Israel’s News Blog Magazine: Daily Stories Video and Photos

The following scenario is paramount reading concerning Iran’s developing nuclear program as discussed during the Bush-Olmert Summit meeting this week in Washington:

At an Israeli military defense radar station, located “somewhere in southern Israel”, and occurring during the middle of the night, when nearly everyone is fast asleep, a tracking station, manned by a young, bleary-eyed team of military personnel, springs suddenly to life when a series of strange and ominous blips suddenly appear on their screens. The ‘blips’, numbering twenty and grouped in four different bunches, are coming directly at Israel from the east, apparently from different locations in Iran, at a high rate of speed. An alarm goes out and the two existing batteries of the new Arrow anti ballistic missile defense system are alerted to prepare to send out missiles to meet the approaching threat. One battery of eight missiles is located in the center of the country, to protect the heavily populated Tel Aviv metropolitan area, and Israel’s Kirya military defense headquarters – Israel’s equivalent to the U.S. Pentagon.

The other battery, also containing 8 missiles, is located in the south, near Dimona, to protect the country’s nuclear facility and largest military air base, both located in this region. With twenty enemy missiles less than ten minutes flight time away from the Jewish State, a total of sixteen Arrow missiles are available to offer a defense ’shield’ against the invaders – providing, of course that each missile strikes it’s intended target. This means that one out five of the incoming missiles will be virtually non-targeted. It could also be possible that two Arrow defense missiles may go after the same target, once they are launched.

U.S. developed Patriot anti aircraft and missile system are also available; but their overall ineffectiveness for taking out incoming ballistic missiles was shown during the 1991 Gulf War when more than 36 Iraqi Scud missiles managed to strike targets in Israel.

With military and governmental authorities being hurried notified via the country’s emergency ‘hot lines’, there isn’t even enough time to call an emergency meeting to decide how to alert the general public concerning the approaching threat. Through the non official ‘grapevines’, however, warning calls go out around the country, indicated by a sudden turning on of lights in residences – especially in the major population centers.

With the “strike time” for the enemy missiles less than three minutes away, no one really knows which, if any, of the approaching missiles are carrying WMD’s or Weapons of Mass Destruction, including possible nuclear weapons. All that the defense personnel can hope for is that the salvos of Arrows will strike the correct target, and that damage from missiles with conventional pay loads will be minimal.

No detail is needed to describe the effect that a warhead containing a nuclear payload of 20 to 30 kilotons would have on a major population center as Tel Aviv. It can be certain that the Israel Defense Ministry is acutely aware of the overall limitations of an anti-ballistic defense system, as noted above; and with the difficulties in effectiveness that a pre-emptive strike on Iran would have, due to Iran learning the lesson of Israel’s strike on Iraq’s nuclear facility in 1981. Therefore, the only tangible solution is intense diplomatic action by all the countries of the free world, in particular the United States of America, to prevent the Islamic Republic of Iran from continuing to develop both its nuclear and long range missile programs. This topic was discussed this week during the meetings of Prime Minister Olmert and U.S, President Bush.

Intransigence and wishful thinking, by the governments of Israel, America, and other concerned countries will only increase the likelihood of such an occurrence, with obvious, catastrophic results.

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