WINSTON MID EAST ANALYSIS & COMMENTARY May 20, 2009 NEW Email: winston@winstonglobal.org Please disseminate & re-post - with attribution. If you publish, send us a copy. Many of our articles appear the archives of gamla.org.il/english, freeman.org & Jewishindy.org, Outgoing mail is virus-checked.
ISRAEL HAS NO ADEQUATE INTERCEPTOR FOR IRAN’S NEW LONG- RANGE MISSILE: SEJIL-2, IRAN’S FIRST ACCURATE SURFACE MISSILE
From DEBKAfile May 20, 2009 May 20, 2009, 11:10 PM
BUT
ISRAEL’S AIR & MISSILE FORCES COULD WIPE OUT IRAN’S NUCLEAR SITES
from DEBKAfile May 17, 2009 forwarded with comments by Emanuel A. Winston, Mid East analyst & commentator
DEBKAfile Special Report
SEE 2 DEBKA REPORTS FOLLOWING WINSTON COMMENTARY
COMMENTARY BY Emanuel A. Winston, Mid East analyst & commentator
Israel has been frequently stopped by several U.S. Administrations from striking back at her Muslim Arab tormentors.
Recall that during the days of Desert Storm, the U.S. attacked Iraq for invading their neighbor, Kuwait. When the U.S. started January 16, 1991 Saddam Hussein fired 39 SCUD Missiles at Israel over 7 weeks. The American President then, George Herbert Walker Bush and Colin Powell, then Head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, pledged to send U.S. aircraft Iraq’s mobile missile launchers and told Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir that Israel was not to send her aircraft against Saddam’s SCUDs because the Americans would take care of it. Later, the GAO (U.S. General Accounting Office) confirmed that Bush and Baker lied and no mobile launcher were destroyed by the U.S. - nor did they try to do so.
Bush also refused to give Israel the IFF (Identify Friend and Foe codes) so U.S. and Israeli pilots would not fight each other. As it turned out, according to later research Bush-Powell never sent U.S. aircraft against the SCUD missile launchers and simply lied to Israel to keep the Israeli planes on the tarmac and, in effect, the Americans protected Saddam’s SCUD missile launchers.
Now, once again, several Presidents are protecting Iran to insure that Israel does not take out Iran’s Nuclear Capability. First, it was then President George W. Bush who refused permission for Israel to fly over Iraq, strike Iran’s Nuclear Research and Development facilities, re-fuel and return home to Israel.
Like his father, George W. Bush refused to give Israel the IFF codes. Now it is President Barack Obama who is going all out to protect Iran, despite the fact that they are rushing to complete a series of Nuclear Weapons - along with ICBM (Inter Continental Ballistic Missiles), one of which was just successfully launched by Iran with a range of 1200 miles (2,000 kilometers).
Each time Israel is either attacked by the hostile Muslim neighbors or threatened with annihilation by Islamic Terrorist States, the U.S. steps in to insure Israel cannot launch a pre-emptive attack.
Should Israel be hit by a Nuclear Weapon, I am certain that Obama would send body-bags and doctors to minister to the dead and dying from radiation burns and radiation sickness. That’s all very comforting but, that would be a second Western participation in another Holocaust - as fervently promised by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the Ayatollahs.
Allies do NOT betray each other, especially do NOT tie the hands of its own ally so a primitive culture will think well of America - which, of course, they never will.
The U.S. should have joined Israel to eliminate this Nuclear Threat, not only to Israel but also to all Southern Europe and the entire Middle East - including the 200,000 - 250,000 American soldiers on duty at bases throughout the Middle East, Iraq and Afghanistan - trying to bring peace to people who have never known peace.
If America, under the guidance of Obama, cannot be relied upon to assist a staunch ally, then let it be said out loud: Obama has said, if by year’s end Iran does not stand down its Nuclear Development, he will insist upon another round of sanctions which, like all the other sanctions, will be ignored by Iran. That gives Iran 7 more months to develop their Nuclear weapons.
Both Bush Presidents, Baker, Powell, Scowcroft, among others had an investment in Saddam that needed protection. Have you ever wondered why, during the planning of the First Gulf War, General Colin Powell, Head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, took 6 months to prepare to actually engage Saddam. He dragged out America’s preparations, leaving Saddam intact while he was looting $80 Billion in Kuwait’s liquid assets. Not coincidentally, Saddam owed $80 Billion for arms purchases and Bush-Baker could not publically get such an appropriation through Congress.
Even when Powell and General Schwarzkopf finally engaged the Iraqis, they stopped their ground attack in only four days, leaving most of Saddam’s Republican Guards intact.
We are still paying for this failure of nerve and strategy, as thousands of American and Allied soldiers have been killed and grievously wounded.
Israel’s Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir was not to be allowed to fight back - even if it mean Jews were to be killed. However, there were so many miracle escapes in the First Gulf War was that, even with 39 of Saddam’s SCUD missiles hitting Israel only one man was killed by the SCUDs. But still, the Israelis lived for 7 weeks from January 16, 1991 until Purim night (as the Lubavitcher Rebbe forecast) - with gas masks and gas tents for their babies - thanks to Jonathan Pollard’s advance notice about Saddam’s development of gas weapons.
Today, as the Bushes, Baker and Powell protected Saddam as an investment - now it is Obama protecting Iran - as his investment for Iran’s sweet oil, in the equivalence of a Frankenstein monster gone berserk.
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ISRAEL’S AIR & MISSILE FORCES COULD WIPE OUT IRAN’S NUCLEAR SITES
from DEBKAfile May 17, 2009 forwarded with comments by Emanuel A. Winston, Mid East analyst & commentator
BUT
ISRAEL HAS NO ADEQUATE INTERCEPTOR FOR IRAN’S NEW LONG- RANGE MISSILE From DEBKAfile May 20, 2009 May 20, 2009, 11:10 PM
DEBKAfile Special Report
SEJIL-2, IRAN’S FIRST ACCURATE SURFACE MISSILE
DEBKAfile's military sources report that Israel, the US and Europe were taken aback by Iran's successful launch Wednesday, May 20, of a two-stage, solid-fueled 2,000-kilometer range missile, but most of all by the accuracy of its aim in destroying its target, as proudly claimed by Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
US missile tracking systems, including the advanced American anti-missile station at the Nevatim airbase in the Israeli Negev, have confirmed the Iranian President's boast of Sejil-2's precision and other advanced capabilities.
US President Barack Obama "has long been concerned" by any development in Iran's missile program, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said, calling the test a "step in the wrong direction".
Western military sources told us later: "Iran is at least two or three years ahead of Israel's missile defenses."
The Arrow 2 anti-missile missile system can intercept a missile like this only when it is very close to Israel. Arrow 3, which is designed to knock such missiles out, won't be operational for several years.
From a worried Washington, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the new missile "that can reach Israel, southeastern Europe and US bases in the Middle East is consistent" with US concerns about Iran's effort to develop ballistic missiles and its nuclear program and the "potential Iranian threat to its neighbors."
Until now, the Americans and Israelis were confident that insurmountable technical difficulties prevented Iran's missile industry from achieving an accurate guidance system. Their earlier missiles fired against Israel would therefore veer off target. This assumption was nullified by the Sejil-2 launch.
Air and missile interception planners in Israel and the US will have to go back to the drawing board for new answers to the new Iranian missile.
Iran's feat comes at a critical time for its efforts to build a nuclear arsenal of at least 10-12 nuclear warheads. It was also timed as a piece of muscle-flexing for the day Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu returned from talks with President Barack Obama in Washington.
The missile's successful launch obviates the strategic value of the understandings reached between the two men regarding the Iran's nuclear and missile programs.
Had the visit produced practical results, as the prime minister and his aides claimed, some American-Israeli response to the launch should have been forthcoming. But the very fact that it was not, indicates that their accords were general and not applicable to fluctuating conditions in the region
Netanyahu indicated that Washington and Jerusalem were agreed that Iran shall not have nuclear weapons. This understanding between the two allies dates from 2002, through the premierships of Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert. Today, we know what these general agreements have permitted Iran to make uninterrupted progress in its nuclear and missile programs.
BUT
ISRAEL’S AIR & MISSILE FORCES COULD WIPE OUT IRAN’S NUCLEAR SITES
DEBKAfile - We start where the media stop
DEBKA-Net-Weekly Exclusive Updated by DEBKAfile May 17, 2009, 4:38 PM
The detailed report compiled by the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) in Washington last month, complete with graphs and diagrams, has been reprinted in thousands of copies in Tehran. It is compulsory reading for its intelligence and Revolutionary Guards personnel because the Study on a Possible Israeli Strike on Iran's Nuclear Development Facilities concludes that the Jewish state has all the resources necessary for a successful strike.
When asked recently, Adm. Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint US Chiefs of Staff, agreed with this estimate. This week, president Shimon Peres and prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu both said that if diplomacy failed to halt Iran's nuclear activities, Israel would be left with no option other than the military one. And Tuesday, April 14, the New York Times quoted an Israeli official as saying that Jerusalem would give the Obama administration until late 2009 to stop Iran's uranium enrichment projects; after that, Israel will be forced to act.
Tehran responded with a complaint to the UN Security Council demanding that Israel be condemned for "its threats against a sovereign state."
For the past three years, US military and intelligence sources have used attributed and leaked assessments to the American media to emphasize that such an operation is beyond Israel's capabilities because of the nuclear facilities' wide distribution across Iran. At best, they maintained, the Israeli Air Force might knock out a few Iranian nuclear installations, but only enough to put Iran's nuclear drive temporarily on hold.
The CSIS paper refutes this assessment and maintains there is no need to destroy dozens or hundreds of sites; the destruction of seven to nine targets would be enough to cripple the Iranian program, and lists them as follows:
1. Lashkar A'bad, site of secret uranium enrichment plants in the north near the Turkish border.
2. Tehranb, for the central laboratory for developing atomic armaments as well as more uranium enrichment facilities.
3. Arak, in central Iran, where a heavy water plant is under construction to manufacture plutonium for weapons.
4. Isfahan, in central Iran, near which a small research reactor and a cluster of laboratories for uranium enrichment, centrifuges and weapons development, are situated.
5. Natanz, the main center for uranium enrichment.
6. Ardekan, at the southern tip of Iran, where more uranium enrichment facilities are located.
7. Saghand, Iran's main uranium mining region.
8. Bushehr, on the Persian Gulf shore, Iran's biggest nuclear reactor built by Russia.
9. Gachin, near the Strait of Hormuz, the site of more uranium mines and enrichment facilities.
Complicated tables set forth an array of technical details showing how many PG bombs Israeli Air Force F16I or F15F bomber-fighter planes can carry, how much fuel is needed to reach their Iranian targets, and at what stage of their return journey they would need to refuel.
This think-tank finds Israel has enough aircraft as well as the necessary intelligence and electronic resources for the task - contrary to previous estimates.
The authors propose three attack routes for a potential Israeli operation against Iran: an eastern route over Saudi Arabia; a central route over Iraq, and a northern route over Turkey, Syria and northern Iraqi Kurdistan. They point to the third as Israel's best option in view of the superiority of its electronic warfare (EW) capabilities.
This is the first time a detailed and accurate description of these capabilities, and a description of how they were put to use in the Israeli raid on the North Korean-built plutonium reactor in Dar az-Zawr, Syria, on September, 2007, has ever been published.
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Go to http://www.debka.com/article_print.php?aid=1386 to get the DEBKA color picture
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Also, read National Geographic August 2008 and check out their full map of Iran with all the Nuclear Research and Development sites fully mapped out!: EW
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