By NNN-KUNA,
Washington : President George W. Bush has said that his administration waited nearly eight months to disclose details of the Israeli bombing of a Syrian nuclear facility because of concerns that “an early disclosure would increase the risk of a confrontation in the Middle East or retaliation in the Middle East”.
Last week, US administration officials released classified photos and details of the Syrian site, made prior to the Israeli bombing last September, with US intelligence officials saying it showed a North Korean-designed nuclear facility being built with the help of Pyongyang.
Several key US lawmakers were highly critical of the White House for the lengthy delay in the disclosure.
During a White House press conference Tuesday, Bush said his administration briefed 22 members of the US Congress about the facility, including key committee chairmen. But the president said he wanted to wait for a more complete congressional briefing until “we felt the risk of retaliation or confrontation in the Middle East was reduced. So that moment came upon us, and then extended the briefings”.
“We also wanted to advance certain policy objectives through the disclosures, and one would be to the North Koreans, to make it abundantly clear that we may know more about you than you think, and therefore it is essential that you have a complete disclosure on not only your plutonium activities, but proliferation as well as, you know, enrichment activities,” the president said.
The US also had an interest in sending a message to Iran and the world “about just how destabilizing a nuclear proliferation would be in the Middle East, and that it is essential that we work together to enforce UN Security Council resolutions aimed at getting Iran to stop their enrichment programmes,” Bush said.
One thing the Syrian example shows, he said, is that “these programmes can exist, and people do not know about them.” Syria did not declare its programme, and “had a hidden programme,” Bush said.
“And finally, we wanted to make it clear to Syria and the world that their intransigence in … helping us in Iraq or destabilizing Lebanon or dealing with Hamas, which is a destabilizing force in our efforts to have a Palestinian state co-exist peacefully with Israel, those efforts … give us a chance to remind the world that we need to work together to deal with those issues,” the president said.
“So that is why we made the decision we made”.