDA-53 decontamination equipment (portable showers.)
But–for those who follow such things–no sightings of my favorite Soviet decontamination equipment, the TMS-65, aka, the world’s fastest truck, which is a monster Ural 375 chassis with a mounted jet engine (MIG-15) configured to provide combat vehicle decontamination at scale.
Our records indicated it had been years since any traffic had been reported at those particular bunkers. Any action was considered significant.
Sometime later I received a call at oh dark thirty while enroute to work–having coincidently left earlier than normal to complete several evaluations that were coming due—with a cryptic discussion that “I might want to get in quickly to work a potential urgent Presidential Daily Brief matter.”
The Syrian reactor had been taken out. The building was in rubble and there were no signs of any activity whatsoever: pure smoke, dust, debris and silence.
Which was the same in terms of traffic from all the usual suspects: silence.
The craziest part about it was there was no news about it in the following days and weeks. Syria did not pitch a fit and complain to the press or the United Nations. The US did not make any announcements. The Israelis said nothing.
The PDB briefing was drafted, posted and “disappeared,” expunged from the coordination network and moved to a “special place” in our “special system” that only 4 people had access to: it was as if the strike never happened.
We stood up at DNI direction a bigoted cell—the Dr. Pepper Cell–to document the incident. The events leading up to it, the strike and the aftermath—all reports done in our spaces by our people on our systems–hiding in plain site on our network.
The other cra—cra–crazy part is I wasn’t cleared for it. I was responsible for resourcing the workspace, providing “stuff,” coordinating reporting, but the sponsor of the effort out of the ODNI Counterproliferation Office–Larry G—was given orders to keep it bigoted—and that’s what we did.
In my 42-year career there had been only a handful of similar incidents that were so highly bigoted (which is redundant) that I was first-hand involved but not cleared for the effort.
It would be years before the Israel strike was acknowledged publicly: twelve if you are counting at home. It was like the sound of one hand clapping.
The strike was a classic case and demonstration of the tension between the IC and politicians at the highest level of our government to the detriment of both that has been consistent throughout the 21st century.
The tell represented by the construction depth of the ongoing Syria construction, coupled with the visible security, some counter surveillance or operations security (OPSEC) actions (called SATRANS which is a report that warns of overhead satellite coverage,) augmented by exquisite Human Intelligence gathered by the Israeli’s—to include the building plans—was an inconvenient truth that paralyzed a Bush Administration that was seemingly hell-bent on achieving a landmark Middle East breakthrough at all costs.
Politicians have ignored much more convincing evidence in the pursuit of a cause. Not unlike what President Obama would later lie about to keep Iran negotiations moving forward, an outcome he was desperate to pursue even at the cost of our relationship with Israel or harm to our military and civilians overseas.
This latest disclosure of cooperation between Syria and the US to disposition the remaining nuclear related material is likely a relief to all parties.
Particularly–one would think—the Israelis–who have “serviced” the site over the years to let any who wander in the vicinity know that the Michael Jackson song applies (I always feel like, somebody’s watching me,) like the Syrian government who should be well aware—and wary—of what happens to nuclear ambitious Middle-East leaders, and the US government that was one of the beneficiaries of the original action.
My own view of this matter is that the action—from the beginning of construction to the fruition of the dialogue to disposition “the remains–” is representative of the problem US presidents have faced for nearly eight decades in the Middle East.
We apparently lack strategic intelligence resources in the region and have been forced to depend on Israel throughout the bulk of this time period.
But POTUS, leadership within the National Security Council, congress and the State Department have evidenced increasingly suspicious views of Israeli motives and policies and actions and have not put the hammer down to get the IC--specifically the CIA and DIA–off their dead arses to develop long range plans and take some risk in the region by being more aggressive with collection efforts.
The key aspect of providing intelligence in the first place is to get ahead of the decision cycle to provide the decision-maker (POTUS) recommendations in time to preserve the best course of action (before being forced by delay or time to the next, less optimal choice.)
The toughest—and roughest–analysis to do is on sparse, scanty, and insufficient information during a policy crisis.
Which is easy for me to say from my retired arm-chair quarterback view.
I made some of these recommendations in the Reforming The ODNI series and was not charitable about the performance of the IC since the ODNI stood up in FY 2005 in consideration of numerous, various and sundry true intelligence failures that have occurred under the watch of this—what I believe—failed construct.
I will grant you that the Bush administration in particular—specifically Cheney and Rumsfeld—were not exactly big fans of the CIA and in fact undermined the IC early-on by standing up the Counter-Intelligence Field Agency—which considerably muddied the water on reporting during this period, as well as establishing the position of the Under Secretary of Defense-Intelligence and Security (USDI)—during the period leading up to the establishment of the ODNI.
Which was a bold gambit, but transparently ham-handed attempt to trump congressional action on the ODNI details expected as an outcome of the 9-11 Commission.
An action congress watched unfold and seemingly uttered not a peep about (the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence,) all the while taking their own sweet time at all deliberate speed producing the 9-11 Commission Report and the long-awaited decision to establish the ODNI in Oct 2004 for fiscal year 2005…
While allowing this fractious dialogue undermining US strategic reporting on the Middle East to play out which truly hamstrung the momentum as the ODNI stood up and attempted to get its legs under it with temporary quarters over at DIA and a number of different locations around the beltway. Eventually bedding down at Liberty Crossing/LX-1 and 2 in 2008 off of Chain Bridge Road on the outskirts of the beltway.
Which somewhat tempers criticism of the ODNI for taking nearly seven years from 9-11 to be established as a functioning entity with all its pieces and parts.
Many forget the daunting task facing the ODNI as it came to fruition, including establishing a headquarters, consolidating budget functions in transition with the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) Community Management Staff (CMS,) putting together documentation for all manner of operations, dealing with the decision on the long troubled National Reconnaissance Office, Future Imagery Architecture, Electro Optic satellite debacle that resulted in the single-most momentous program cancellation in US history, while hiring staff and contractors and “schtuff.”
The ODNI would not take over two key IC functions–production of the PDB and the assumption of responsibility for Country Leads from the CIA-–which was allowed to refuse to relinquish control to the DNI–for nearly 8 years.
The bottom line down the bottom is this potential culminating point of the Israel raid in 2007 confirms for any still harboring the delusion that Assad was pursuing peaceful means through his nuclear program.
But also serves as a note of caution vis a vis US Middle East policy that bodes ill for ongoing operations including Iran and Yemen/Houthis among other flash points.
We have not gotten our collective “poop in a group” despite apparent best efforts by all concerned.
We need a renewed emphasis on strategic intelligence, counterintelligence and human intelligence: which is not going to come about by wringing our hands and kinetic operations.
POTUS deserves better, congress must demand action and those responsible for the programs need to act: now!
Max Dribbler
13 August 2026
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