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Israel's Weapons of Mass Destruction
By Hussain Khan
Al-Jazeerah, 10/31/03
Tokyo---After the worldwide publication of a report that Israel has developed a technology, after a research effort of over 30 years, to modify the US-made Harpoon anti-ship missile to deliver nuclear warheads to targets on land, a senior Israeli official has denied it. He says it is a phony story, politically motivated to draw public pressure away from Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program. "They knew it was technically impossible to fit the missile with a nuclear warhead," said the official. "They are fishing for reasons why the US shouldn't do anything about Iran's program."
The report had originated in Los Angeles Times on the authority of two senior Bush administration officials who disclosed it and one Israeli official, who confirmed it. All three told this on condition that their names should not be disclosed. If it is phony a story, as the Israeli official claims, then the three officials involved in disclosing it should be punished for spreading rumors. But the question arises what interest these American and Israeli officials have in drawing public pressure away from Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program? Were these officials working as Iranian agents and being paid for their services by the Iranian government? If not, then the responsibility is shifted to the newspaper reporters. Were they paid Iranian agents to write such a ‘phony’ story in their newspaper? Both these possibilities are unbelievable. It is better to doubt the motives of that unknown Israeli official, who is try to deny this fact, than the senior American officials or the reporters of a responsible US newspaper.
As regards the official's claim that technically fitting Harpoon missile with a nuclear warhead is impossible, the missile experts have denied it. James Sentell, a retired guidance engineer who worked at Raytheon Missile Systems, said, “We have TERCOM [Terrain Contour Mapping], which was used in early Tomahawk cruise missiles” It can be used on Harpoon missiles. He further said that the radar seeker at the nose of the missile, though sufficient for plucking out a target on the vast empty sea, would have to be replaced by a more discriminating, satellite-driven global positioning system. With such modifications, Harpoons can be used for carrying warheads for land targets after cruising through the sea when they are launched from the Israeli submarines.
However, the problem remains whether the mass of the warhead could fit into the required space. Usually, the smallest nuclear warhead weighs a half-ton. The Harpoon's conventional warhead weighs in at 225 kilograms. Mark Hutchenreuther, an electronics engineer who worked at the Harpoon Missile Handling Branch, is of the opinion that it is possible to fit a small enough nuclear warhead on the missile
John Pike, a defense analyst for Global Security. org, said, "I can see the Harpoon, which has a 13.5 inch [34.29 cm.] diameter, carrying a 10-20 kiloton warhead that could burn down a large town".
The U.S. officials said the warheads have been designed for American-supplied Harpoon missiles, which have sea-skimming cruise guidance systems and a normal range of about 80 miles. Harpoons usually have conventional warheads and are common in the arsenals of the U.S. and other countries.
Robert S. Norris, a nuclear historian at the Natural Resources Defense Council in Washington, said in an interview that Israeli engineers would have had to reduce the size of a nuclear weapon to fit the warhead of a Harpoon and alter the missile guidance system to hit land-based targets, both relatively simple tasks for a sophisticated weapons program.
"They have been at it for more than 30 years, so this is something within the realm of capability for Israel’s scientists and engineers," said Norris, who added that the range of the missiles might have been extended, too.
And Israel already has the submarine-launched Popeye Turbo, which the Federation of American Scientists puts conservatively at a range of 200-350 kilometers. Its diameter is 53.34 cm. (21 inches) - perfect for carrying a multi-kiloton warhead and for launching from a torpedo tube.
Ultimately, the question is one of need. According to a spokesman at the Boeing Company, parent of McDonnell Douglas, it would be illegal for Israel to modify the US- made Harpoons without permission. The number of U.N. resolutions Israel has violated and refused to follow is sufficient to show to what extent Israel cares for the legality of any action. Its 400,000 settlements on the land, which the U.N. has declared as an ‘occupied’ one, is also illegal. But Israel is always confident that the US will keep a blind eye for all her illegal actions, as all her politicians are in dire need of Jewish money and vote in all US elections.
Despite Israel being smaller than New Jersey, with a population of six million, it has now become world’s 5th or 6th largest nuclear power with its nuclear weapon estimated to be within 100 to 200. Britain is having only 185, the smallest number among the five, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. The group estimated Russia has 8,232 weapons, the United States has 7,068, China has 402 and France has 348.
Israel began building a nuclear bomb after a secret agreement was signed with the French government in 1956 to help Israel build a plutonium nuclear reactor. The reactor site was chosen in the Negev desert, outside the village of Dimona. This was a massive project. 1,500 Israeli and French workers were engaged to build the reactor. An extensive underground complex was built 14 square miles. According to the Federation of American Scientists in Washington, French military aircraft secretly flew heavy water, a key element of a plutonium reactor, from Norway to Israel.
In the beginning, Israel never admitted it and even told lies to the US. When an American U-2 spy planes spotted the construction site in the beginning in 1958, Israel initially lied that it was just a textile plant. Later on she said that it was just a metallurgical research plant. According to documents at the National Archives in Washington, two years later, U.S. intelligence identified the site as a nuclear reactor and the C.I.A. said it was part of a weapons program.
Avner Cohen wrote a a book, ‘Israel and the Bomb’. In that book he has written that the first and last time an Israeli prime minister, David Ben Gurion, publicly admitted about the existence of a nuclear plant was on Dec. 21, 1960. On that day, he made a statement before the Israeli parliament that a nuclear reactor was under construction, 'exclusively for peaceful purposes.'
Beyond Iran, Arab diplomats and U.N. officials said in interviews that Israel's steady enhancement of its secret nuclear arsenal, and U.S. silence about it, inflames Arab desires for similar weapons.
Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk Al-Shara, said, "Some quarters selectively choose to level their false accusations at some Arab and Islamic states. . . while simultaneously ignoring the Israeli arsenal of weapons of mass destruction."
Even the countries friendly to the US like Egypt and Saudi Arabia joined Syria in her criticism late last month. They spoke against the US as well as the U.N. on this issue. They said that both of them are pressuring Iran to give up nuclear program but ignoring Israel’s weapons of mass destruction.
"The presence of a nuclear program in the region that is not under international safeguards gives other countries the spur to develop weapons of mass destruction," Nabil Fahmy, Egypt's ambassador to Washington, said in an interview. "Any future conflict becomes more dangerous.
As a matter of fact, there were certain occasions when Israeli generals had decided to use nuclear weapons According to a report in an Israeli newspaper, Haartz, at the start of the Yom Kippur War, Moshe Dayan feared for Israel's fate and considered ordering the army to arm the doomsday systems. It was the Prime Minister Golda Meir, who immediately ordered Dayan to "forget" the idea of activating the nuclear arsenal.
Similarly, in the Gulf War, Israeli generals were weighing the use of nonconventional weapons. The then prime minister and his senior ministers maintained restraint and did not issue any open threats. But thick hints were leaked about Israel’s nuclear potential. Commenting about it, Reuven Pedatzur, has written in an article in Haartz that “In the end, use of the nuclear threat did serious harm to Israel's image of deterrence, as it was obvious that its leadership lacked self-confidence and was not demonstrating the steadfastness that is the requisite basis for the success of any deterrence.”
Israel continues the same policy of threatening its neighbours. The Minister Avigdor Lieberman threatened to bomb the Aswan Dam in Egypt and the prime minister failed to admonish him. The latest leak to Los Angles Times was for the same purpose to keep its neighbours afraid of Israel’s weapons of mass destruction and its power to destroy rather annihilate them. That same day, the German weekly Der Spiegel published a report that Israel plans to launch an air-force attack on six Iran's nuclear sites.
Commenting on this sort of a ‘lunatic’Israel image, Reuven Pedatzur concludes in his Haartz article that “Anyone who believes that making Israel the nuclear neighborhood bully will strengthen its image of deterrence is liable to find that it could do lethal harm to its nuclear deterrence, weaken its international status, and invite pressure on itself in the nuclear realm.”
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| Earth, a planet hungry for peace |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03). |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03). |
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