Israel capable of attacking Iran nuclear facilites: ex-general,We could do it today!

[megimoo]

Israel is capable of a successful military attack on Iran's nuclear facilities, a former air force general has said !"We could do it today," Isaac Ben-Israel, a member of Israeli parliament representing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's Kadima Party, said.

Ben-Israel, who is reported to have helped in planning the 1981 air raid on Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor, acknowledged that hitting Iran's scattered nuclear facilities would be more difficult.

But he said the only factor holding Israel back was the possibility of resolving the dispute over Iran's nuclear activities by other means."Only once the critical point has been reached will we choose the final option," Ben-Israel told the weekly.

That point would be decided on the basis of information from Israel's intelligence services, he said.

Ben-Israel expressed doubt that Iran's leaders would use a nuclear weapon on Israel directly."They would not be that crazy, but they could for example give the bomb to Hezbollah. I think they are crazy enough for that," he said.

In October, Israel confirmed it had carried out an airstrike Sep 6, targeting the al-Kibar complex in Syria's north-eastern desert.The former general acknowledged that the Israeli air force had recently conducted an exercise over the Mediterranean to simulate a raid on Iran.

"It was not the first such exercise, and it won't be the last," he said.last week that more than 100 F-16 and F-15 fighters had participated in the exercise, carried out over the eastern Mediterranean and Greece during the first week of June.

http://www.netindia123.com/showdetai...%3A+ex-general

[Sonnabend]

Good. When it comes time, I hope they smash them flat.

[LogansPapa]

Israel is capable of a successful military attack on Iran's nuclear facilities, a former air force general has said !"We could do it today," Isaac Ben-Israel, a member of Israeli parliament representing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's Kadima Party, said.

Not so possible without Mother America's military milk.;)

[LogansPapa]

More U.S. aid goes to Israel than any other country, even though Israel?s per capita income is as high as many European countries. In fiscal year 2003 Israel received a foreign military financing grant of $3.1 billion and a $600 million grant for economic security in addition to $11 billion in commercial loan guarantees. This total aid package of nearly $15 billion makes Israel by far the largest single recipient of U.S. aid. U.S. aid is a function of politics. According to a Time/CNN poll, released April 12, 2002, 60% of Americans favor cutting aid to Israel if Israel does not immediately withdraw its troops from Palestinian areas. Further, U.S. aid to other countries is often tied to various conditions, depending on what the U.S. wants the aid recipient to do. We are asking that aid to Israel be treated in the same manner.
Pouring arms into an area of the world already plagued by violence can only increase death and destruction and render the U.S. a questionable broker for peace at best. In these hard economic days, that money can be put to use in the U.S. or it could be used to build a stable Palestinian society, out of the devastation that exists there now. The Israeli economy has been in a downward spiral for years, and foreign investment has long been directly related to the level of violence in the region. Using military aid as a lever to end the occupation will be a boon to the security and hopes for the future for both Israelis and Palestinians.


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Key Facts


Total direct aid to Israel, 1948-2003
$89.9 billion (uncorrected for inflation)

Since 1976 Israel has been the largest annual recipient of US aid. It is the largest cumulative recipient since World War II.

Direct U.S. aid for each Israeli citizen in 2001 (per capita annual income of Israel = $16,710) -- over $500

Direct U.S. Aid for each Ethiopian citizen in 2001 (per capita annual income of Ethiopia = $100) -- about $.45

REGULAR US GRANT AID in FY 2003
$2.76 billion military aid grant
$2.1 billion economic support funds
$600 million refugee resettlement grant

COMMERCIAL LOAN GUARANTEES IN FY 2003
$2 billion

BUSH ADMINISTRATION SUPPLEMENTAL REQUEST FOR FY 2003
Military aid grant $1 billion
Commercial loan guarantees $9 billion
Arrow missile development $60 million

TOTAL AID FOR FY 2003 $14.82 billion

Percentage of U.S. foreign aid that goes to Israel -- 30%

Israel's population as a percentage of world population -- .01%

Section 116 of the Foreign Assistance Act (FAA) states, "No assistance may be provided under this part to the government of any country which engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights." 22 U.S.C. 2304(a)

Section 4 of the Arms Export Control Act prohibits selling military equipment to countries that use them for non-self-defense purposes.

The U.S. State Department determined in February 2001 that Israel has committed each of the acts that the law defines as "gross violations of internationally recognized human rights, including torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, prolonged detention without charges and trial, causing the disappearance of persons by the abduction and clandestine detention of those persons, and other flagrant denials of the right to life, liberty, or the security of person." It described Israeli army use of live ammunition against Palestinians when soldiers were not in impending danger as "excessive use of force."
SOURCES: Clyde R. Mark, ?Israel: U.S. Foreign Assistance, Congressional Research Service, updated April 1, 2003; Clyde R. Mark, Middle East: U.S. Foreign Assistance, FY 2001, FY 2002, FY 2003 Congressional Research Service, March 28, 2002


http://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/p...ticle_17.shtml

[lacarnut]

Good. When it comes time, I hope they smash them flat.

Since Iran bears a great deal of the responsibility for many Americans killed in action, lets go ahead and tear them a new asshole and get the Iraq war over with. We have fooling around too long. Lets do it now.

[LogansPapa]

Since Iran bears a great deal of the responsibility for many Americans killed in action, lets go ahead and tear them a new asshole and get the Iraq war over with. We have fooling around too long. Lets do it now.

And occupy Iranian real estate?

[SaintLouieWoman]

And occupy Iranian real estate?

Might placate the environmentalists. We could drill, drill, drill there, not in Anwar. :D

They are the enemy who've funded terrorism all over the world. They've challenged the entire world. Whatever happens, they can look in the mirror for the cause. As far as the Israelis attacking them, they have the right to defend themselves against leadership trying to annihilate them from the face of the earth. If they hit their reactors before completion, then it's avoiding a larger war later.

Hope diplomacy works, but we can never forget Reagan's motto, Trust but verify. It would take one heck of a lot of verification with the Iranian leadership.

[LogansPapa]

If Israel hits Iran - we hit Iran. It's no more complicated than that.

You may laugh off the initial strike and the other Arab nations may not react, and the Russians may not react, but given our commitment in Iraq and the placement of resources throughout the Middle East - this could end up being extremely expensive, as in shutting down that very special choke-point that those fat bellied tankers pass through. The Iranians have wisely spread their nuclear facilities out and the Israeli strike will no doubt be a hundred fold more complicated and dangerous than taking out Saddam's toy, with the handful of Frenchmen in the basement.

[megimoo]

Iran Foreign Minister: Israel in No Position to Attack
".................It's called Going past a cemetery at night and whistling in the dark !"

"Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been threatning to destroy the state of Israel for years.What in hell does he expect Israel to do Sit and wait to be destroyed by Iran ?"

TEHRAN - Iran's foreign minister said on Sunday he did not believe Israel was in a position to attack the Islamic Republic over its nuclear programme. "They know full well what the consequences of such an act would be," Foreign Minister Manoucher Mottaki told reporters. He was speaking a day after the head of the Revolutionary Guards was quoted as saying Iran would impose controls on shipping in the Gulf oil route if Iran was attacked and warned regional states of reprisals if they took part. Speculation about a possible attack on Iran has risen since a U.S. newspaper reported this month that Israel had practiced such a strike.
Mottaki said Israel was dealing with the consequences of its 2006 war with Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon and was suffering a "crisis of deepening illegitimacy" in the Middle East region.

"That's why we do not see the Zionist regime in a situation in which they would want to engage in such an adventurism," he said when asked about the possibility of an Israeli attack.

http://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/ira...29/108323.html

[LogansPapa]

Preparing the Battlefield
The Bush Administration steps up its secret moves against Iran.
by Seymour M. Hersh

A Democratic senator told me that, late last year, in an off-the-record lunch meeting, Secretary of Defense Gates met with the Democratic caucus in the Senate. (Such meetings are held regularly.) Gates warned of the consequences if the Bush Administration staged a preëmptive strike on Iran, saying, as the senator recalled, “We’ll create generations of jihadists, and our grandchildren will be battling our enemies here in America.” Gates’s comments stunned the Democrats at the lunch, and another senator asked whether Gates was speaking for Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney. Gates’s answer, the senator told me, was “Let’s just say that I’m here speaking for myself.” (A spokesman for Gates confirmed that he discussed the consequences of a strike at the meeting, but would not address what he said, other than to dispute the senator’s characterization.)

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2...7fa_fact_hersh