Posted on 04/18/2009 5:48:20 AM PDT by IsraelBeach
The Israel military is preparing itself to launch a massive aerial assault on Iran's nuclear facilities within days of being given the go-ahead by its new government. Among the steps taken to ready Israel forces for what would be a risky raid requiring pinpoint aerial strikes are the acquisition of three Airborne Warning and Control (AWAC) aircraft and regional missions to simulate the attack.
Two nationwide civil defence drills will help to prepare the public for the retaliation that Israel could face. “Israel wants to know that if its forces were given the green light they could strike at Iran in a matter of days, even hours. They are making preparations on every level for this eventuality. The message to Iran is that the threat is not just words,” one senior defense official told The Times.
Officials believe that Israel could be required to hit more than a dozen targets, including moving convoys. The sites include Natanz, where thousands of centrifuges produce enriched uranium; Esfahan, where 250 tonnes of gas is stored in tunnels; and Arak, where a heavy water reactor produces plutonium. The distance from Israel to at least one of the sites is more than 870 miles, a distance that the Israel force practised covering in a training exercise last year.
There has been a recent move, a number of on-the-ground preparations, that indicate Israel's willingness to act,” said another official from Israel's intelligence community.
An Israel attack on Iran would entail flying over Jordanian and Iraqi airspace, where US forces have a strong presence.
According to Israel Intelligence they will have the bomb within two years. Once they have a bomb it will be too late, and Israel will have no choice to strike — with or without America,” an official from the Israeli Defence Ministry said.
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
Destroy the entrances and air handling equipment and vents to seal them.
I do not believe they would broadcast any of their plans.
As we say in redneck America, where everyone, it seems, qualifies as a potential terrorist ...
Enough already ... git'er done.
Sounds like a good idea...just hope that the Iranians don’t find out about it. I promise I won’t tell them.
So Iran wants a nuke? I say give them one, and to be extra generous run the test where Iran is working on one of their own!
What kind of chain reaction?
Mechanical destruction due to out-of-balance high-speed rotating machinery.
Non-nuclear.
Thanks, that’s what I thought you meant.
im not so sure bush was that pro-israel. condi rice didnt seem to be
but then israel had a lot of their own problems too at the time
Israel and the U.S. should both have thought of that during the Bush Administration.
Israel has "bunker busters", not "mountain busters".
In the World Before Obama, a scenario could be envisioned where conventional air power neutralized the Iranian troops around the mountain and U.S. airborne forces went in to enter the mountain tunnels and destroy whatever was inside.
In the World After Obama, the U.S. will do nothing and all Israel can do is scorch the side of the mountain with sneak attacks that can be carried out only with missiles or with air power that somehow managed to fly across U.S. controlled Iraqi airspace.
Entrances and air vents are not "destroyed". They are only temporarily damaged. They are merely holes and holes can easily be re-dug.
Then there is the question, "How many entrances are there and how may apparent entrances are decoys?"
Ebensee, Austria Underground Factory Projects "Dachs/Zement"
The only way to permanently neutralized such a complex is to have your infantry in possession of it in order to penetrate it and destroy it completely. Such an airborne operation may have been possible during the Bush Administration but that opportunity passed with Obama in the White House.
Godspeed...
The Iraqi’s were already prepared for a strike on their reactor. There wasn’t a lot they could do about it anyway. The Iranian Air Force were the first to bomb the reactor building during the Iran-Iraq war. The building under construction was damaged during that raid.
How are they going to prepare? They didn’t get missiles
from Russia: they have conventional ground to air missiles
and fighter jets. Their economy is in the tank, they have to export crude to get it refined.
If they can hit something and make it hot, it would becaome unusable effectively as good as destroying it.
“Perhaps the intent is just to take out what they can, even though that would be less than 100%...’
They have to do it on a day when Iranian leadership is vulnerable to an attack. It will be the only way that the opposition can take power and avoid an escalation.
I agree. And the Israelis have been making this threat for ages. Time to either fish or cut bait.
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