megimoo
05-15-2009, 10:04 PM
Here's how Israel would destroy Iran's nuclear program
part 1
snip
Never before has such an open, detailed and thorough study of Israel's offensive options been published. The authors of the 114-page study meticulously gathered all available data on Israel's military capabilities and its nuclear program, and on Iran's nuclear developments and aerial defenses, as well as both countries' missile inventory.
After analyzing all the possibilities for an attack on Iran, Toukan and Cordesman conclude: "A military strike by Israel against Iranian nuclear facilities is possible ... would be complex and high-risk and would lack any assurances that the overall mission will have a high success rate."
The first problem the authors point to is intelligence, or more precisely, the lack of it. "It is not known whether Iran has some secret facilities where it is conducting uranium enrichment," they write.
If facilities unknown to Western intelligence agencies do exist, Iran's uranium-enrichment program could continue to develop in secret there, while Israel attacks the known sites - and the strike's gains would thus be lost.
In general, the authors state, attacking Iran is justified only if it will put an end to Iran's nuclear program or halt it for several years. That objective is very difficult to attain.
snip
If the Israeli intelligence assessment is accurate, the window for a military strike is rapidly closing. It is clear to everyone that no one will dare attack Iran once it possesses nuclear weapons.
Since Iran has dozens of nuclear facilities dispersed throughout its large territory, and since it is impossible to attack all of them, Toukan and Cordesman investigated the option of hitting only three, which "constitute the core of the nuclear fuel cycle that Iran needs to produce nuclear weapons grade fissile material."
Destroying these three sites ought to stall the Iranian nuclear program for several years.
[B]The three are:
the nuclear research center in Isfahan,
the uranium-enrichment facility in Natanz,
the heavy water plant,plutonium production, in Arak.
It is doubtful whether Israel would embark on an offensive with such major ramifications just to strike a small number of facilities, when it is not at all clear that this will stop Iran's nuclearization for a significant length of time.
The study analyzes three possible flight routes and concludes that the optimal and most likely one is
.......................................
the northern one that passes along the
Syria-Turkey border, cuts across the
northeastern edge of Iraq
and leads into Iran.
....................................
The central route passes over Jordan and is shorter, but would not be chosen for fear of political trouble with the Jordanians.
..................................
Using the southern route, which passes over Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Iraq, might likewise lead to political entanglements.
.............................
To prevent the aircraft being detected en route to Iran, the IAF would use advanced technology to invade and scramble communication networks and radar devices in the countries over which the F-15s and F-16s fly, so even though dozens of planes would pass through the countries' airspace, they will not be detected.
..................
According to the authors, the IAF used this technology in the raid on the Syrian nuclear reactor in Dayr az-Zawr, in September 2007. A hacker system was installed on two Gulfstream G550 aircraft that the IAF bought in recent years.
...................
A strike mission on the three nuclear facilities would require no fewer than 90 combat aircraft, including all
25 F-15Es in the IAF inventory and another
65 F-16I/Cs. On top of that,
all the IAF's refueling planes
will have to be airborne:
5 KC-130Hs and 4 B-707s.
The combat aircraft will have
to be refueled both en route
to and on the way back from Iran.
The IAF will have a hard time
locating an area above which
the tankers can cruise without
being detected by the Syrians or the Turks.
............................
One of the toughest operational problems to resolve is the fact that the facility at Natanz is buried deep underground. Part of it, the fuel-enrichment plant, reaches a depth of 8 meters, and is protected by a 2.5-meter-thick concrete wall, which is in turn protected by another concrete wall.
.........................
By mid-2004 the Iranians had fortified their defense of the other part of the facility, where the centrifuges are housed. They buried it 25 meters underground and built a roof over it made of reinforced concrete several meters thick.
..................
The Iranians use the centrifuges to enrich uranium, which is required in order to produce a nuclear bomb. There are already 6,000 centrifuges at the Natanz facility;
the Iranians plan to install a total of 50,000,
which could be used to produce 500 kilos of
weapons-grade uranium annually.
Building a nuclear bomb takes 15-20 kilograms
(20 kilograms = 44.0924524 pounds)
"Actually that number is about six times
critical mass needed for a twenty kilkoton warhead ! "
of enriched uranium. That means that the Natanz facility will be able to supply enough fissile material for 25-30 nuclear weapons per year.
..................................
Because the Natanz facility is so important, the Iranians have gone to great lengths to protect it. To contend with the serious defensive measures they have taken, the IAF will use two types of U.S.-made smart bombs. According to reports in the foreign media, 600 of these bombs - nicknamed "bunker busters" - have been sold to Israel.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
One the GBU-27, it weighs about 900 kilos and it can penetrate a 2.4 meters (= 7.87401575 feet) layer of concrete.
....................................
The other GBU-28 and weighs 2,268 kilos; this monster can penetrate 6 meters(6 meters = 19.6850394 feet) of concrete and another layer of earth 30 meters = (98.4251969 feet) deep.
....................................
But for these bombs to penetrate ultra-protected Iranian facilities, IAF pilots will have to strike the targets with absolute accuracy and at an optimal angle.
..............................................
Additional challenges
But the challenges facing the IAF do not end there. Iran has built a dense aerial-defense system that will make it hard for Israeli planes to reach their targets unscathed. Among other things, the Iranians have deployed batteries of Hawk, SA-5 and SA-2 surface-to-air missiles, plus they have SA-7, SA-15, Rapier, Crotale and Stinger anti-aircraft missiles. Furthermore, 1,700 anti-aircraft guns protect the nuclear facilities - not to mention the 158 combat aircraft that might take part in defending Iran's skies. Most of those planes are outdated, but they may be scrambled to intercept the IAF, which will thus have to use part of its strike force to deal with the situation.
However, all these obstacles are nothing compared to the S-300V (SA-12 Giant) anti-aircraft defense system, which various reports say Russia may have secretly supplied to Iran recently. If the Iranians indeed have this defense system, all of the IAF's calculations, and all of the considerations for and against a strike, will have to be overhauled. The Russian system is so sophisticated and tamper-proof that the aircraft attrition rates could reach 20-30 percent: In other words, out of a strike force of 90 aircraft, 20 to 25 would be downed. This, the authors say, is "a loss Israel would hardly accept in paying."
...................................
If Israel also decides to attack the famous reactor in Bushehr, an ecological disaster and mass deaths will result. The contamination released into the air in the form of radionuclides would spread over a large area, and thousands of Iranians who live nearby would be killed immediately; in addition, possibly hundreds of thousands would subsequently die of cancer. Because northerly winds blow in the area throughout most of the year, the authors conclude that, "most definitely Bahrain, Qatar and the UAE will be heavily affected by the radionuclides."
..............................]
part 1
snip
Never before has such an open, detailed and thorough study of Israel's offensive options been published. The authors of the 114-page study meticulously gathered all available data on Israel's military capabilities and its nuclear program, and on Iran's nuclear developments and aerial defenses, as well as both countries' missile inventory.
After analyzing all the possibilities for an attack on Iran, Toukan and Cordesman conclude: "A military strike by Israel against Iranian nuclear facilities is possible ... would be complex and high-risk and would lack any assurances that the overall mission will have a high success rate."
The first problem the authors point to is intelligence, or more precisely, the lack of it. "It is not known whether Iran has some secret facilities where it is conducting uranium enrichment," they write.
If facilities unknown to Western intelligence agencies do exist, Iran's uranium-enrichment program could continue to develop in secret there, while Israel attacks the known sites - and the strike's gains would thus be lost.
In general, the authors state, attacking Iran is justified only if it will put an end to Iran's nuclear program or halt it for several years. That objective is very difficult to attain.
snip
If the Israeli intelligence assessment is accurate, the window for a military strike is rapidly closing. It is clear to everyone that no one will dare attack Iran once it possesses nuclear weapons.
Since Iran has dozens of nuclear facilities dispersed throughout its large territory, and since it is impossible to attack all of them, Toukan and Cordesman investigated the option of hitting only three, which "constitute the core of the nuclear fuel cycle that Iran needs to produce nuclear weapons grade fissile material."
Destroying these three sites ought to stall the Iranian nuclear program for several years.
[B]The three are:
the nuclear research center in Isfahan,
the uranium-enrichment facility in Natanz,
the heavy water plant,plutonium production, in Arak.
It is doubtful whether Israel would embark on an offensive with such major ramifications just to strike a small number of facilities, when it is not at all clear that this will stop Iran's nuclearization for a significant length of time.
The study analyzes three possible flight routes and concludes that the optimal and most likely one is
.......................................
the northern one that passes along the
Syria-Turkey border, cuts across the
northeastern edge of Iraq
and leads into Iran.
....................................
The central route passes over Jordan and is shorter, but would not be chosen for fear of political trouble with the Jordanians.
..................................
Using the southern route, which passes over Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Iraq, might likewise lead to political entanglements.
.............................
To prevent the aircraft being detected en route to Iran, the IAF would use advanced technology to invade and scramble communication networks and radar devices in the countries over which the F-15s and F-16s fly, so even though dozens of planes would pass through the countries' airspace, they will not be detected.
..................
According to the authors, the IAF used this technology in the raid on the Syrian nuclear reactor in Dayr az-Zawr, in September 2007. A hacker system was installed on two Gulfstream G550 aircraft that the IAF bought in recent years.
...................
A strike mission on the three nuclear facilities would require no fewer than 90 combat aircraft, including all
25 F-15Es in the IAF inventory and another
65 F-16I/Cs. On top of that,
all the IAF's refueling planes
will have to be airborne:
5 KC-130Hs and 4 B-707s.
The combat aircraft will have
to be refueled both en route
to and on the way back from Iran.
The IAF will have a hard time
locating an area above which
the tankers can cruise without
being detected by the Syrians or the Turks.
............................
One of the toughest operational problems to resolve is the fact that the facility at Natanz is buried deep underground. Part of it, the fuel-enrichment plant, reaches a depth of 8 meters, and is protected by a 2.5-meter-thick concrete wall, which is in turn protected by another concrete wall.
.........................
By mid-2004 the Iranians had fortified their defense of the other part of the facility, where the centrifuges are housed. They buried it 25 meters underground and built a roof over it made of reinforced concrete several meters thick.
..................
The Iranians use the centrifuges to enrich uranium, which is required in order to produce a nuclear bomb. There are already 6,000 centrifuges at the Natanz facility;
the Iranians plan to install a total of 50,000,
which could be used to produce 500 kilos of
weapons-grade uranium annually.
Building a nuclear bomb takes 15-20 kilograms
(20 kilograms = 44.0924524 pounds)
"Actually that number is about six times
critical mass needed for a twenty kilkoton warhead ! "
of enriched uranium. That means that the Natanz facility will be able to supply enough fissile material for 25-30 nuclear weapons per year.
..................................
Because the Natanz facility is so important, the Iranians have gone to great lengths to protect it. To contend with the serious defensive measures they have taken, the IAF will use two types of U.S.-made smart bombs. According to reports in the foreign media, 600 of these bombs - nicknamed "bunker busters" - have been sold to Israel.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
One the GBU-27, it weighs about 900 kilos and it can penetrate a 2.4 meters (= 7.87401575 feet) layer of concrete.
....................................
The other GBU-28 and weighs 2,268 kilos; this monster can penetrate 6 meters(6 meters = 19.6850394 feet) of concrete and another layer of earth 30 meters = (98.4251969 feet) deep.
....................................
But for these bombs to penetrate ultra-protected Iranian facilities, IAF pilots will have to strike the targets with absolute accuracy and at an optimal angle.
..............................................
Additional challenges
But the challenges facing the IAF do not end there. Iran has built a dense aerial-defense system that will make it hard for Israeli planes to reach their targets unscathed. Among other things, the Iranians have deployed batteries of Hawk, SA-5 and SA-2 surface-to-air missiles, plus they have SA-7, SA-15, Rapier, Crotale and Stinger anti-aircraft missiles. Furthermore, 1,700 anti-aircraft guns protect the nuclear facilities - not to mention the 158 combat aircraft that might take part in defending Iran's skies. Most of those planes are outdated, but they may be scrambled to intercept the IAF, which will thus have to use part of its strike force to deal with the situation.
However, all these obstacles are nothing compared to the S-300V (SA-12 Giant) anti-aircraft defense system, which various reports say Russia may have secretly supplied to Iran recently. If the Iranians indeed have this defense system, all of the IAF's calculations, and all of the considerations for and against a strike, will have to be overhauled. The Russian system is so sophisticated and tamper-proof that the aircraft attrition rates could reach 20-30 percent: In other words, out of a strike force of 90 aircraft, 20 to 25 would be downed. This, the authors say, is "a loss Israel would hardly accept in paying."
...................................
If Israel also decides to attack the famous reactor in Bushehr, an ecological disaster and mass deaths will result. The contamination released into the air in the form of radionuclides would spread over a large area, and thousands of Iranians who live nearby would be killed immediately; in addition, possibly hundreds of thousands would subsequently die of cancer. Because northerly winds blow in the area throughout most of the year, the authors conclude that, "most definitely Bahrain, Qatar and the UAE will be heavily affected by the radionuclides."
..............................]