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Israel to "brief" [or instruct?] Bush on options for Iran strike
Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit
Times of Lndon - Jan 6, 2007
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article3137521.ece
Israel to brief George Bush on options for Iran strike
by Uzi Mahnaimi, Tel Aviv
ISRAELI security officials are to brief President George W Bush on
their latest intelligence about Irans nuclear programme - and how it
could be destroyed - when he begins a tour of the Middle East in
Jerusalem this week.
Ehud Barak, the defence minister, is said to want to convince him that
an Israeli military strike against uranium enrichment facilities in
Iran would be feasible if diplomatic efforts failed to halt nuclear
operations. A range of military options has been prepared.
Last month it was revealed that the US National Intelligence Estimate
re****t, drawing together information from 16 agencies, had concluded
that Iran stopped a secret nuclear weapon programme in 2003.
Israeli intelligence is understood to agree that the project was halted
around the time of Americas invasion of Iraq, but has rock solid
information that it has since started up again.
While security officials are reluctant to reveal all their
intelligence, fearing that leaks could jeopardise the element of
surprise in any future attack, they are expected to present the
president with fresh details of Irans enrichment of uranium - which
could be used for civil or military purposes - and the development of
missiles that could carry nuclear warheads.
In an interview with the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot this
weekend, Bush argued that in spite of the US intelligence *****sment,
Iran still posed a threat.
I read the intelligence re****t carefully, Bush said. In essence, what
the re****t said was that Iran had a secret plan to develop nuclear
weapons.
Im saying that a state which adopted a nontransparent policy and had a
secret plan for developing nuclear weapons could easily develop an
alternative plan for the same purpose. So to conclude from the
intelligence re****t that there is no Iranian plan to develop nuclear
weapons will be only a partial truth.
Israeli security officials believe the only way to prevent uranium
enrichment to military grade is to destroy Iranian installations. Many
Israelis are eager to know whether America would give their country the
green light to attack, as it did last September when Israel struck a
mysterious nuclear site in Syria.
Bush refused to be drawn when asked whether he would sup****t an Israeli
attack. My message to all countries in the region is that we are able
to solve the problem in a diplomatic way, he said, but all options are
on the table.
*
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