24.2.2007 Daily Telegraph...

[mosze_zblisko_daleka]

Ready for war
By Con Coughlin
Last Updated: 2:01am GMT 24/02/2007



There may not yet be gas masks in the street in Tel Aviv but no one should
underestimate Israel's determination to prevent a nuclear Iran

Down on the seafront in Tel Aviv, where crowds of young Israelis are to be
found taking advantage of the unseasonably warm spring sunshine this weekend,
it is hard to imagine that Israel is confronting what is arguably the gravest
threat to its survival since it emerged from the ashes of the Holocaust 59
years ago.


Statement of intent? A banner carried during demonstrations in Tehran


The apocalyptic rantings of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the
menace posed by the ayatollahs' outlawed nuclear programme are a million
miles from the minds of the couples lounging in the sun sipping cold beers,
or engaged in vigorously competitive games of beach volleyball.

Apart from the occasional noisy interruption as a patrol of Cobra military
helicopters passes overhead on its way to Gaza, or the sullen presence of the
naval patrol vessels anchored offshore on the lookout for waterborne suicide
bombers, these carefree souls seem blissfully unaware of the storm clouds of
war gathering over the political horizon.

"We have nothing to fear from the Iranians," Amiram Levi told me. "If they
become too much of a threat we can deal with them just as we dealt with the
Iraqis when they tried to build a nuclear bomb."

Amiram, a 20-year-old computer science student at Tel Aviv University, was of
course referring to the daredevil raid made by Israeli fighter jets against
Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981, which destroyed at a stroke Saddam
Hussein's dreams of turning his country into a nuclear superpower.

advertisementMost Israelis believe their country will do the same again if
the outside world fails to call a halt to Iran's controversial uranium
enrichment programme, which few in Israel doubt is ultimately aimed at giving
the ayatollahs a nuclear weapons arsenal to fulfil Ahmadinejad's pledge to
erase the Jewish state from the map.

Having already suffered a near-apocalypse in the form of the Holocaust, the
Jewish people have no intention of being the hapless victims of Ahmadinejad's
genocidal designs. Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister, last month gave
his most explicit warning to date that Israel was prepared to use military
force to prevent Teheran from obtaining a nuclear weapon: "The Jewish people,
with the scars of the Holocaust fresh on its body, cannot afford to allow
itself to face threats of annihilation once again."

That single sentence sums up the consensus among most of the Israeli people.
If the wider world is not prepared to take pre-emptive action to stop Iran
from fulfilling its nuclear ambitions, then Israel is ready to act alone.

Normally, in times of national emergency, such as the build-up to the 2003
Iraq War, Israel is bustling with precautionary activity - civil defence
organisers handing out gas masks and ensuring the bomb shelters are ready.

But today there is scant evidence of anyone preparing for a potential war.
The only gas masks on display are those used by children for fancy dress,
while recent press reports that the super-rich residents of Herzliya were
building their own state-of-the-art nuclear bunkers were greeted with
derision by less well-off citizens.

In contrast, the country's political, military and intelligence-gathering
infrastructure has thrown all the resources it can muster at the challenge of
neutralising Iran's nuclear capability.

"The amount of effort we are putting into this single issue is unprecedented
in the history of the State of Israel," said a senior Israeli security
official who works on the strategic committee that has been set up to deal
with the Iran threat, which is personally chaired by Olmert.

The committee's main function is to ensure the closest possible liaison on
the latest intelligence and military developments. It is also responsible for
maintaining a close dialogue with countries supportive of Israel's concerns,
particularly the United States, which has seconded officials to work
alongside the Israelis.

The committee has yet to have any contact with Britain, although it is hoped
that a dialogue will begin "in the not-too-distant future".

Nor should anyone be in any doubt as to the extreme sense of urgency that is
driving the Israeli government's activity. To ensure that the country has the
best available resources at its disposal, Olmert announced last week that
Meir Dagan, the head of Mossad, Israel's overseas intelligence service, had
been asked to postpone his retirement until at least the end of 2008.

Dagan, the son of Holocaust survivors, has already served six years in the
post, during which time he has become Israel's leading expert on Iran's
nuclear programme. "The last thing I want is to have to change horses at a
time like this," Olmert remarked after Dagan agreed to serve the extra term.

On the military side, Olmert has also taken the significant step of handing
responsibility for preparing Israel's response to the Iranian challenge to
the commander of the Israeli Air Force, Eliezer Shkedi.

Shkedi, a former F-16 fighter pilot who saw active service in Lebanon during
the 1982 invasion and shot down two Syrian MiG fighters, is in charge of Iran
Command, the unit responsible for dealing with any possible threat the
Iranians might pose to Israel's security.

As part of the defensive preparations for a missile attack, the Israelis
recently conducted a successful test-firing of the new Arrow anti-missile
defence system, a development that has mainly been funded by the Pentagon.

The Arrow is the successor to the American Patriot missile system used to
shoot down Saddam's Scuds during the 1991 Gulf War. But where the Patriot
attacks the incoming missile as it nears its target, the Arrow is designed to
intercept a hostile missile much earlier, in the upper atmosphere.

From Israel's perspective this is a crucial advance, especially if the
Iranians were to attempt to fire missiles armed with nuclear
warheads. "There's no point shooting down a nuclear missile once it's over
Israel - the devastation would be just the same," an Israeli military officer
explained this week. "The idea is to take it out long before it hits Israel."

That would mean such a missile exploding somewhere over Iraq or Jordan,
thereby potentially causing widespread devastation in those countries.

"No one has done much thinking about what might happen if you exploded a
nuclear weapon in the upper atmosphere," added the officer. "It's probably
something people should look at."

But ensuring Israel has an effective defence against an Iranian missile
attack is crucial. Iran has made it clear it will respond to any attack
against its nuclear facilities, and its Shahab-3 ballistic missiles have the
range to strike throughout Israel.

As for Israel's offensive plans against Iran, the Iran Command team's task is
to demonstrate that Israel has the capability to act unilaterally.

"No one is going to take this threat seriously until the State of Israel can
demonstrate to the outside world that we have the ability to deal with this
menace on our own," said a senior security official who serves on Iran
Command.

"The only way we can put pressure on the outside world to deal effectively
with Iran's nuclear programme is to demonstrate that we can do this ourselves.

''Of course, we hope it doesn't come to a military solution, and we hope that
this can be resolved through diplomacy. But Iran's track record is not good."

For the Israelis, taking out Iran's nuclear facilities is a very different
proposition to the 1981 attack on Iraq's nuclear reactor. Back then, the
Is