Saturday, September 20, 2008

WASHINGTON'S DOING IT AGAIN, WHEN WILL THEY EVER LEARN?? (PART II)

“Even if Israeli pilots volunteered for a kamikaze mission, the expense of the aircraft, in addition to the risk of Iran obtaining the Israeli-modified jets – some of the most advanced in the world – even in partially destroyed condition, would make it unlikely that Israel’s Defense Ministry would approve of such an attack.” (Me again: This doesn’t mean they won’t.  One way or another, Israel has proven they will defend themselves.  If it means suicide missions like many of our young men did in WWII, they will do it if there’s no other alternative.  It looks like Washington has left them with no other alternative.  To prevent Iran from getting one, the planes could be easily outfitted to be destroyed by the pilot in the air. Our old U-2 reconnaissance planes from fifty years ago were so equipped. Photo is clickable for more on this aircraft). Photobucket

“Israeli aircraft would not need to actually land in Iraq to refuel, as it is common practice to refuel in the air using long-range air tankers. However, the tankers that the Israeli Air Force currently has are outdated, making it difficult to coordinate refueling for such a long-distance mission. To address this concern, Israel reportedly requested the more modern Boeing 767-based

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refueling tankers, but the U.S. has also rejected this request, as reported several weeks ago by Israel’s Channel 10 television.”

“Even if the Israeli jets were able to be refueled in the air by long-range air tankers, a mission to Iran would require an overflight of Iraq, the only country that would possibly be willing to allow Israeli aircraft in its airspace. A glance at El-Al passenger flight routes from an in-flight magazine illustrates this clearly:  Flights en route to Asia and the Far East, normally represented by graceful curves for non-Israeli airlines, suddenly become sharp turns northward or southward in order avoid flying over Middle Eastern countries.”

“However, the United States has apparently refused to authorize Israel to fly over Iraq as well, and according to one report, American officials told their Israeli counterparts to ask permission from the Iraqi prime minister themselves. It is very unlikely that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki would volunteer to allow Israel to use his country’s airspace without pressure from the U.S., since such a move would antagonize many Arab countries in the region.”

“In an apparent attempt to compensate for its unwillingness to assist Israel’s needs for an Iran strike, the U.S. has offered to deliver an advanced radar warning system, to be installed in the Negev and manned by a permanent U.S. staff working alongside Israeli military personnel. The Pentagon has apparently placed the order already.”

“Meanwhile, a spokeswoman for the Russian state-owned company building Iran’s Bushehr reactor announced last week that the construction of the reactor will reach a state of “no return” by early 2009.” (My commentary: And you were probably wondering why this matter is so urgent now).

“While a better radar system promises to greatly enhance Israel’s ability to detect a long-range aerial attack from Iran, Israel may soon be left with no realistic option to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities and no time to find another solution.”

 

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I have been thinking and thinking about these two entries. And how the mistake that was made about Iraq's nuclear capabilities is very constly now when Iran may be building the real thing, but is it certain that it will attack and destory Israel,. have their relations gotten this bad?  I am afraid that if Israel does decide on a strike to try to knock out the nuclear facility that almost might be extremely dangerous for them, in the event the strike should fail, or even in how they might be regarded once they have done it  I am kind of blindsided by this idea, since I think it is a major response to Iran which now our country does not have the capacity to do, to stretch into another big war with another middle east country.  It seems even more of a mistake not to pick wars more carefully and make sure intelligence and reasoning behind a preemptive strike makes sense.  Gerry