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Jan. 15, 2006 12:59 | Updated Jan. 15, 2006 17:15
Report: IAF trained for Iran attack
By JPOST.COM STAFF
IAF pilots have completed their mission training and fighter jets have
been prepared for an Israeli attack on Iran, the British Sunday Times
reported.
The article reported that "the elite 69 strategic F-15 I squadron" had
been equipped with weapons that will be tested in combat for the first
time, and that two missile submarines were on standby: one in the
Persian Gulf and the second in Haifa Bay.
The Times also said that special IDF forces would be helicoptered into
Iran to take out targets that could not be destroyed in an air strike.
Iran's nuclear facilities, according to the newspaper report, are
widely dispersed at some 40 underground sites throughout Iran, which
would make any attack by Israel - or any other nation - exponentially
more difficult that Israel's successful attack on Iraq's Osirak nuclear
reactor in 1981.
Col. [res] Ze'ev Raz, the former IAF pilot who led the Osirak mission,
was quoted by the Times as saying, "What we now have is a lot of
targets, which makes the operation much more difficult."
Raz believes an aerial assault on Iran's nuclear facilities is
possible. There are many things that the IAF has done over the past few
years that the public is not aware of, and it has made many important
advances in mid-air refueling. Israel can strike the Iranian nuclear
program, Raz said on Israel's Channel 1 TV's Politika program last
week.
Former IDF Deputy Chief of Staff Uzi Dayan said last week that if Iran
gets nuclear weapons, then so would terror organizations, like
Hizbullah. "Israel needs to be ready to act on a military option,"
Dayan said. "Without getting into details, Israel is capable of doing
these things."
When Dayan was head of the National Security Agency, he advised the
government not to allow a situation in which Israel, and the world now
finds itself, with a radical regime in Tehran on the verge of attaining
nuclear weapons. Dayan laid much of the blame on the United States,
which allowed this to happen. "The military option does exist, but only
if the international community works together. The government that
arises in Israel after the elections will have to deal with this
issue," he said.
Shabtai Shoval, a former operative in the Israeli intelligence
community, who wrote a book that Iran will reach nuclear weapons
capability by 2009, says that covert action, for example by the Mossad,
is the most interesting option, but would still not stop Tehran's push
for nuclear weapons.
Dr. Reuven Pedatzur, a senior lecturer at the Strategic Studies Program
at Tel Aviv University, believes Israel would be making a "disastrous
strategic error" if it embarked on a full-scale attack on Iran's
nuclear facilities. "The military option is not relevant, we simply
don't have the right amount of intelligence and information; many of
the targets are buried deep under ground.
Only if the Americans decide to do it, then that option is possible,"
Pedatzur said last week. Pedatzur added that the day Iran gets a
nuclear weapon, Israel will have no choice but to abandon its policy of
nuclear ambiguity.
Amir Mizroch contributed to this report.
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sEE ALSO:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=%20CH...
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=PET20...
http://www.amconmag.com/2004_09_13/article.html
http://cns.miis.edu/research/wmdme/israelnc.htm
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