| Author | Message | | Alpha | |  | | Alpha | | Posted: Tue May 31, 2005 6:44 pm Post subject: Israeli planner says don’t rule out Osiraq-like strike on I |
| http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_31-5-2005_pg4_9
Tuesday, May 31, 2005
R E G I O N: Israeli planner says don’t rule out Osiraq-like strike on Iran
* David Ivry claims Tehran’s quest for a bomb may be delayed by military action
TEL AVIV: Military action would not stop Iran’s nuclear programme but could be a last resort to delay any quest for an atomic bomb, the mastermind of Israel’s 1981 air strike on the Iraqi reactor at Osiraq said on Monday.
While Israel and its US ally have not excluded the option of attacking Iran if all diplomatic efforts to curb its nuclear capability fail, independent experts believe the Islamic republic’s facilities are too dispersed and fortified to be eliminated militarily.
But David Ivry, who planned the Osiraq raid as then chief of the Israeli air force, argued against thinking in all-out terms.
“You cannot eliminate an idea, a national will. But you can delay progress on a nuclear programme with the appropriate military action,” Ivry told Reuters. “That is a valuable objective in itself.” Eight Israeli F-16 jets, using detachable fuel containers and relatively light bombs to extend their range, destroyed Osiraq on June 7, 1981. The Iraqi quest for atomic weapons was driven underground until UN inspectors uncovered it in 1991.
“When Israel struck Osiraq, the intention was never to get rid of Saddam Hussein’s nuclear plans. We wanted to buy time, and we succeeded in doing that,” Ivry said.
Iran has denied seeking an atomic bomb, saying its nuclear programme is for energy needs only.
It has suspended uranium enrichment, a process that can produce bombs, at the behest of France, Britain and Germany. But Washington wants Tehran referred to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions if it does not scrap the programme. Israel, believed to be the Middle East’s only nuclear power, has made no secret of seeking means to confront Iran militarily. But it denies planning to attack its arch-foe unilaterally.
However, Israeli officials say they have assessed that Iran will obtain the know-how to make atomic weapons within months. That is a more pressing prognosis than Washington’s, suggesting Israel could yet go it alone.
“A country decides when to act against the enemy based on its assessment of when the threat has become insufferable. You set a deadline beyond which you believe you will lose the option of acting,” Ivry said. “With Osiraq, it was the fact that the Iraqis were about to bring uranium into the reactor.”
Although a fleet of advanced F-16i jets has extended the Jewish state’s reach into the Gulf, analysts doubt an Israeli strike could deal with the dozens of nuclear facilities in Iran, a state much bigger than Iraq and with formidable air defences.
“Israel’s best option would be a simultaneous multi-pronged strike using different routes, for example through Jordan and Iraq as well as the Mediterranean route through Turkey and or Azerbaijan,” Kaveh Afrasiabi, a political analyst at Tehran University, said in a recent published article.
“Yet at present neither option is available to Israel ... given Iran’s cordial relations with its neighbors and the fears and concerns of those neighbours of a severe Iranian backlash in case they permit their air space for an Israeli attack on Iran.” The warplanes that bombed Osiraq overflew Jordan and Saudi Arabia, which were then formally at war with Israel. But Ivry said seeking permission would not be necessary.
“I do not know of any country that would ask permission of another (to use its air space). Doing so would compromise the secrecy of the mission, and approval would not be forthcoming anyway. When dealing with a mission seen as crucial for national security, such issues are irrelevant,” said Ivry. The retired general also disputed the assumption that all or most of Iran’s facilities would have to be tackled in a strike.
“It is enough to hit the key component of the production cycle to put the whole operation out of action,” he said. “Given the sensitivity of the technologies in question, a strike that simply shakes the structure housing them is usually sufficient to cause irreparable damage. Total destruction of the target is not necessary or even desirable.”
And although an “Osiraq option” against Iran is a matter of widespread speculation, Ivry suggested that Israel could still have tricks in store if it decided to proceed with a strike. “The Iranians attacked Osiraq twice before we did (in the Iran-Iraq war). Each time, the Iraqis bolstered their defences at the site. So even then, we did not really have the element of surprise in terms of the overall concept of a strike,” he said.
“If and when Iran is attacked, I think I can assure you it will come as a surprise to everyone.” reuters | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Sat Jun 04, 2005 8:56 am Post subject: AP: Intelligence Sees Terrorists in Iran |
| Zionist propaganda builds in order to get the American sheeple to go along with an attack on Iran for Israel:
AP: Intelligence Sees Terrorists in Iran
By KATHERINE SHRADER and JOHN SOLOMON, Associated Press Writers
17 minutes ago
Mounting evidence gathered over several years has U.S. and foreign intelligence agencies increasingly convinced that leading terror suspects have been living in Iran. Their existence in the Islamic republic poses an ongoing problem to top Bush administration officials, who have warned Middle Eastern countries against providing shelter or other aid to terrorists.
The evidence includes communications by a fugitive mastermind of the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing and the capture of a Saudi militant who appeared in a video in which Osama bin Laden confirmed he ordered the Sept. 11 attacks, according to U.S. and foreign officials.
They spoke on condition of anonymity because much of the evidence remains classified.
Saudi intelligence officers tracked and apprehended Khaled bin Ouda bin Mohammed al-Harbi last year in eastern Iran, officials said. The arrest came nearly three years after the cleric had appeared with bin Laden and discussed details of the Sept. 11 planning during a dinner that was videotaped and aired across the world.
The capture was a coup for Saudi Arabia, which spent months tracking him and setting up the intelligence operation that led to his being taken into custody in exchange for eventual amnesty.
The officials said interrogations of al-Harbi, who is now in Saudi Arabia, have yielded confirmation of many al-Qaida tactics, including how members crossed into Iran after the U.S. began military operations to rout al-Qaida and the Taliban from Afghanistan.
Al-Harbi is believed to have been paralyzed from the waist down while fighting in the 1990s alongside Muslim extremists in Bosnia and Afghanistan, and he surprised intelligence officials when he appeared in the December 2001 video with bin Laden.
"Everybody praises what you did," al-Harbi said on the tape.
U.S. and foreign intelligence agencies also have evidence stretching back to the late 1990s that indicates Ahmad Ibrahim al-Mughassil remains in hiding in Iran. He is wanted as one of the masterminds of the Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 Americans.
Al-Mughassil, who also goes by the alias Abu Omran, has been charged as a fugitive by the United States — accused of conspiracy to commit murder in the attacks — and has a $5 million bounty on his head.
U.S. authorities have long alleged that the 1996 bombing was carried out by a Saudi wing of the militant group Hezbollah, which receives support from Iran and Syria.
Intelligence agencies gathered evidence, including a specific phone number, as early as 1997 indicating that al-Mughassil was living in Iran, and they have other information indicating his whereabouts.
U.S. officials have not publicly discussed the Saudi capture of al-Harbi or their evidence on al-Mughassil's whereabouts, but they have increasingly raised questions about Iran's efforts to turn over other suspected terrorists believed to be under some form of loose house arrest.
Nicholas Burns, State Department undersecretary for political affairs, told Congress last month that Iran has refused to identify al-Qaida members it has in custody.
"Iran continues to hold senior al-Qaida leaders who are wanted for murdering Americans and others in the 1998 East Africa Embassy bombings and for plotting to kill countless others," Burns said.
Top administration officials have repeatedly warned Iran against harboring or assisting suspected terrorists.
U.S. intelligence this week has been checking some reports, still uncorroborated as of Friday, that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al-Qaida's leader of the Iraqi insurgency, may have dipped into Iran, officials said.
On Wednesday, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld warned countries in the Middle East not to help al-Zarqawi.
"Were a neighboring country to take him in and provide medical assistance or haven for him, they, obviously, would be associating themselves with a major linkage in the al-Qaida network and a person who has a great deal of blood on his hands," Rumsfeld said.
The U.S. and foreign officials said evidence gathered by intelligence agencies indicates the following figures are somewhere in Iran, perhaps under some form of house arrest or surveillance:
• Saad bin Laden, the son of the al-Qaida leader whom U.S. authorities have aggressively hunted since the Sept. 11 attacks.
• Saif al-Adel, an al-Qaida security chief wanted in connection with the deadly 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa.
• Suleiman Abu Ghaith, the chief of information for al-Qaida and a frequently quoted spokesman for bin Laden.
Kenneth Katzman, a Middle East analyst at the Congressional Research Service, said it's possible that some of the suspected terrorists are being held in guarded villas, and he doubted any detention is uncomfortable.
"I think that Iran sees these guys as something of an insurance policy," Katzman said. "It's leverage."
Rasool Nafisi, a Middle East analyst who studies conservative groups in Iran, said Iran has returned some lower-level operatives to their home countries but probably is keeping higher-ranking operatives as a bartering chip.
"Remember, Islamic tradition is very much based on haggling," Nafisi said. "If I were the Iranian government, I'd be very happy to have them and to use them in future negotiations with the United States." | | | | | ©2002-2009 WarWithoutEnd.co.uk |
