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Reporter
Leslie Susser and Jerusalem Report staff
U.S. promises Israel four or five days notice ahead of attacking Iraq
The U.S. has promised Israel �at least four or five days� advance warning, ahead of its anticipated attack on Iraq�s Saddam Hussein. The widespread assessment is that Saddam will try to strike at Israel if he feels his regime is in danger.
The U.S.-led assault will begin in �maybe three, maybe six months,� The Report has been told by sources privy to top-level discussions involving American and Israeli officials. The Americans believe Saddam will fall relatively quickly, with many of his generals, sobered by the success of the U.S. assault on the Taliban in Afghanistan, abandoning him.
Eleven years ago, Israel was informed only hours ahead of the start of American bombing of Iraq in the Gulf War, on January 16, and was hit by Iraqi Scuds just two days later.
Israeli officials believe Saddam may have chemical and biological weapons, and are certain he has the Scud missiles capable of delivering such warheads against Israel. Although the Patriot anti-missile system is much improved since the Gulf War � when it failed to intercept the 39 Scuds Saddam fired at Israel � and the Israeli-American Arrow missile defense system should be capable of intercepting Scuds, officials do not feel that they can fully rely on such defense systems.
Israel would hardly be able to begin a large-scale innoculation or gas-mask distribution effort days before the U.S. launched its attack, however, since this would obviously alert Saddam. Therefore, Israeli officials are said to be contemplating sending forces into western Iraq as soon as the U.S. begins bombing, to try and thwart any Scud missile launch at source. In their discussions, Israeli officials have asked that the U.S. tacitly support such an action.
Israel had hoped that the next phase of the U.S. anti-terror struggle would focus on Iran. In the annual national intelligence assessment recently presented to the prime minister, the heads of the security services and army intelligence cited Iran as the main strategic threat to Israel.
There is, nevertheless, firm support in Israel for an American-led assault on Saddam; coordinating arrangements for the attack was a key, if unpublicized, reason for President Bush�s invitation to Prime Minister Sharon for talks at the White House on February 7.
According to the Israeli intelligence assessment, Iran is
trying to set up a branch of Hizballah to act directly from the territories against Israel. The supply of Iranian weapons to the Palestinian Authority aboard the Karine A arms ship was part of a new Iranian strategy to create a double front against Israel, with the Lebanese Hizballah threatening Israeli population centers from the north, and the Palestinians doing so from Gaza and the West Bank, both with Iranian-supplied rockets. Sharon is urging the American administration to exert pressure on Syria not to allow the resumption of direct flights from Teheran to Damascus, which could be used to fly in huge consignments of weapons for Hizballah in Lebanon.
Based on the intelligence assessment, David Magen, chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, wants the government to hold a full-scale strategic review and to shift the main security focus from the Palestinians to Iran. What most concerns Israel, he says, is Iran�s nuclear program, especially in light of former president Ali Rafsanjani�s December 14 statement that Iran�s aim is to destroy Israel and that it can do it �with one nuclear bomb.� Says Magen: �Iran has chemical and biological weapons, is making a supreme effort to get nuclear weapons and encourages terror. That is the main threat. We must deal with it.�
(February 25, 2002)
Reporter
Israel gives intelligence briefings to alleged smugglers of Mig engines to Saddam
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