Decision Points

matter,” I told the prime minister. “Give me some time to look at the intelligence and I’ll give you an answer.”
    I convened the national security team for a series of intense discussions. As a military matter, the bombing mission would be straightforward. The Air Force could destroy the target, no sweat. But bombing a sovereign country with no warning or announced justification would create severe blowback.
    A second option would be a covert raid. We studied the idea seriously, but the CIA and the military concluded that it would be too risky to slip a team into and out of Syria with enough explosives to blow up the facility.
    The third option was to brief our allies on the intelligence, jointly expose the facility, and demand that Syria shutter and dismantle it under the supervision of the IAEA. With the regime’s duplicity exposed, we could use our leverage to press Syria to end its support for terror and meddling in Lebanon and Iraq. If Syria refused to dismantle the facility, we would have a clear public rationale for military action.
    Before I made a decision, I asked CIA Director Mike Hayden to conduct an intelligence assessment.
    He explained that the analysts had high confidence that the plant housed a nuclear reactor. But because they could not confirm the location of the facilities necessary to turn the plutonium into a weapon, they had only low confidence of a Syrian nuclear weapons program.
    Mike’s report clarified my decision. “I cannot justify an attack on a sovereign nation unless my intelligence agencies stand up and say it’s a weapons program,” I said to Olmert. I told him I had decided on the diplomatic option backed by the threat of force. “I believe the strategy protects your interests and your state, and makes it more likely we can achieve our interests as well.”
    The prime minister was disappointed. “This is something that hits at the very serious nerves of this country,” he said. He told me the threat of a nuclear weapons program in Syria was an “existential” issue for Israel,and he worried diplomacy would bog down and fail. “I must be honest and sincere with you. Your strategy is very disturbing to me.” That was the end of the call.
    On September 6, 2007, the facility was destroyed.
    The experience was revealing on multiple fronts. It confirmed Syria’s intention to develop nuclear weapons. It also provided another reminder that intelligence is not an exact science. While I was told that our analysts had only low confidence that the facility was part of a nuclear weapons program , surveillance after the bombing showed Syrian officials meticulously covering up the remains of the building. If the facility was really just an innocent research lab, Syrian President Assad would have been screaming at the Israelis on the floor of the United Nations. That was one judgment I could make with high confidence.
    Prime Minister Olmert’s execution of the strike made up for the confidence I had lost in the Israelis during the Lebanon war. I suggested to Ehud that we let some time go by and then reveal the operation as a way to isolate the Syrian regime. Olmert told me he wanted total secrecy. He wanted to avoid anything that might back Syria into a corner and force Assad to retaliate. This was his operation, and I felt an obligation to respect his wishes. I kept quiet, even though I thought we were missing an opportunity.
    Finally, the bombing demonstrated Israel’s willingness to act alone. Prime Minister Olmert hadn’t asked for a green light, and I hadn’t given one. He had done what he believed was necessary to protect Israel.

    One of the most influential books I read during my presidency was
Aquariums of Pyongyang
by the North Korean dissident Kang Chol-hwan . The memoir, recommended by my friend Henry Kissinger , tells the story of Kang’s ten-year detention and abuse in a North Korean gulag. I invited Kang to the Oval Office, where he recounted the wrenching suffering in his homeland, including terrible famines and persecution.
    Kang’s story stirred up my deep disgust for the tyrant who had destroyed so many lives, Kim Jong-il . Early in the administration, Don Rumsfeld showed me satellite photos of the Korean Peninsula at night.The south was alive with lights, while the north was pure black. I read intelligence reports that malnutrition had left the average North Korean three inches shorter than the average South Korean. When I took office in 2001, an