The Pros and Cons of a Military Strike against Iranian Sites
October 21, 2008
http://www.tribulationperiod.com/
I am including Special Prophecy Update 147E from our Archives be fore three excerpts from the Jerusalem Center
for Public Information Daily Alert for October 19, 2007
SPECIAL PROPHECY UPDATE NUMBER 147E
November 26, 2003
Israel Warns Iran for the Second Time
When Saddam Hussein was close to developing the first Islamic nuclear bomb, Israeli jets flashed across the desert skies and destroyed his large nuclear complex. The United Nations and its member nations supplied a long line of vocal denouncements of what Saddam was doing, but not one of them took any action. Israel issued its second announcement to Iran and the United Nations early this week – It is prepared to take unilateral action against Iran’s nuclear facility IF the international community fails to stop the development of nuclear weapons at any of the units that make up its atomic energy complex. In 1981 Israel bombed Iraq’s big nuclear reactor near Baghdad, and they are not in the habit of making threats void of eventual fulfillment.
The International Atomic Energy Agency is meeting this week to discuss the situation in Iran. It is meeting in the face of what some have labeled as a warning of “unprecedented severity” toward Iran by Israel Defense Minister Shaul Mofez. At the time of the Iraqi attack, Israel defended its action by claiming it had dealt a devastating blow to Saddam’s goal of developing nuclear weapons. Israel views Iran’s goals as being the same as those of Saddam. Last week, during his visit to the United States, the Israel position was made crystal clear to officials when he stated.
“under no circumstances would Israel be able to tolerate nuclear weapons in the possession of the Iranians.” Mofez went on to state, that in 2004, Iran’s drive for nuclear weapons would “reach the point of no return.”
Meir Dagan, the head of Mossad (Israel’s secret services), backed up the Defense Minister’s statements. Dagan claimed a development of nuclear weaponry in Iran represented the greatest threat Israel had faced since the founding of the Jewish state in 1948. He also said the Iranians were developing ground-to-ground missiles that could hit Israel as well as all of Europe.
The claim of Iran, that it has no plans to develop nuclear bombs to put on its existing long-range missiles, is an out and out lie.
Iran has long made the claim its reactor at Bashir is to be used solely for the production of electricity for peaceful purposes, but its output of 100 megawatts is much too large for that purpose alone. Iran’s uranium enrichment facility at Kashan is nearing completion and, with enriched uranium, an output of 100 megawatts can produce 10 nuclear bombs a year. Israel and the U.S. are both well aware of this potential. In 1956 Israel asked France to help build a nuclear reactor in the Negev for them in return for Israel having helped France in the 1956 Suez recovery campaign. So, in 1957, France began to build Israel a 24-megawatt nuclear reactor at Dimona in the Negev wilderness.
A 24-megawatt reactor can produce a lot of electricity for peaceful purposes, but it cannot produce an atomic bomb. Israel and France both assured the United States, who opposed Israel having the nuclear reactor, that it would never be used to produce nuclear weapons. We knew they were lying, and they both knew they were lying, but that’s the way it goes in world politics. There was more to it than that, but if I said any more about it I might be guilty of violating national security, and I don’t want to be thrown in jail.
The sand from the Negev left by the feet of the French technicians had not settled following their exit in 1960, before the Israelis had jacked the reactor up to 150 megawatts to produce atomic bombs. In 1964 the first Israeli atomic bomb was ready.
I will not reveal where, how, or when it was tested. In 1967 Israel, for the first time in its history, launched a preemptive strike against the Arab countries surrounding it – Why? The Egyptians had obtained some Russian copycats of our highflying RB-70 aircraft, and were flying over Dimona above maximum jet altitudes of Israeli fighters.
The Israelis were afraid of these aircraft being used to direct a three-prong air strike from Egypt, Jordan, and Syria against Dimona, so they attacked them first to preclude such a possibility. Israel had a few atomic bombs at that time but did not use them. It is against Israeli War Contingency Plan directives to launch weapons of mass destruction, unless they are first launched against them.
However, they had no need to use them because they mopped up the Arab armies in six days.
By 1968, since Israel already had atomic bombs, the United States helped them to get a hydrogen bomb. I will not reveal the particulars of how all this came to pass because of national interest. I will tell you that the U.S. was not directly involved in its development. The Germans supplied the yellowcake (crude uranium), and it was smuggled by night on a Liberian tanker into the port of Haifa in December of 1968. In 1969 Israel made its first hydrogen bomb. I will not reveal where, how, or when the bomb was tested.
In 1973 Israel was caught napping on Yom Kipper, and the well-planned surprise attack by Syria, Egypt, and Jordan met with great success in its initial stages, with their armies making solid incursions across the Golan, into Sinai, and across the Jordan.
However, it is significant that Israel did not use its numerous nuclear weapons under such a shocking initial scenario. Israel will not use weapons of mass destruction against any one unless they are first launched against it.
Israel now has some 200 well-concealed Jericho missile silos in the Negev, some 300 Jericho missiles, and more than 300 warheads containing the elements of weapons of mass destruction. These missiles are capable of reaching all targets in the Islamic kingdoms of the Middle East. The main reason I wanted Saddam Hussein to be deposed in Iraq had nothing to do with any possibility of a democratic state being established there. That is impossible. Saddam is a megalomaniac with illusions of power, grandeur, wealth, and dreams of divinity.
Had he developed a nuclear bomb, and a missile capable of delivering it, he would have launched it against Israel, no matter what the consequence to his own people for his having done so. None of the other Islamic leaders are megalomaniacs. If they do not launch weapons of mass destruction again Israel, then Israel will not launch the same against them.
The next Arab war against Israel will be a war of conventional weaponry. Weapons of mass destruction will not be used against Israel, because it would cause the full destruction of all Islamic nations, and they jolly well know it.
The sooner we catch Saddam and Osama, then get out of Iraq, the better off we, and the rest of the world, will be.
Begin Three Excerpts from Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs Daily Alert
Begin Jerusalem Post Excerpt
The Military Option Is Now on the Table
Herb Keinon
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert sat in the Kremlin on October 18 and told Russian President Vladimir Putin the Iranians needed to fear that if they continued with their nuclear march, “something will happen to them that they don’t want.” That was on October 18, 2006.
Exactly a year later, Olmert was back in the Kremlin. The urgent manner in which Olmert dropped everything and jetted off to Moscow Thursday for a three-hour meeting with Putin indicates that Israel has changed phases. It has gone from treating the Iranian problem as an international one, that the world has to deal with, to taking steps indicating that it sees it increasingly as an Israeli problem, that might necessitate an Israeli solution.
Nobody is tiptoeing around the possibility of military action against Iran any more. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner raised the possibility of war a few weeks ago. Even British Prime Minister Gordon Brown didn’t rule anything out in comments he made in October, and President George W. Bush said Wednesday a nuclear Iran could trigger World War III.
Regardless of comments Putin made in Iran that there was no concrete evidence Teheran is after nuclear weapons, the former KGB man knows full well what the
Iranians want. Putin knows the facts, and the problem is not with Moscow’s intel. The problem is with Russia’s own interpretation of its interests. (Jerusalem Post)
Begin Haaretz Excerpt
Striking Iran’s Nuclear Facilities: A Complex, But Not Impossible Mission
Amir Oren
According to Brig.-Gen. Yohanan Locker of the Israel Air Force, the IAF is preparing for three kinds of missions: a potential war with a country that borders on Israel, an operation in Gaza, and actions against distant targets deep in enemy territory. Israel has declared in every possible language that it will see a military nuclear device in the hands of a hostile Iran as a red line. In the Iranian context, Israel is hoping for an American operation, but is prepared to assume that in Washington they will ultimately not have the nerve to opt for one.
In the air force they like to note that the physical area of Iran is like that of Germany, France and Britain combined.
A mission would be complex, but not impossible, and – in the opinion of a clear majority at the top of the defense establishment – essential. (Ha’aretz)
Begin Second Haaretz Excerpt
From Israel, It Looks Different
Aluf Benn
This is the assessment of the situation at the top diplomatic and military levels in Israel: Iran is moving, unhindered, toward a nuclear bomb. Blocking it with economic sanctions has failed, mainly because Russia, Germany and Italy refuse to stop doing business with the Iranians.
Two options remain on the table: to come to terms with Iran’s nuclearization because there is no alternative, or to stop it by force. The chances of an American attack appear small. Israel, it seems, is waiting for Bush’s decision, which will be taken during the coming year, before it decides to attack Iran itself.
From Jerusalem, the Iranian threat looks much more palpable and scarier and the response much simpler and more focused.
Presumably, Iran, like Iraq and Syria in their turn, will find it hard to respond.
Perhaps it will launch some missiles at Israel plus Hizbullah rockets from Lebanon, and perhaps it will initiate a terror attack on an Israeli target abroad. This would be painful but bearable and would be perceived as a justified price for getting rid of an existential threat.
Someone who lives in Chicago or Miami can live comfortably with an Iranian bomb, just as he lived under the Soviet threat. An inhabitant of Tel Aviv must be far more worried. In its refusal of sanctions and serious organization against Iran, the world is quietly pushing Israel toward a decision to attack. (Ha’aretz)
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