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Posted on 08/08/2006 10:46:48 PM PDT by BurbankKarl
A Palestinian militant fires toward Israeli troops during an arrest raid in the West Bank village of Qabatiyeh near Jenin, Tuesday, Aug. 8, 2006. Four Palestinians were wounded when the army arrested an Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades militant, Palestinians sources said.
Or...well we don't do things like that, do we?
I actually read an article on proposed new conventional bunker buster designs, with 250 feet of penetration explicitly listed as a design parameter. The reason cited was that this was the depth needed to take out certain Iranian nuclear facilities. I have no idea if any of these have actually been built, or if they could really get that deep. Nor am I sure it really matters.
I don't know where the key facilities are, but putting things in valleys with steep sides is a time honored way to make it more difficult for air strikes to take something out. Tunneling into the side of a cliff is extraordinarily effective if you have multiple ways for the people inside to get out (landslides can seal the entrance, even if it is impossible to collapse the caves and/or tunnels inside).
Caves are another easy way to get bomb proof facilities. They can be very deep and are essentially impossible to collapse. They may have multiple entrances, and more can be created. An added bonus is that the entrances may be very hard to hit from the air. If you don't have a cave, mineshafts will do. They are not hard to build.
All in all, I strongly suspect Iran has been able to put at least some of their nuclear facilities in places we could not take out with air strikes alone. We could certainly suppress the surrounding defenses with air power, but people would have to be inserted to actually take out the facilities. And even with boots on the ground, taking out a hardened and defended facility could be nearly impossible to do unless the commando teams had complete surprise, or a lot of time to work with.
In other words, I am not one of the people who think we could take out all of Iran's nuclear facilities with air power alone. Nor do I think we could do it with hit and run commando raids. Reinforcements would be too likely to arrive before we could penetrate a hardened and defended facility, especially if we had a lot of locations to take out.
So I suspect we have something else planned for Iran. It will have to be relatively large scale, and will probably not be quick or surgical.
I do not think we will use nukes unless weapons of mass destruction have been used against us first. However, I suspect Iran has at least one nuke, and they will use it if they do. If so, I expect to see nukes used to take out Iran's nuclear program. Not only would that solve the facilities problem, it would send a message that would need to be sent.
SKY NEWS VIA FOX NEWS:
BRITISH SECURITY DISRUPT PLOT TO BOMB 20 PLANES
One guy,
Khameini or Nasrallah?
The military activity seems to be in areas and directions we disussed weeks ago. OTH the diplomatic merry-go-round seems to be doing another couple of revolutions.
Difficult IMHO to predict what is going to happen next. The tea-leaves are hard to read.
09:14 Netanyahu: Decision to expand ground operation came late, but not too late (Israel Radio)
According to news, this plot may have been 8 months into the planning.
So far Bibi has not said anything about the decision to halt the operation that was "not too late". Hmmm....
Olmert is supposed to brief Bibi sometime in the near future (today?) I don't know if he was just being loyal opposition, or what....
Khamenei.
Adm Smith, got your last, did you see "Blat"?
All, it's time for dinner and a nap. Be back in a few.
Hang tough.
Your family is in my prayers.
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