ANOTHER ZIONIST WAR?

 

 

US and Israel
drafting plans to bomb Iran

 

US and Israel 'face up to' Iran bomb
The Sunday Telegraph, London  Sunday, 18 November 2007

By PHILIP SHERWELL & MATTHEW KALMAN

JERUSALEM — America and Israel are secretly drawing up
plans to deal with an Iran that has acquired nuclear weapons,
The Sunday Telegraph has learned.

Tehran's two arch-foes are preparing for what they have long
declared is an unacceptable scenario, as the prospects for air
strikes to cripple Iran's nuclear network fade, and China and
Russia undermine efforts to forge an international sanctions
regime.

The United States and Israel are sticking publicly to their
threats not to allow the Islamic Republic to develop an atomic
bomb. But intelligence chiefs and military planners have given
warning that Iran has done better at hiding and dispersing its
nuclear facilities than previously assessed, this newspaper has
been told.

The revelations come as the United Nations nuclear watchdog
has revealed that Iran has stepped up its production of enriched
uranium, and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad tightens his grip
on Tehran's nuclear program by threatening domestic critics
with treason charges.

'Preemptive' military action?

Pentagon strategists are updating US deterrence policies for
a future nuclear-armed Iran, even though — after the terrorist
attack on New York and Washington in 2001 — the Bush
administration put a policy of preemptive military action at the
heart of national security policy.

"The more they looked at the intelligence and the information
they had, the more pessimistic they have become about what
could be achieved on the operational front by military action,"
said Dan Goure, a Pentagon adviser.

"Military strikes might only set the program back a couple of years,
but the current thinking is that it is just not worth the risks." A
political rethink has also begun in Israel, where security policy is
linked to its status — never publicly admitted — as the region's
only nuclear state.

At a security cabinet meeting last weekend, Ehud Olmert, the
prime minister, told officials to draw up proposals for dealing with
an Iran that had built atomic weapons, according to leaks.

"First, we must make clear that this is a threat not just to Israel,
but to the wider world. Second, we must exhaustively consider
all preventive options. Third, we must anticipate the possibility
of those options not working," said Ami Ayalon, a security cabinet
minister, after the meeting.

Israel equipping German-made submarines with nukes

Israel's air force trains for possible long-range raids, and bombed
a suspected nuclear site in Syria recently. But military chiefs face
the same intelligence problems as the US as well as refuelling
difficulties if they cannot fly over hostile Arab states to reach
Iran.

Israel is believed to be equipping a fleet of German-made
submarines with atomic weapons ready to respond to any nuclear
threat from Tehran, and Ehud Barack, the defense minister, is
keen to develop a sophisticated ballistic anti-missile system.

Iran insists its nuclear program is only for civilian energy purposes,
but the West and Israel say there is overwhelming intelligence that
it is pursuing an atomic bomb. Estimates of the time-frame range
from two to 10 years.

US hawks linked to Vice President Dick Cheney have argued that
a coordinated aerial and submarine-launched bombardment could
set Iran's nuclear program back by five to 10 years.

But Robert Gates, the US defense secretary, who has emerged as
a White House counterweight to Mr. Cheney, has made concerns
about possible retaliation against US forces in Iraq a top priority.