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Reporter: Israel confident it can thwart expected Iraqi ï¿½suicide-planeï¿½ attack
Leslie Susser

If the Americans launch a strike against Iraq, Israeli and U.S. intelligence officials believe Iraq will send suicide pilots to attack Israel with biological or chemical weapons, The Report has been told. But while neither is making light of the threat, neither believes it will be effective.

Israel has tightened its air defenses, and officials say rela-tively slow-flying "suicide planes" would be easier to intercept -- with Patriot and Hawk anti-aircraft batteries and conventional aircraft -- than Scud missiles. The same officials consider missile attacks less likely than suicide-plane sorties, because Iraqï¿½s stocks of missiles and its capacity to launch them have been severely curtailed since the 1991 Gulf War.

Nevertheless, the U.S. has agreed to coordinate with Israel in preventing the Iraqis from moving missile launchers into western Iraq (from which Israel would be in range), and destroying them if they do. In the wake of Defense Minister Shaul Mofazï¿½s December visit to Washington, Israel and the U.S. are setting up teams to coordinate operational plans for preempting or responding to Iraqi attacks on Israel. Israel insisted on this operational coordination rather than the more general exchange of information the Americans initially offered. The American official in charge of this liaison is a senior operations expert, Gen. Charles Simpson, the chief operations officer for the U.S. Air Force in Europe. The Americans will now show Israel their plans for taking out Iraqi missile launchers, and Israel will be able to offer suggestions.

In return, the Americans expect Israel to sit tight and trust them to get on with the job on the ground. But Mofaz, defense sources say, did not give a blanket promise that Israel would not retaliate in any circumstances. On the contrary, he made it clear that Israel reserves the right to retaliate if it suffers heavy civilian casualties or if it is attacked with non-conventional weapons.

However, he did promise that Israel would coordinate any retaliatory strike with the U.S. In operational terms, that seems to mean Israel would not attack unless given flying times and routes, as well as friend-foe air codes, and would show the Americans the attack plans. And that seems to make any Israeli retaliatory strike dependent on American approval, because, if the U.S. disapproves, it could withhold operational coordination, making a strike virtually impossible.

Israel and the U.S. openly disagree about the nature of the response to a non-conventional Iraqi attack. Israel would prefer to respond itself and in kind, to deter other Middle Eastern countries. Washington would prefer to respond, in part to avoid massive damage that would harm its plans to quickly rebuild a post-Saddam Iraq.

January 13, 2003

Reporter