Archive for the 'Israel' Category

It is being reported that there are plans to destroy the Iranian enrichment facility at Natanz.

Israel has drawn up secret plans to destroy Iran’s uranium enrichment facilities with conventional and tactical nuclear weapons, Britain’s Sunday Times newspaper has reported.

Citing what it said were several Israel Defense Forces sources, the paper said two Israel Air Force squadrons had been training to blow up an enrichment plant in Natanz using low-yield nuclear “bunker busters.”

Two other sites, a heavy water plant at Arak and a uranium conversion plant at Isfahan, would be targeted with conventional bombs, the Sunday Times said.

The United Nations Security Council voted unanimously last month to slap sanctions on Iran to try to stop uranium enrichment that Western powers fear could lead to making bombs. Tehran insists its plans are peaceful and says it will continue enrichment.

Israel has refused to rule out pre-emptive military action against Iran along the lines of its 1981 air strike against an atomic reactor in Iraq, though many analysts believe Iran’s nuclear facilities are too much for Israel to take on alone.

The newspaper said the Israeli plan envisaged conventional laser-guided bombs opening “tunnels” into the targets. Nuclear warheads would then be used fired into the plant at Natanz, exploding deep underground to reduce radioactive fallout.

IAF pilots have flown to Gibraltar in recent weeks to train for the 2,000 mile round-trip to the Iranian targets, the Sunday Times said, and three possible routes to Iran have been mapped out including one over Turkey.

However, it also quoted sources as saying a nuclear strike would only be used if a conventional attack was ruled out and if the United States declined to intervene. Disclosure of the plans could be intended to put pressure on Tehran to halt enrichment, the paper added.

Washington has said military force remains an option while insisting that its priority is to reach a diplomatic solution.

Fox News military analyst Col. David Hunt, when asked why the Israelis would divulge this information, responded that he believed that it was possible that the U.S. did it, in order to stop this plan.  Col. Hunt: “No one in their right mind wants nuclear footballs being lobbed around in the Middle East.”

The problem with Col. Hunt’s analysis is that it is only compelling if the U.S. has a viable means of stopping the Iranian nuclear program.  And the notion of “viable” includes willingness to execute it.  If we don’t, then it would be irresponsible for the IDF to not have a plan.  The U.S. should be assisting the IDF rather than undercutting their efforts.

I posted a while back on the fact that I thought that Israel should have invested in THEL (Tactical High Energy Laser) to help against the Katyusha rockets coming across the border.  From Haaretz:

Contrary to the approach of his predecessors, Defense Minister Amir Peretz believes it is of the “utmost strategic importance” for Israel to “come up with an effective solution as soon as possible” to the threat of Katyusha rockets and missiles. Peretz thus appears to be shaping a new security doctrine before the defense establishment has talked about the matter in depth.

Peretz plans to convene a discussion on the matter in the coming days.

Even without the minister’s determination in this regard, senior defense establishment officials agree on one immediate conclusion from the recent conflict in Lebanon: Israel must press ahead quickly with initiatives to protect the home front against high-trajectory weapons - missiles of various kinds, including Katyusha and Qassam rockets.

But even now, the concept has its detractors:

“As a researcher, I believe that the entire notion of developing means to intercept Katyushas or Qassams is superfluous,” says Yiftah Shapir of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University.

According to Shapir, a former Israel Air Force intelligence officer, “A Katyusha is in fact an artillery shell, and no one talks about the need to develop means to intercept shells. … With the existing technology, it is difficult to deal with tens of thousands of Katyushas or Qassams or shells. There’s no end to it, and it is not economically worthwhile.”

Well, perhaps.

But it seems to me that the smartest approach is a defense-in-depth concept of security.  Assuming that the money is available — and this is a big assumption — Israel should invest in and deploy a THEL defense system, in addition to working towards the disarming and relocation of Hezbollah.  If the resources are available, it should not be a matter of either-or.  It should be both-and.