Background / Rethinking the unthinkable, amid Iraq fears(Prepairing 4 Armeggedon)

Beset by a proverbial 10 plagues of military, economic and social woes, Israel is feverishly preparing for the specter of the real thing: an ancient, extinct disease that could be reincarnated by scientists and delivered by the cutting-edge of Saddam Hussein's arsenal.

And if the specter of a smallpox attack were not enough, Israelis awoke Wednesday to a new mega-worry: the knowledge that the Atomic, Biological and Chemical warfare gas mask kits that every Israeli has kept squirreled away in back cupboards since Saddam rained Scud missiles on the Jewish state in the 1991 Gulf war is lacking what may be a crucial defense against the effects of nuclear fallout.

For six weeks in early 1991, Israelis became accustomed to carrying the kits everywhere they went, some decorating the small cardboard boxes as fashion statements or with stickers declaring defiance of the Iraqi president, who retaliated for attacks on Baghdad by then-president Bush with missile salvos against Tel Aviv.

Now, with the Iraqi armed forces on heightened alert for a renewed U.S. offensive by Bush's son, the edginess of Israelis has expressed itself in bizarre home-improvement segments on daytime talk shows, featuring a wealth of improved doomsday appliances like sophisticated chemical toilets and home air filters appropriate to houses sealed against off attack by murderous microbes and monstrous nerve gases.

Confirming a report in Ha'aretz, Defense Ministry Director-General Amos Yaron said Wednesday that capsules of Lugol's Iodine - a compound that can help blunts the impact nuclear radiation - would be added to ABC kits "in the near future."

Yaron spoke as news was breaking of the resignation of former IDF chief medical officer Aryeh Eldad, head of a panel of experts advising the Health Ministry on preparations for the threat of a terror attack or military strike using smallpox as a catastrophic secret weapon. Eldad left the committee with a jab at health officials for refusing to heed the panel's recommendation that the entire Israeli population be inoculated against smallpox as soon as possible as a prophylactic measure.

Various doomsday scenarios have been put forward for as to the possible effects of a smallpox attack on the Jewish state. Although no one knows for certain either if reconstituted smallpox could actually be delivered as a weapon - or whether it even exists, except in nightmares - experts have suggested that the highly contagious, lethal disease could devastate Israel's population, and migrate far afield to wreak havoc on the world at large.

In 1991, the Iraqis took pains to aim the unguided Scuds away from West Bank and Gaza population centers, where curfew-bound Palestinians in the fourth year of their first uprising celebrated the missile strikes with dancing and song on rooftops. If, this time around, Palestinians may be uniquely vulnerable to the unbottled genie of biological warfare, they have shown few signs that they fear the possible drift of ABC warfare agents into the West Bank, Gaza and largely Arab East Jerusalem.

What is evident, and abundantly so, is the depth and breath of Palestinian support for Saddam Hussein. "On some streets there are pictures of Saddam Hussein alongside pictures of Arafat," says Ha'aretz Arab affairs editor Danny Rubinstein. "He is seen as a hero, their hero. The fact of his provoking the United States and the West as a whole is seen as a point of heroism."

Their support is undiluted by second thoughts over Saddam's actions against fellow Arabs. "You don't have what you had in 1990-1, in the former crisis. In the current crisis, he has done nothing anti-Arab. He did not conquer Kuwait this time. He did nothing to anger the Arabs

According to senior Israeli officials, the common impetus for the smallpox and nuclear preparations was not Iraq, but the far-off attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

"Following September 11, we have prepared ourselves for any scenario, including that of smallpox," said Health Minister Nissim Dahan of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party. "The Health Ministry is making every effort to complete the inventories of all the medications needed to vaccinate the population. The moment that we receive such an order, the population of the state of Israel can be vaccinated within a few days."

Dahan's assurances indirectly underscored one of the reasons that Israel has refrained from ordering the entire population inoculated against smallpox: the fact that it has yet to accumulate sufficient vaccine for the purpose. Health officials have suggested that as an interim step, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's cabinet might soon order the vaccination of from 15,000 to 150,000 medical, rescue and security personnel considered vital to dealing with the health needs of the general population during a future smallpox outbreak.

Officials say that other factors prompting the government to hold back on mass vaccinations are the panic that they are likely to spur and the side effects, which include, in very rare cases, death. "The vaccination question will be brought for debate in the coming days, and a decision will be made," he said, stressing the otherworldly nature of the issues involved.

In a reference to the fact that the last cases of smallpox were recorded in the 1970s, Yaron said: "there is no concrete information that an epidemic is about to erupt."

Remarks Ha'aretz military affairs commentator Amir Oren, who broke the story on the iodine radiation defense, in Israeli terms "radioactive risk is a sub-scenario of one of the two traditional nuclear-biological-chemical risks, 'Black Curtain,' which refers to biological weapons. The other scenario, 'Necklaces,' deals with defenses against chemical attacks or accidents.

"Since September 11 - and more so after intelligence operations revealed intensive efforts by Al Qaida to acquire the know-how for manufacturing "dirty" bombs - the likelihood of such an event occurring as the result, for example, of an Iranian or Iraqi action against Israel, has increased." Oren notes. "In February 1991, Iraq tried to hit the Dimona reactor, using a cement payload as its warhead. And the Home Front is including similar possibilities in its preparations during the current U.S.-Iraqi crisis."

Yaron, a former IDF major general, indicated that the iodine capsules were to be distributed primarily as a protective measure in the event of a nuclear accident. Unconfirmed Israeli media reports said the distribution would initially center on populations near the Dimona and Sorek nuclear reactor facilities.

As an Israel Radio interviewer suggested that Israel would break with the 1991 precedent and retaliate this time if attacked by Iraq, Yaron quickly donned the official mantle of ambiguity, which the nation's nuclear program is draped. "I didn't say that. It is all a function of our assessment of the situation."

I hadn't considered the fact that Saddam can't use ABC weapons without killing Palestinians. Heck, since most of them wouldn't have the emergency kits, it's entirely possible he could kill more Palestinians than Jews. That doesn't even consider the fact that, should Israel have far more advanced anti-missle capabilities than in 1991, Jordan and or Syria could also be at risk.

there's a couple of more things that have to happen.

the run up to german elections is starting. that won't be completed until sept. schroeder is expected to be voted out of office.

currently it looks like the timing for the regime change is set for January. the drum beat now is more aimed at the germans so as to bring them into line--or utterly sideline them.

this iraq regime change is in german interests imho irregardless of their alliance considerations.

when german elections are over in sept--and shroeder is voted out --there will be cooling off period--as opponents of regime change in iraq are given time to reflect on the cost of opposing this policy.

reports are that letters have been sent to middle eastern countries to prepare their populations for regime change in iraq.

the point of this is to build the sense of inevitability in all sectors of the world. and something more. the point of all this stuff is build a new spirit...or a new zeitgeist as the germans like to say...so that when the battle is won--everyone is moving in the same direction and reading the same script.

I am really suprised to hear myself say this. I don't have any inside knowledge. all I'm doing is reading the headlines and reflecting on what the policy makers must be thinking in order to shape the news in the current fashion.

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