Free Republic

CIA reveals: We said in 1974 that Israel had nuclear weapons By Amir Oren The Central Intelligence Agency, backed by bodies including the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research and the Defense Intelligence Agency, determined in August 1974 that Israel had nuclear "weapons in being," a "small number" of which it "produced and stockpiled." Israel was also suspected of providing nuclear materials, equipment or technology to Iran, South Africa and other then-friendly countries. Advertisement This top secret document, consigned to the CIA's vaults for almost 32 years, was suddenly released to the public this week, during U.S. President George...

IN A SUDDEN ATTACK of common sense, a Pentagon-commissioned study released in mid-November suggests an approach to nuclear nonproliferation in the Middle East that might actually be accepted by the people of the region. What is this breakthrough idea? That U.S. policies begin not with a country that currently lacks nuclear weapons - Iran - but rather with the one that by virtually all accounts already has them - Israel. To avert Iran’s apparent drive for nuclear weapons, concludes Henry Sokolski, a co-editor of "Getting Ready for a Nuclear-Ready Iran," Israel should freeze and begin to dismantle its nuclear capability....

On 7 June 1981, Israeli pilots flying F-16s, escorted by F-15s, bombed Iraq’s nuclear reactor at Osirak, near Baghdad. Though almost universally condemned at the time, for the most part the world later realized that it owed these pilots a great debt of gratitude, for they prevented Saddam Hussein from obtaining nuclear arms. Had Israel not destroyed that reactor, the course of history could have been far different. Kuwait would probably now be a province of Iraq and Saddam Hussein might also be the most powerful man in the Middle East, instead of a prisoner. Of course, the Israelis were...