Nuclear Option
The Times of London is reporting that Israel is drawing up plans to use nuclear weapons on Iranian nuclear facilities. They also report that Israeli Air Force squadrons are actually already in training for the mission.
ISRAEL has drawn up secret plans to destroy Iran’s uranium enrichment facilities with tactical nuclear weapons.
Two Israeli air force squadrons are training to blow up an Iranian facility using low-yield nuclear “bunker-busters”, according to several Israeli military sources.
The attack would be the first with nuclear weapons since 1945, when the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Israeli weapons would each have a force equivalent to one-fifteenth of the Hiroshima bomb.
Under the plans, conventional laser-guided bombs would open “tunnels” into the targets. “Mini-nukes” would then immediately be fired into a plant at Natanz, exploding deep underground to reduce the risk of radioactive fallout.
“As soon as the green light is given, it will be one mission, one strike and the Iranian nuclear project will be demolished,” said one of the sources.
The plans, disclosed to The Sunday Times last week, have been prompted in part by the Israeli intelligence service Mossad’s assessment that Iran is on the verge of producing enough enriched uranium to make nuclear weapons within two years.
Israeli military commanders believe conventional strikes may no longer be enough to annihilate increasingly well-defended enrichment facilities. Several have been built beneath at least 70ft of concrete and rock. However, the nuclear-tipped bunker-busters would be used only if a conventional attack was ruled out and if the United States declined to intervene, senior sources said.
Israeli and American officials have met several times to consider military action. Military analysts said the disclosure of the plans could be intended to put pressure on Tehran to halt enrichment, cajole America into action or soften up world opinion in advance of an Israeli attack.
Read the whole thing. My take on this? I strongly doubt that this is meant to do anything but make Iran nervous. And given Ahmadinejad's fanaticism and complete willingness to bring on an apocalypse, I do not think it will accomplish any deterrence. You can only deter the other side when you are dealing with a sane government. I don't think Ahmadinejad's Iran fits that bill. What it could do is goad Ahmadinejad into an off-the-wall response.
Maybe that is the real intent – to make Ahmadinejad show his hand.
UPDATE: Big surprise – this one is taking off like a rocket in the blogosphere. Others: SevenStripes.com, It Shines For All, Blogs of War, Wizbang, Wake up America, Don Surber, Macsmind, Hot Air, TMV, Flopping Aces, Jules Crittenden, Prairie Pundit,
Other Links to this Post
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Blogs of War — January 7, 2007 @ 10:24 am
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A Blog For All — January 7, 2007 @ 1:32 pm
By Flash Gordon, January 6, 2007 @ 11:01 pm
Israel kept their plans to attack the Osirak reactor top secret until the actual strike. Why wouldn’t they do the same now? Or is this a leak? Or just a lie?