In the Lion's Den_ An Eyewitness Account of Washington's Battle With Syria - Andrew Tabler [99]
The Syrian embassy in Washington immediately issued a statement denouncing the “campaign of false allegations,” saying it was designed by the Bush administration to “misguide the US Congress and international public opinion in order to justify the Israeli raid in September of 2007, which the current US administration may have helped execute.” The statement added that “this manoeuvre on the part of this administration comes within the framework of the North Korean nuclear negotiations.”9
While analysts and journalists were reviewing the announcement, the Syrian embassy in Washington called a press conference the following afternoon at the residence of Syrian ambassador Imad Moustapha. He said that the CIA had “fabricated” the pictures, and he predicted that in the coming weeks the US story about the site would “implode from within.”
When I returned to Damascus a few days later, I found that most people had chalked up the nuclear video to Washington’s efforts to pressure North Korea to negotiate on its nuclear program. The release of the video had come at the end of a two-day meeting between US and North Korean officials in which Washington failed to reach an agreement with Pyongyang.
Syria tried to undermine the credibility of US intelligence as well. In an April 27 interview in the Qatar daily paper Al-Watan, President Assad said, “Does it make sense that we would build a nuclear facility in the desert and not protect it with anti-aircraft defences? … A nuclear site exposed to (spy) satellites, in the heart of Syria and in an open space?” Assad added that the building was an unused military building—which was the same explanation that the Syrian government had made following the attack.10
The spin didn’t stop there. Syria’s ambassador to the United Kingdom, Sami Khiyami, told The Guardian newspaper that US intelligence was unreliable, referring to secretary of state Colin Powell’s presentation to the UN Security Council about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction program—allegations that ultimately proved untrue.
Samir al-Taqi, the director of the Orient Center for International Studies, a think tank rumored to be closely associated with Syria’s foreign ministry and security services, told Syria Today that Syria would “make a full disclosure because they have the best defence: innocence. Syria will be able to demonstrate that it has adhered to all of its international obligations.”11 He questioned why the United States had waited so long to present the evidence: “If there had been any real evidence about a Syrian nuclear facility, the US and Israel would have gone straight to the UN because that would have been the most difficult thing for Syria to deal with. The fact that they bombed first and therefore destroyed any of their supposed evidence is proof they had no proof.” He blamed the video’s release on neoconservatives in the Bush administration. “They want to sink any possible peace accord and I think one is really possible. The Syrians are serious about it and it is the first time since Rabin that an Israeli leader has acknowledged the return of the Golan is the price Israel must pay for peace,” he said.12
As the number of issues between the United States and Syria grew, the regime became increasingly sensitive to criticism. When I returned to my desk at the Syria Today offices following my Washington trip, I noticed that something was out of the ordinary. Staff members seemed a bit reticent to talk, and some seemed to be staying away from work. After a few days, a friend told me that someone from the Palestine Branch of Military Intelligence (“Palestine” referring to Israel) had stopped by the Syria Today offices to talk with people