United States President George W. Bush on Tuesday said the recent U.S. disclosure of details on Israel's strike last September on a suspected nuclear facility in Syria was intended to send a tough message to Damascus and Pyongyang as well as Tehran over their nuclear ambitions.
"We... wanted to advance certain policy objectives through the disclosure, one would be to the North Koreans to make it abundantly clear that we may know more about you than you think," Bush told a White House news conference.
The CIA said a suspected Syrian nuclear reactor destroyed by the Israel Air Force was within weeks or a month of completion . Syria said the site was not part of a nuclear weapons program.
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The site was allegedly built with help from North Korea.
The U.S. last week released photos it said proved its accusations of an illicit arms program. Syria has denied the U.S. charges and accused Washington of involvement in the air strike by Israel.
Bush said the information had been withheld at first because of concerns about the risk of "confrontation" or "retaliation," an apparent reference to Syria's possible military response to Israel's strike on its territory.
Since the Second Lebanon War in 2006, there have been heightened tensions between Israel and Syria. Only some two weeks ago, Syrian President Bashar Assad was reported as saying that Syria is preparing for war with Israel as a real possibility.
These current tensions have recently run parallel to an exchange of messages between Israel and Syria about moves toward reaching a peace deal, some of which have been relayed by Turkey.
He acknowledged that the disclosure last week was in part aimed at pressuring North Korea to come clean fully on its nuclear and proliferation activities and said it was also meant to send a stern message to Syria.
"And then we have an interest in sending a message to Iran and the world for that matter about just how destabilizing nuclear proliferation would be in the Middle East," Bush added.
Washington is leading an international campaign against Iran over a nuclear program the West suspects is aimed at developing nuclear weapons. Tehran insists it wants nuclear technology for peaceful civilian purposes.
The United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency has criticized the United States for waiting until this month to share its intelligence, and U.S. lawmakers have also complained about the delay.
Bush also sought to put an optimistic face over prospects for an Israeli-Palestinian peace accord.
"I'm still hopeful we'll get an agreement by the end of my presidency," he said at a news conference at the White House.
He accused Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, of trying to undermine peace efforts. But he avoided direct criticism of former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, who met the Palestinian group's leadership to try to pull them into peace talks with Abbas and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
Bush made clear he would not have similar engagement with Hamas, an Islamist group that advocates Israel's destruction and which the United States and the European Union consider a terrorist organization.
"They are a significant problem to world peace, or Middle Eastern peace. And that's the reason I'm not talking to them," Bush said.
Bush also accused Syria of helping Hamas and said there were "rumors" that Iran was also aiding the group.
"So when you want to talk about peace being difficult in the Middle East, it's going to be difficult, but it's even made more difficult by entities like Hamas," he said.
Bush, whose stated goal is the creation of a Palestinian state co-existing peacefully with Israel, said of his conversations with Abbas and Olmert that "the attitude is good. People do understand the importance of getting a state defined."
