According to this link that may be the case:
Speculation is that it was either a weapons cache or a nuclear facility.
I don’t have a firm opinion on what happened, but if we are going to debate the ethics of the strike, I’ll take the position that Israel has been provoked more than enough and this was justified retaliation.
I’ll not argue with you, but I’ll bump your thread. 
According to Reuters, Israel refuses to comment – but that was a week ago.
from the Washington Post
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I find it fascinating that the issue has been totally ignored. Not even a perfunctory condemnation at the UN. And the Syrians themselves are barely mentioning it.
My bet is that nobody’s talking because EVERYONE looks dirty if all the facts about it are out of the box.
Yeah. Either the attack never happened, or if it did it probably hit a target that was exactly what Israel said it was. If it had been a baby food factory (or even if they had time to doctor it up to look like one), Syria would be screaming to the UN, and we’d have umpteen threads here calling Israel despicable warmongers.
Another article from the Times:
I betcha NK was barely on speaking terms with any Muslim radicals or Ba’athist regimes when Bush included it in his 2002 “Axis of Evil” speech. By his words and deeds, he has conjured the Axis of Evil into existence.
Our POTUS is a wizard!
There is a slim possibility that Hezbollah was doing something so worrying that even the Syrian government didn’t like it - and allowing Israel to take it out saved everyone’s face.
Why would Assad object to anything Hezbollah is doing, or wants to do, in Lebanon?
Even if that were the story, they wouldn’t have allowed it to happen in Syria. In Lebanon, yes; but not on their own soil. It’s an admission of weakness.
How much are you betting?
You’re serious about that, aren’t you? You really have such contempt for these countries that all it takes to manipulate them is for the POTUS to call them names? Imagine the possibilities that opens up for the US. How about this:
GWB: The only reason Syria doesn’t wipe out Hezbollah is 'cause they’re scared!
Oh, something else might have done it. But remember, the only thing Iraq, Iran and NK had in common, in 2002, was that they were all on bad terms with the U.S., for very different sets of reasons. But that was a status quo to which everyone had been accustomed for many years, and it didn’t make them friends with each other; Iran and Iraq had remained bitter enemies since 1980, and Korean Communism was, in principle, ideologically hostile to any Islamic theocracy (less so, perhaps, to Ba’athists, whose ideology is based partly on socialism). In declaring open-ended active hostility to all of them, W raised the stakes and gave them, and others similarly situated, something they never really had before: a good reason to work together against the common enemy.
Uhm…how about because Hezbollah has a track record of killing people that get in their way? And Assad is controlling this really nice piece of real estate right next door to Lebanon? Assad would be safer raising a Bengal tiger in one of his palaces than allowing Hezbollah to grow unfettered anywhere in the Middle East.
In the 1990’s, Syria worked together with North Korea to buy Scud missiles. This was a full decade before W came to power…
cite
Bush bashing is a popular sport, but try to keep it in line with the facts.
That’s by no means incredible, but there’s an awful lot of “reportedly” in it.
Because he has to walk a very fine line between trying to throw the wrench in Israel’s works, while not bringing down the wrath of the Israeli armed forces on his head.
Everyone knows that Syria is up to its eyeballs in Lebanon. Just what do you think would happen if, say, a dirty nuke was launched from Lebanon at Israel?
Syria benefits from Israel being tied up and harassed by Hezbollah, but not from full-scale war.
Syria also wants Israel to look like the bad guy. Provoke Israel just enough to prompt a retaliation that can be spun as ‘big bad Israel attacking the poor Lebanese’. If an attack agaiinst Israel is too strong, too deadly, or too threatening, world opinion shifts and suddenly Syria is taking heat from everyone.
Not that I necessarily believe the particular theory that Syria looked the other way in this instance, but it’s certainly not outside the realm of possibility.
The article also says that the U.S. knew of the attack, because it had to give Israeli planes transponder codes so they could be identified as friendlies and not accidently shot down by the U.S.
In the middle east, there is always a LOT going on below the surface that never makes the papers. On all sides.
This article from today’s WSJ suppors that point. Lots of theories and questions, few facts so far: