After seeing both the remote-controlled ground sensors and the remote-controlled aerial sensors (e.g. UAV's), one has to wonder why anyone but dinosaurs would claim that the Israelis need to send *people* into Iran...
Posted on 03/05/2006 12:53:28 AM PST by West Coast Conservative
Israeli special forces are working in Iran to locate the precise sites at which Iran continues to enrich uranium, a British newspaper reported Sunday.
According to the Sunday Times article, the Israeli team is based in northern Iraq and has the support of the United States.
International tensions over Iran's nuclear enrichment program reached a new level on Saturday, when the US reportedly decided to present a 30-day ultimatum to the UN Security Council, calling on Iran to cease its nuclear development.
The Washington Post reported, however, that the US would not request further economic sanctions on Iran.
Iran and the European Union inched toward a compromise Friday that diplomats said would allow Tehran to run a scaled-down version of a uranium enrichment program with potential for misuse to develop atomic weapons.
While Iran insists that its nuclear program is not intended to produce weapons, the Israeli security establishment has taken steps to assure that Israel can defend itself against an Iranian attacks.
On Thursday, a senior IDF officer told The Jerusalem Post Israel's Arrow 2 anti-ballistic missile system is capable of intercepting and destroying any Iranian missiles, even were they to carry nuclear warheads.
While Iran is Israel's most serious strategic and existential threat, the country, he said confidently, was sufficiently protected by the Arrow, which plays a major role in maintaining Israel's protective envelope.
"We will shoot all of [Iran's missiles] down," he told the Post. "The Arrow knows how to intercept the Shihab missile."
Just last year that wasn't the case.
Appearing before the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Brig.-Gen. Ilan Bitton - head of Israel's Air Defense Forces - said that, while the Arrow was highly effective against the Scud missiles that make up most of Syria's arsenal, it "needed improvement" to face the challenges posed by Iran's Shihab-3.
Improvements were recently made to the Arrow, the officer said, explaining the new confidence, and it was now able to detect even a missile carrying a split warhead and armed with decoys meant to fool the anti-missile system.
Asked about the danger of the Arrow taking out a non-conventional or nuclear missile over Israel, the officer said that the incoming missile would be destroyed at such a high altitude that it would disperse and destroy its payload without causing any casualties.
"There is constant pressure to always stay a step ahead of our adversaries," the officer said. "They developed decoys on their missiles and we developed ways to detect the decoys and to be able to accurately strike the incoming threat."
Why do I need to know this?!?!?
Seymour Hersh last year said US special Forces were operating in Iran.
I have no idea whether this is true, but it'll leave the mullahs more paranoid than a kilo of coke washed down with crystal meth.
Psych-op.
After seeing both the remote-controlled ground sensors and the remote-controlled aerial sensors (e.g. UAV's), one has to wonder why anyone but dinosaurs would claim that the Israelis need to send *people* into Iran...
Because UAV's can't gather HUMINT.
[I'm not saying the story is true, only that there are good reasons to have operators on the ground.]
Israeli special forces aren't doing HUMINT.
Hunter-killing, perhaps...but not HUMINT. Certainly not the type of HUMINT that surpasses what the drones can do (e.g. work in a classified Iranian nuclear facility for a decade as a sleeper).
Why not? Many Israelis (including the President of Israel) were born in Iran. Having someone who can pass for native who can buy the janitor lunch and chat him up can pay big dividends.
Fair enough.
This treason to be reporting this. I have no doubt that the Iranian's already know :) I guess 75 million from Bush just lends credibality to covert ops.
P.S. Wife Ping working for the Arrow Program in Tel Aviv:)
This story may not be true because any organization includes fools, featherbedders, and scoundrels, some of whom are in positions of great responsibility. [EX: The CIA; the Carter administration.] I certainly hope it is true, and would bet that it is.
I'd like to see arrests for anyone reporting troop movements (our troops and our allies). I'd like to see the death penalty for all enemies of America who are convicted of treason.
Great minds think alike.
GOTO: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1590234/posts More cases for treason!
If this is true, it is good to know that our allies are taking charge to try to prevent Iran from ever threatening them (a far more immediate threat to Israel that it would be to the U.S. itself)... But they better find and take them out quick because I think Iran will do something this month.. Reason being--on March 15th--just ten days away, they start selling oil for euros instead of dollars.
that all being said, why the heck is anyone printing this.. This involves covert intel and troops of an allied power being potentially in harms way... This is very dangerous to do, true or not, because if the IDF is in country it could tip them off, if they're not it could either result in the mullahs a)pre-emptively attacking Israel and/or b) taking out anyone that would sympathise with them.
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