china confidential
Friday, May 15, 2009
Horror History: Hitler to Hussein to Hezbollah
The first attack using ballistic missiles was the Nazi attack on England with V-2 rockets in September 1944.
Adolf Hitler called the V-2 his "vengeance weapon." The liquid-fueled rocket was 47 feet long, a little over 5 feet wide and could reach an altitude of 50 miles. Mounted with a 2,000-pound warhead, the rocket had a range of about 250 miles.
There was no defense against V-2. It was a supersonic weapon, so the first sign it was coming was the explosion. The Nazis fired more than 1,000 rockets at England.
The first V-2s hit a Paris suburb and Epping, England, on Sept. 8, 1944. During the course of the German offensive, 2,754 Britons died and 6,523 were seriously wounded. The allies were able to stop attacks only stopped near the end of the war.
Fast-forward to the Persian Gulf War. On Aug. 2, 1990, Saddam Hussein rolled into Kuwait and threatened Saudi Arabia. U.S. and coalition forces rushed to the kingdom and took up defensive postures. Coalition partners were aware of Hussein's ballistic missile capability since he used them during the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s. Hussein had mobile Scud missiles capable of mounting warheads with weapons of mass destruction.
The Scud missiles in Hussein's arsenal were not much technologically beyond the Nazi V-2s. The Soviet Union first deployed Scuds in the 1960s. The Soviet weapon was meant to launch a 100-kiloton nuclear warhead or a 2,000- pound conventional warhead.
Chemical Warheads
The Iraqis adapted Scuds to carry chemical warheads, and revelations after the Gulf War said they were also looking to build nuclear weapons and biological weapons.
The coalition's only defense was the U.S. Patriot missile system, a system primarily designed to combat aircraft.
Coalition forces built up in Saudi Arabia and on Jan. 17, 1991, the allies launched the air campaign against Iraq. That same day, Iraq launched seven Scud missiles against Israel in an attempt to fracture the coalition arrayed against him. U.S. Patriot crews deployed from Europe to protect Israel.
On Feb. 24, the coalition launched its ground campaign.
On Feb. 25, a low-tech Scud ballistic missile armed with a conventional warhead struck an American barracks in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. Twenty-eight soldiers died, 98 were wounded. The attack marked the single greatest U.S. loss of life during the Gulf War.
Officials estimate the Patriots successfully intercepted Scuds about 25 percent of the time.
Thirty-nine Scud missiles were fired into Israel by Iraq during the seven weeks of the war. Three Israeli civilians died due to these attacks, in addition to approximately 78 injured. More than one third of these injuries were caused by the attack on January 19, 1991, which injured 29 people. Several others suffered fatal heart attacks immediately after the missile strikes.
Israel was eager to respond with military force to these attacks, but agreed not to when asked by the U.S. Government, which feared that if Israel became involved, the other Arab nations would either desert from the coalition or join Iraq. Israel was given two batteries of MIM-104 Patriot missiles for the protection of civilians.The Royal Netherlands Air Force also deployed Patriot missiles in Turkey and Israel to counter the Scud threat. The Dutch Ministry of Defense later stated that the military use of the Patriot missile system was largely ineffective, but its psychological value was high.
Flash forward again. By August 13, 2006, Hezbollah had fired about 3,900 rockets into Israel during the 34 days of the 2006 Lebanon War, killing 44 Israeli civilians and 106 soldiers including 12 reserve soldiers, and wounding some 1,400 civilians. According to another report a total of 4,228 Hezbollah rockets hit Israel. Of those 972 (23%) landed within built-up areas. The number of longer range rockets (over 50 km) was approximately 250 (or 6% of the total). Israel suffered 53 fatalities, 250 severely wounded and 2,000 lightly wounded, and hundreds of buildings were damaged.
Hezbollah has since rearmed and now controls approximately 40,000 rockets--10 times its pre-war level.Israel's Terrible Dilemma
An Israeli attack on Iran's key nuclear facilities will have to be swift and decisive, given Iran's arsenal of long-range missiles, chemical warheads, and vows to "burn Tel Aviv" and shut down the Persian Gulf.
In other words, an Israeli attack will have to include wiping out Iranian missile installations and elements of Iran's Revolutionary Guard; and the outcome of the conflict will have to be decided in minutes. The war will have to be won in six-hours instead of six-days.
Israel will have to attack with both missiles and aircraft if it wants to prevent Iran from retaliating in ways that could force Israel to respond with nuclear weapons.
Israel will also have to preemptively strike Iran's forward army in Lebanon, the Hitlerian Hezbollah, which is bristling with an estimated 40,000 rockets--an arsenal, 10 times larger than that which Hezbollah had before the 2006 Lebanese war, capable of flattening Haifa and Tel Aviv. Israel has no defense against this threat.
Hezbollah and Hamas can be expected to send waves of suicide bombers into Israel in response to an Israeli attack on Iran; so devastating attacks on the Gaza-based terrorist army will also be necessary.
Syria, armed with missiles and chemical weapons, will not join the losing side. Hence the need for a quick, crushing victory.
Israel's challenge is enormous; the downside risk of a botched or semi-successful campaign, terrifying. Barring a miracle--e.g. regime change in Iran, or a united stand by the world community to impose truly tough sanctions on Iran--the only apparent alternative to military action is to allow the monstrous mullahocracy to develop nuclear weapons and to rely on Israel's nuclear deterrent power--the threat of mutual assured destruction--to dissuade the Islamist regime from using its weapons or handing them off to terrorists. Some alternative.
How did it come to this? How the did the United States and its European allies allow Iran to approach the threshold of nuclear might? Have we learned nothing from the history of the Second World War?
POSTSCRIPT: Click here or scroll for the China Confidential analysis of how and why the U.S. could be a nuclear Iran's first target.Thursday, May 14, 2009
The US, Not Israel, Could be Nuclear-Armed, Islamist Iran's Initial, Sneak-Attack Target
The United States should realize that if it allows Iran to acquire atomic arms, the Islamist nation's initial target will not necessarily be Israel.
Iran, like its Stalinist/Kimist ally, North Korea, dreams of a "world without America." The partners in nuclear/missile crime could therefore be tempted to carry out coordinated, EMP (electro-magnetic pulse) attacks on the United States. In fact, that could be the Iranian-North Korean plan.
An EMP attack is produced by launching a ballistic missile with a nuclear warhead--and detonating it high above the Earth. This produces a massive pulse of ionized particles that could damage or even wipe out many electrical and information systems. Such an attack would disrupt telecommunications, banking and finance, fuel and energy, food and water supplies, and emergency and government services, destroying millions of lives. Even a modest warhead placed at the right spot over the East Coast could take down 75 percent of the electrical grid, plunging most of the country into darkness for decades.
A Real Threat
There is a considerable body of evidence that the threat is far from theoretical. Iran has conducted missile tests from sea-based platforms, detonating warheads at the high-point of the missile trajectory, rather at the aim point over the target.
Iran has also test-fired missiles from cargo ships--with North Korean assistance. Pyongyang is believed to have perfected the technique for concealing missiles in maritime shipping containers. A standard 45-foot container is large enough to store a missile and launch system; the power system could be stored in a separate container.
Thousands of foreign-flagged cargo ships approach U.S. coastlines on a daily basis. Already, North Korean-controlled ships could be lurking off the coasts.
As there is no known defense against a cargo ship-based missile attack against a coastal city, deterrence is critically important. Considering that there are safeguards in place to protect the nuclear strike force, the best defense against an EMP attack on the U.S. by Iran or North Korea, aside from regime change, would be for the U.S. to tell both countries that they would definitely be obliterated--the U.S. would automatically wipe them out with nuclear weapons--should the U.S. come under any kind of nuclear attack by anyone, including known or anonymous terrorists.
During the 2008 Presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton, seeking her party's nomination, said the U.S. would "obliterate" Iran if it ever attacked Israel with a nuclear weapon. Will she send Iran the same message in her present position as U.S. Secretary of State? Probably not. Her boss, President Barack Obama, who beat her in the long Democratic primary contest, is apparently bent on appeasing Iran and abandoning Israel.
Friday, 15 May 2009
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