Israeli TV report shows air force gearing-up for Iran attack, says moment of truth is

[Cebu_4_2]

Israeli TV report shows air force gearing-up for Iran attack, says moment of truth is near

‘IAF expects losses, and knows it can’t destroy entire Iranian program’

By Greg Tepper (http://www.timesofisrael.com/writers/greg-tepper/) April 15, 2012, 11:49 pm 7 (http://www.timesofisrael.com/iaf-plans-for-iran-attack/#comments)

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http://cdn.timesofisrael.com/uploads/2012/03/F120315OZ02-635x357.jpgFile: Fighter jet at the Uvda Air Force Base near Eilat. (photo credit: Ofer Zidon/Flash90)

Related Topics



Iran's nuclear program (http://www.timesofisrael.com/topic/irans-nuclear-program/)
IAF Israeli Air Force (http://www.timesofisrael.com/topic/iaf-israeli-air-force/)
Qom (http://www.timesofisrael.com/topic/qom/)


A
major Israel TV station on Sunday night broadcast a detailed report on how Israel will go about attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities in the event that diplomacy and sanctions fail and Israel decides to carry out a military strike.
The report, screened on the main evening news of Channel 10, was remarkable both in terms of the access granted to the reporter, who said he had spent weeks with the pilots and other personnel he interviewed, and in the fact that his assessments on a strike were cleared by the military censor.
No order to strike is likely to be given before the P5+1 talks with Iran resume in May, the reporter, Alon Ben-David, said. “But the coming summer will not only be hot but tense.”
In the event that negotiations fail and the order is given for Israel to carry out an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities, “dozens if not more planes” will take part in the mission: attack and escort jets, tankers for mid-air refueling, electronic warfare planes and rescue helicopters, the report said.
Ben-David said the Israel Air Force “does not have the capacity to destroy the entire Iranian program.” There will be no replication of the decisive strikes on Iraq’s Osirak reactor in 1981 or on Syria in 2007, he said. “The result won’t be definitive.” But, a pilot quoted in the report said, the IAF will have to ensure that it emerges with the necessary result, with “a short and professional” assault.
Ben-David said that if negotiations break down, and Iran moves key parts of its nuclear program underground to its Qom facility, the IAF “is likely to get the order and to set out on the long journey to Iran.”
“Years of preparations are likely to come to realization,” he said, adding that “the moment of truth is near.”
Ben-David interviewed several squadron leaders, pilots and other officers. He noted that some of the IAF personnel, “it is likely, will not return from the mission.” An officer named Gilad said it would be “naive” to think there would be no losses.
The IAF is said to be worried about the advanced anti-aircraft systems that Russia has sold to countries in the region, the report said. Among those systems, the SA 17 and 22 in Syria and Iran present a challenge.
According to the report, it’s the older versions of the F-15 that can fly further than any other plane in Israel’s arsenal, and this puts them on the front line of any potential attack.
One pilot said in the report that the F-15 “is a plane with a very wide range of operation — a combination of relatively energy-efficient engines, and significant flightworthiness regarding weapons and fuel.”
The IAF has a full-sized unmanned plane, the “Eitan,” that is said to be able to fly to Iran, the report indicated. “This plane can do all that is required of it when the order is given,” a pilot said, without elaboration.
The attack, the report said, would presumably trigger a war in northern Israel, with missile attacks (presumably from the Iranian-proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon). “There will be no tranquility and peace anywhere in Israel,” Ben-David said.
This could be the first full-scale war the IAF has fought in nearly 30 years, the report stated.
Pilots had already been told where their families would be moved, away from their bases, for safety, the report said.

[Plastic]

This just may bring on the destruction of the Edomites currently occupying Israel...

[General of Darkness]

I doubt this story.

[Book]

Under the Bush Doctrine, Iran now has the right to "preemptively" attack Israel first to stop this public threat of state terrorism.

::)

[vacuum]

I doubt this story.


It's from the Times of Israel, which seems to be a mainstream news source
We've seen that supposedly Russia is massing troops (http://gold-silver.us/forum/showthread.php?60325-Russia-Is-Massing-Troops-On-Iran-s-Northern-Border-And-Waiting-For-A-Western-Attack)
We've seen a story saying Israel has already made the decision (http://gold-silver.us/forum/showthread.php?59405-quot-Israel-has-already-made-decision-quot-%28regarding-Iran%29&p=522393&viewfull=1)
Israel's former head of the mossad came out and publicly rebuked attacking Iran

Any single story might be questionable, but it's less so when they start adding up. I'm specifically talking about things pointing to this summer/fall time period.

[gunDriller]

hence we enter Year 6.28437 of the Israel Whining "Iran Boo-Hoo" media circus.


Iran only has to be right once, and Israel will be just a bad memory.

[Norweger]

I doubt this as well. The jews never fight wars on their own.

[vacuum]

U.S. Concerned Netanyahu, Mofaz May Attack Iran

U.S. worried that Israel's new unity government could result in an attack on Iran at any given moment.
AAFont Size
By Elad Benari First Publish: 5/11/2012, 1:16 AM



http://www.israelnationalnews.com/static/Resizer.ashx/news/250/168/342311.jpgNetanyahu and Mofaz
Flash 90

The United States is worried that Shaul Mofaz and his Kadima party’s joining a unity government (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/155564) with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu could result in an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities at any given moment, according to a report on Channel 10 News on Thursday.
U.S. government officials told Channel 10 News that they believe a Likud-Kadima joing government could make a decision about an Israeli attack on Iran at any moment and perhaps even before the U.S. presidential elections in November.
The report said that when the Americans believed early elections would be held in Israel on September, they thought it meant the attack in Iran would be postponed at least until after the election. Now, with the stabilization of Israeli politics and the current government likely to end its term on schedule, the situation has changed and the Americans are concerned.
According to the Channel 10 report, in order to try and prevent or at least postpone the Israeli decision on the issue, the Americans recently held marathon talks with Israeli officials at all levels.
Israel – like the United States, its European allies, and Gulf Arab states – believe Iran is conducting nuclear work with military applications.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak recently warned (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/155310) that as long as Iran poses a threat to Israel with its nuclear program, all options are on the table.
“I believe it is well understood in Washington, D.C., as well as in Jerusalem that as long as there is an existential threat to our people, all options to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons should remain on the table,” Barak said.
“I have enough experience to know that a military option is not a simple one,” Barak added. “It would be complicated with certain associated risks. But a radical Islamic Republic of Iran with nuclear weapons would be far more dangerous both for the region and, indeed, the world.”
Recent reports indicated that President Barack Obama is prepared to make a major concession (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/155273-tYsis) to Iran on uranium enrichment.
According to the reports, the Obama administration now is willing to allow 5 percent enrichment if Iran were to take other major steps to curb its ability to develop a nuclear bomb.”

[vacuum]

Iran attack decision nears, Israeli elite locks down

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/17/us-israel-iran-idUSBRE84G0UC20120517

http://s1.reutersmedia.net/resources/r/?m=02&d=20120517&t=2&i=608340969&w=460&fh=&fw=&ll=&pl=&r=CBRE84G1A9500


By Michael Stott (http://blogs.reuters.com/search/journalist.php?edition=us&n=michael.stott&)
JERUSALEM | Thu May 17, 2012 12:39pm EDT

(Reuters) - A private door opens from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office in central Jerusalem directly into a long, modestly furnished, half-paneled room decorated with modern paintings by Israeli artists and a copy of Israel's 1948 declaration of independence. It contains little more than a long wooden table, brown leather chairs and a single old-fashioned white projector screen.
This inner sanctum at the end of a corridor between Netanyahu's private room and the office of his top military adviser, is where one of the decade's most momentous military decisions could soon be taken: to launch an Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear program.
Time for that decision is fast running out and the mood in Jerusalem is hardening.
Iran continues to enrich uranium in defiance of international pressure, saying it needs the fuel for its civilian nuclear program. The West is convinced that Tehran's real objective is to build an atomic bomb - something which the Jewish state will never accept because its leaders consider a nuclear armed-Iran a threat to its very existence.
Adding to the international pressure, U.S. ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro said this week American military plans to strike Iran were "ready" and the option was "fully available".
The central role Iran plays in Netanyahu's deliberations is reflected in the huge map of the Middle East hanging by the door of his office. Israel lies on one edge, with Iran taking pride of place in the centre.
Experts say that within a few months, much of Iran's nuclear program will have been moved deep underground beneath the Fordow mountain, making a successful military strike much more difficult.
LOCKDOWN
As the deadline for a decision draws nearer, the public pronouncements of Israel's top officials and military have changed. After hawkish warnings about a possible strike earlier this year, their language of late has been more guarded and clues to their intentions more difficult to discern.
"The top of the government has gone into lockdown," one official said. "Nobody is saying anything publicly. That in itself tells you a lot about where things stand."
Last week Netanyahu pulled off a spectacular political surprise, creating a coalition of national unity and delaying elections which everyone believed were inevitable. The maneuver also led to speculation that the Israeli leader wanted a broad, strong government to lead a military campaign.
The inclusion of the Iranian-born former Israeli chief of staff and veteran soldier, Gen. Shaul Mofaz, in the coalition, fuelled that speculation - even though both Mofaz and Netanyahu deny that Iran was mentioned in the coalition negotiations.
"I think they have made a decision to attack," said one senior Israeli figure with close ties to the leadership. "It is going to happen. The window of opportunity is before the U.S. presidential election in November. This way they will bounce the Americans into supporting them."
Those close to Netanyahu are more cautious, saying no assumptions should be made about an attack on Iran - an attack with such potentially devastating consequences across the volatile Middle East that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas even went so far as to predict in an interview with Reuters last week that it would be "the end of the world".
Israelis particularly fear retaliation from Iran's proxy militias - the Hezbollah guerrillas in southern Lebanon and the Hamas fighters in the Gaza Strip. Both are believed to possess large arsenals of rockets which could hit major Israeli towns and cities.
Hezbollah's deputy leader Sheikh Naim Qassem told Reuters in February that an Israeli attack on Iran would set the whole Middle East ablaze "with no limit to the fires". "Gone are the days when Israel decides to strike, and the people are silent," he said.
The Israeli Prime Minister and his key allies repeat for public consumption the mantra that economic sanctions against Iran must be given time to work and that now is not the time to speak about military options.
Top officials explain the new coalition on purely domestic grounds, saying it was needed to tackle the thorny and divisive issue of pressing Orthodox Jews into military service - in other words, that its formation has much more to do with the agenda inside Israel than abroad.
BURIED NUCLEAR STATES
Diplomats are divided. "I think the Iran thing is a red herring," said one senior Western envoy. "This is 98 percent about domestic politics". Others are less convinced.
Mofaz himself refuses to speak about military action against Iran, even in the theoretical.
A military veteran with almost 40 years' operational experience, whose office in the Israeli parliament displays a poster of Israeli warplanes flying low over the Auschwitz concentration camp, he scoffs at the idea that his Iranian descent gives him special influence on an Iran attack decision. He derides the idea any serious official in the know would talk to visiting journalists about such a sensitive military subject.
But behind the carefully evasive language of top officials, basic facts are clear. Time is running out. Iran's nuclear program - regarded by Netanyahu as an existential threat to the state of Israel - will soon be buried deep enough underground to render an Israeli attack impossible. The Jewish state's options are narrowing.
"I think they've gone into lockdown mode now," the senior Western diplomat said. "Whatever happens next, whatever they decide, we will not find out until it happens."
There are indeed those who see in Israeli posturing over Iran only bluff intended to press world powers into harsher sanctions and avoid war. Some military experts openly doubt how much damage Israel could inflict. The risk of a fiasco is big.
Perhaps the strongest clue as to Israel's real intentions is to be found in Netanyahu's private office, behind his desk. Officials say the Israeli premier was strongly influenced by his father, who died last month at the age of 102.
Benzion Netanyahu was a distinguished scholar of Jewish history and his strong sense of the past lives on in Benjamin, who laments to visitors that "most people's sense of history goes back to breakfast time".
On a shelf behind Netanyahu's desk, along with pictures of his family, is a photograph of Winston Churchill. Netanyahu admires the British wartime premier because he saw the true dangers posed by Nazi Germany to the world at a time when many other politicians argued for appeasing Hitler.
The parallels with modern-day Iran are obvious and Netanyahu is explicit about the dangers he believes are posed by militant Islam: as he puts it, its convulsive power, its cult of death and its ideological zeal.
But Churchill, although eloquent on the dangers posed by the rise of Nazi Germany during the 1930s, ultimately failed to prevent Hitler's ascent to power, the world war he unleashed or the Holocaust in which six million Jews were murdered.
Netanyahu, those who know him say, is determined to avoid going down in history as the man who shirked his opportunity to stop Iran going nuclear. (Additional reporting by Samia Nakhoul (http://blogs.reuters.com/search/journalist.php?edition=us&n=samia.nakhoul&) and Crispian Balmer (http://blogs.reuters.com/search/journalist.php?edition=us&n=crispian.balmer&); editing by Ralph Boulton (http://blogs.reuters.com/search/journalist.php?edition=us&n=ralph.boulton&))
(Created by Michael Stott)


http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/17/us-israel-iran-idUSBRE84G0UC20120517