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/ BARAK / 118 deal with a major conflict with the Syrians. All of this, under a tight seal of secrecy. Finally, in early September 2007, everything was in place. Olmert briefed the cabinet, and secured the ministers’ approval to destroy the reactor, with the understanding that the precise timing of the operation would now be left to the Prime Minister, the Defense Minister and the Foreign Minister: Olmert, me and Tzipi Livni. The three of us met immediately after the cabinet discussion. Olmert argued that the risk of leaks justified attacking that night, and I agreed with him. Tzipi was reluctant, but Olmert turned to her and said: “Are you sure you’re comfortable with an attack being ordered by me and Barak, while you chose to abstain?” She thought it over, and added her approval. We struck just after midnight, in an intricately coordinated air attack that evaded not only a Syrian response, but Syrian notice. The reactor was destroyed. Although even today the exact details remain subject to Israel’s military secrecy regulations, accounts published abroad in the weeks and months that followed painted a surprisingly accurate picture, including the pioneering use of electronic warfare capabilities to deal with risk of radar detection. But in the immediate aftermath of the attack, Israel deliberately made no public comment. We refused to say whether we’d had anything to do with an attack. As we he had hoped, this allowed the Syrian President, Bashar al-Assad, both the space and a good reason to deny that it had ever happened, deny that he’d been trying to make a nuclear weapon, and thus feel no compelling reason to retaliate. The reactor operation, however, marked the start of an increasingly tough period in both my and Tzipi’s relationship with Olmert. Policy was not the problem. There were no major security crises in the months ahead. But in the spring of 2008, it became known that the Israeli police were investigating Olmert’s relationship with an American businessman named Moshe Talansky. The suggestion, initially in a New York paper and then the Israeli press, was that Olmert was guilty of taking bribes. In his first public response, he didn’t deny 404 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_011875