The Syrian envoy to the UN said two days ago during a meeting of the First Committee on Disarmament that Israel had bombed a Syrian nuclear facility, or so the UN reported in a subsequent press release:
Moreover, Israel was the fourth largest exporter of weapons of mass destruction and a violator of other nations’ airspace, and it had taken action against nuclear facilities, including the 6 July attack in Syria.
July? The strike was on September 6, not July 6. Someone had to have made a mistake. It’s going to turn out that the Syrian ambassador, speaking in Arabic, was referring to the “Tamouz” air strike against Iraq in 1981 and the interpreter got it wrong. Tamouz means July in Arabic. It’s also the Arabic term for the Osirak reactor. A potentially disastrous translation error. In any case, the UN committee meeting was a public meeting, attended by 192 delegations and the media so it shouldn’t be hard to determine the truth in this.
UPDATE: I’ve seen the full Arabic transcript of what the Syrian envoy actually said. He never mentioned a nuclear facility. Here’s the part in question:
…the [entity] that is ranking number four among the exporters of lethal weapons in the world; that which violates the airspace of sovereign states and carries out military aggression against them, like what happened on the 6th of September against my country.
9 responses so far ↓
1 Pappe // Oct 17, 2007 at 2:52 pm
Charles,
The strike was planned for July 6th but was postponed due to Condi Rice pressure. Someone in the UN has the minutes for the Oct meeting ready long ago and forgot to update it when the strike date was moved.
You see, it is all just one gigantic Zionist conspiracy.
2 Shual // Oct 17, 2007 at 3:08 pm
Pappe,
“Media reports now claim that the US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, was against the attack based on her concern for ’stability in the region’. There was a plan to hit the facility around 14 July 2007, and this had to be shelved due to her persistent opposition.”
Nothing. Nothing of the a-Jaafari-quotes make sense: “Israel regularly filmed trucks carrying fruits and vegetables into the country, and had recently bombed one of them.” [Its not even clear WHAT country-fruits Israel had RECENTLY attacked.]
Israel is said to have secured prooves “before and after” the strike. We want to see them, please.
3 Pappe // Oct 17, 2007 at 4:27 pm
“We want to see them, please.”
who are “We” ?
4 Shual // Oct 17, 2007 at 10:15 pm
Tick - Tick - Tick: UN blames interpreter`s error for report that Syria has a nuclear facility (AP)
5 Solomon2 // Oct 18, 2007 at 4:30 am
If it was an error, then the interpreter must be publicly fired. The U.N. isn’t supposed to make translation mistakes; that’s why its translators are paid top dollar.
6 Pappe // Oct 19, 2007 at 5:45 pm
“One of the diplomats indicated that the photos came from U.S intelligence. Two others said the images, which have been studied by experts of the International Atomic Energy Agency since being received on Thursday, do not at first examination appear to substantiate reports that the target was a nuclear installation, but emphasized that the images were still under examination.”
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gwu1N6NdbI7MThXmiNHyFH-ZMHygD8SCCE781
7 Shual // Oct 20, 2007 at 11:36 am
Pappe, Prooooooves, not
the old “pictures”-story we had already in mid-September.
“dramatic satellite imagery” - the types of activity associated with nuclear weapons development, particularly at the early stages of the program, are precisely the sorts of things that are not going to produce dramatic satellite imagery, which is why North Korea’s uranium program is so vexing for the United States.” [globalsecurity.org]
PS: “Israel had obtained detailed [ON THE GROUND] pictures of a Syrian complex from an apparent mole, which supported an Israeli belief the facility was nuclear and led to an air strike on it last month, ABC News reported on Friday.” … “The complex struck by Israel was in a remote area about 100 miles (160 km) from the Iraqi border and along the Euphrates River, ABC said.”
PPS: “It said the official described the pictures as showing a large cylindrical structure, still under construction, with thick reinforced walls” “nuclear reactor similar to North Korea’s facility” [NKs facility have no “cylindrical structure”]
8 Paul // Oct 23, 2007 at 5:11 pm
The July-September mistake came because the interpreter mistook the Mashreq Arabic word for September — Elul — for July, probably because they sound the same. Shoddy translator.
9 blowback // Nov 3, 2007 at 2:13 am
The Jerusalem Post continues to push this story:
On October 17, Syria denied that one of its representatives to the United Nations told a panel that an Israeli air strike hit a Syrian nuclear facility and added that “such facilities do not exist in Syria.”
A UN document released by the press office had provided an account of a meeting of the First Committee, Disarmament and International Security, in New York, and paraphrased an unnamed Syrian representative as saying that a nuclear facility was hit by the raid.
However, the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency, SANA said media reports, apparently based on a UN press release, misquoted the Syrian diplomat.
It’s no better than the National Enquirer!
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