Richard WarnickBush: I’d understand if Israel chose to attack Iran
The Isareli newspaper Haaretz reports that President Bush told French President Jacques Chirac several weeks ago that Israel might carry out a strike against Iran’s nuclear installations.
Bush also said that if such an attack were to take place, he would understand it. According to European diplomats who later met with [Condoleezza] Rice, the secretary of state did not express the same willingness to show understanding for a possible Israeli strike against Iran.
Nonetheless, Rice did not discount the possibility that such an operation may take place.
By some estimates, the timing of the Israeli attack could be as soon as spring 2007. An Israeli air attack on Iranian targets would likely fly through Iraqi airspace, currently controlled by the USA.
November 19th, 2006 at 11:41 pm
From here:
“It wouldn’t be as easy as it sounds. Tehran, taking obvious lessons from Israel’s successful 1981 bombing of Saddam Hussein’s reactor at Osirak, has done its best to shield potential targets like Natanz. “They are dispersed, underground, hardened,” says the senior Israeli military source. U.S. analysts say each facility would require multiple hits before serious damage was done. Still, the Israelis—who have an undeclared nuclear arsenal of their own, and refuse international inspections or oversight—insist they have all the firepower they need: more than 100 U.S.-made BLU-109 “bunker buster” earth-penetrating bombs. “I think they could do the job,” says the senior Israeli source.
Logistics is a bigger hurdle. Each separate target would require a small fleet of aircraft. Israel’s F-15s and F-16s would need advance escorts of “electronic countermeasures” aircraft to jam Iran’s air-defense radars, and every one of those planes would need an entourage of fighter aircraft. At short range, Tehran’s newly upgraded MiG-29 interceptors are a match for just about anything in the air. “To get there and bomb the facilities, that’s the easy part,” says Brom. “The difficult part is how to get back. We’re not making kamikaze runs.”
To hit Osirak in 1981, Israel’s bombers flew in low over Saudi Arabia. In a study published late last year by the U.S. Army War College, Brom suggests that a strike against Iran’s facilities could arrive by way of the Indian Ocean—roughly twice the operational radius of Israel’s newest strike aircraft under optimal flying conditions. But Israel’s fleet of specialized planes for in-flight refueling—five aging KC-130H tankers—doesn’t have the capacity to get all those aircraft there and back again. The only way to manage it would be with a covert stopover midway—it’s anybody’s guess where.
The Israelis admit they can only disable the Iranian program, not destroy it. “The real question is what you achieve if the best you can do is to delay the project for a few years,” says a senior U.S. administration official, speaking anonymously because it’s a sensitive topic. The cost to the region’s stability could be devastating. Meanwhile, Israel continues to upgrade its own arsenal, acquiring two new German subs that could launch nuclear-armed cruise missiles for a “second-strike” deterrent. Perhaps the threats are only a way of pushing the West to get tough with Tehran before the arms race gets even more heated. But if so, it’s one hell of an act.
November 20th, 2006 at 8:33 am
How many nukes does israeli have? Does usa force israeli to sign on to non proliferation pacts? How many israeli spies in neocon… i mean washington, d.c.?
How about bio and chem? What is the israeli storage total?
November 20th, 2006 at 10:15 am
Cliff the analysis that you presented means that we(US) are going to strike iran for israel.
I wonder if israel is blackmailing bush, by saying either you deal with iran or we send a nuke into china, then your ass will be in a sling.
If, as you have claimed jews control our nuclear codes, and military command structure, then this would be easy.
This form of blackmail was reputedly used by israel, against us, during the cold war, when the hair trigger was in effect, any nuke falling on Russia, would have lead to a full launch on America. It made the US acede to isreali demands, or able to conduct themselves without question from us. Terrorism on a grand scale.
Keep in mind that israels survival trumps ANY other concerns, so using your imagination, think what could happen.