Posted on 09/21/2004 3:17:51 AM PDT by F14 Pilot
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - The United States plans to sell Israel $139 million worth of air-launched bombs, including 500 "bunker busters" able to penetrate Iran's underground nuclear facilities, Israeli security sources said on Tuesday.
The Haaretz newspaper quoted a Pentagon report as saying the planned procurement sought "to maintain Israel's qualitative advantage and advance U.S. strategic and tactical interests."
The U.S. embassy in Israel had no comment, referring queries to Washington. Israel's Defense Ministry also declined comment.
But a senior Israeli security source who confirmed the Haaretz story told Reuters: "This is not the sort of ordnance needed for the Palestinian front. Bunker busters could serve Israel against Iran, or possibly Syria."
Haaretz quoted Israeli government sources as saying the sale, including 4,500 other guided munitions, was not expected to go through until after the U.S. elections in November. Earlier this month, Haaretz said Israel sought to obtain the U.S.-made, one-ton "bunker buster" bombs for a possible future strike against arch-foe Iran's atomic development program, which the Jewish state considers a strategic threat.
Tehran denies hostile designs, saying its nuclear program has peaceful purposes only. This week, it rejected international calls to comply with a U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency demand that it halt all uranium-enrichment activities.
Among the nuclear facilities that Iran has declared are uranium mines near the city of Yazd, and a uranium-enrichment plant in Natanz incorporating large underground buildings that could accommodate thousands of gas centrifuges.
Western diplomats accuse Iran of having several undeclared facilities close to Tehran thought to be related to uranium enrichment, a process the United States and some other countries believe Tehran will use to produce fissile material for weapons.
The exiled Iranian opposition group known as the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) says Iran is constructing numerous secret facilities under its Defense Ministry.
DIPLOMACY STILL SEEN AS PREFERABLE
Known by the military designations GBU-27 or GBU-28, "bunker busters" are guided by lasers or satellites and can penetrate up to 30 feet of earth and concrete. Israel may already have some of the bombs for its U.S.-supplied F-15 fighter jets.
As they are part of the weapon set for the F-15, I would assume them to be in place," said Robert Hewson, editor of Jane's Air-Launched Weapons. He said the bombs proved effective in the 1991 Gulf war and 1990s NATO strikes on Serbian forces. Israel, which is widely assumed to be the Middle East's only nuclear-armed nation, wants to stop Iran going atomic, but officials say diplomatic pressure on Tehran is the best method.
Many believe a military strike, especially by Israel, could kill off any chance of a diplomatic resolution or efforts by Iranian opposition groups to achieve internal reform. "I think (military action) should be a last, last, last resort. Unlike Iraq and North Korea, there is at least some chance of bringing about an undermining of the Velayat-e Faqih's authority," former CIA director R. James Woolsey told Reuters this month, referring to Iran's ruling Islamic clerics.
Convinced Saddam Hussein was developing nuclear weapons, Israel bombed Iraq's Osiraq reactor in 1981. While the move drew international censure, eventually many U.S. experts saw it as an important blow to Saddam's strategic weapons capabilities.
"The response of the United States was, unfortunately, negative with respect to Osiraq," Woolsey said. "The Israelis were right and everybody else was wrong, including us, in 1981."
The Osiraq strike did not stop Saddam's quest for the bomb. Instead, Iraq went underground and worked in secret until the program was uncovered by the U.N. nuclear watchdog in 1991.
(Additional reporting by Louis Charbonneau in Vienna)
did you see the Discovery Channel show on these bunkers? at best, in one of Saddam's bunkers, some of the doors wouldn't close straight. that's it.
that bunker complex at Tora Bora that we all say sketches of - never existed, it was a myth.
kewl!
how many do you need?
It's not like they couldn'y build bunker-busters themselves...The first ones were made from surplus 8-inch artillery tubes...ie the barell of a cannon.
If the devices are accurate you just stack them. The first goes 30'. The second goes >30' and <60', etc., etc.
> why not GIVE them the bombs?
Free after rebate.
Actually, we are giving them the weapons. The sale is from the military aid we give Israel. Israel gets the money and has flexibility in choosing what US weapons it wants to spend it on.
If i was in charge i'd ship them over to Israel for free and then they can do us all a favour...
The problem with giving this technology to Israel,like the Python-3 technology, is that it ends up in Communist China. Are you familiar with the new Communist Chinese fighter J-10 to be deployed on aircraft carriers? The J-10 started out as the Israeli Lavi or Lion.
srael Armed Chinese Fighter That Hit U.S. Plane
JERUSALEM – The Israeli army had "no reaction" Monday to reports that China's F-8 jets, such as the one involved in a midair collision with a U.S. Navy plane south of China two weeks ago, are armed with Israeli-made missiles.
A video clip of the fighter plane believed to have collided with the U.S. EP-3 surveillance plane shows a missile identified as an air-to-air Python-3, manufactured by Israel's Armaments Development Authority, according to the Israeli business publication Globes.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld last week released the video clip, shot in January, to illustrate the aggressiveness displayed by Chinese F-8 pilots monitoring U.S. planes over international waters.
China did a good job keeping the lid on the J-10 development. Until very recently little was made public about this project. What one could find in aviation directories about the J-10 was limited to the fact that the aircraft's design was based on the Lavi - Israel's half-hearted and eventually canned attempt to develop its own "F-16." Approximate performance characteristics and physical data were extrapolated from Lavi and similar aircraft but this was about the extent of the available analysis.
The J-10 is much more than just a development of the Lavi. The new Chengdu fighter has a potential of becoming one of the most significant fighters for the next few decades. The J-10 may very well be the next MiG-21 or F-16 in terms of its potential on the international market. I find it rather surprising that the J-10 attracted relatively little attention from aerospace publications worldwide.
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