March 05, 2006 Sarah Baxter, Washington and Uzi Mahnaimi, Tel Aviv
WHEN Major-General Axel Tüttelmann, the head of Nato’s Airborne Early Warning and Control Force, showed off an Awacs early warning surveillance plane in Israel a fortnight ago, he caused a flurry of concern back at headquarters in Brussels.
It was not his demonstration that raised eyebrows, but what he said about Nato’s possible involvement in any future military strike against Iran. “We would be the first to be called up if the Nato council decided we should be,” he said.
Nato would prefer the emphasis to remain on the “if”, but Tüttelmann’s comments revealed that the military alliance could play a supporting role if America launches airstrikes against Iranian nuclear targets.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will tomorrow confirm Iran’s referral to the United Nations Security Council for possible sanctions.
Iran insists it is developing peaceful nuclear energy, a claim regarded as bogus by America and Britain, France and Germany, which believe it wants to develop nuclear weapons. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s remarks about wiping Israel “off the map” have added to fears.
America and Israel have warned that they will not tolerate a nuclear-armed Iran. If negotiations fail, both countries have plans of last resort for airstrikes against Iran’s widely dispersed nuclear facilities.
Porter Goss, the head of the CIA, visited Recep Erdogan, the prime minister of Turkey, a Nato country, late last year and asked for political, logistical and intelligence support in the event of airstrikes, according to western intelligence sources quoted in the German media.
The news magazine Der Spiegel noted: “Washington appears to be dispatching high-level officials to prepare its allies for a possible attack.”
Nato would be likely to operate air defences in Turkey, according to Dan Goure, a Pentagon adviser and vice-president of the Lexington Institute, a military think tank.
A former senior Israeli defence official said he believed all Nato members had contingency plans.
John Pike, director of the US military studies group Globalsecurity.org, said America had little to gain from Nato military help. “I think we are attempting to bring the alliance along politically so that when all diplomatic initiatives have been exhausted and we blow up their sites, we can say, ‘Look, we gave it our best shot’.”
A senior British defence official said plans to attack Iran were pure speculation. “I don’t think anybody has got that far yet,” he said. “We’re all too distracted by Iraq.”
Israel’s special forces are said to be operating inside Iran in an urgent attempt to locate the country’s secret uranium enrichment sites. “We found several suspected sites last year but there must be more,” an Israeli intelligence source said. They are operating from a base in northern Iraq, guarded by Israeli soldiers with the approval of the Americans, according to Israeli sources.
Thursday 1st July 2004 : Seymour Hersh: Israeli Agents Operating in Iraq, Iran and Syria Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh reports that Israel warned the US last year it would not be able to bring stability or democracy to Iraq. Now, hundreds of Israeli agents, including members of Mossad, are conducting covert operations in the Kurdish areas of northern Iraq, Iran and Syria.#msg-3465824
The commander of Israel’s nuclear missile submarines warned Iran indirectly in a comment to an Israeli newspaper last week that “we are able to hit strategic targets in a foreign country”.
The Israelis fear Iran may reach the “point of no return” — at which it has the capacity to enrich uranium to bomb-grade purity — in the next few months. The Americans are more interested in the point at which Iran is close to developing an actual bomb, thought to be at least three years away.
Two Iranian opposition groups claimed this weekend that Iran had increased its production of Shahab 3 missiles, which have a range of 1,200 miles, sufficient to reach Israel.
Diplomatic efforts to contain Iran are likely to proceed slowly, given Russian and Chinese opposition to punitive action. A Foreign Office official said although the IAEA would refer Iran to the security council, any sanctions would be a “strictly step-by-step process”.
Germany to sell Israel two more subs at major discount
Sun., November 20, 2005 Cheshvan 18, 5766 | | Israel Time: 01:50 (EST+7)
By Yossi Melman
Germany will provide Israel with two more Dolphin class submarines, the German weeklies Der Spiegel and Focus reported yesterday.
According to the magazine reports, the outgoing government of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder acceded to the Israeli government's requests, and even agreed to pay about a third of the cost of the submarines. Construction of the submarines, which will take place at the shipyards in Kiel, will cost around 1 billion euros ($1.17 billion), of which a third will be financed by the German government.
If these reports are correct, then the two submarines would join three Dolphin class submarines supplied to the Israeli navy in the past. Two of the three submarines, built to Israeli specifications, were given to Israel gratis following the Iraqi Scud missile attacks during the Gulf War after it turned out that German companies had aided Saddam Hussein's weapons program.
In recent years, Israel tried to persuade the German government to provide additional submarines, but the Germans were hesitant. German media reports said the reason was concern that Israel would outfit the submarines for missiles with nuclear warheads. However, Israeli sources said the primary dispute was over whether Germany should charge the full price. Der Spiegel and Focus said yesterday that Germany had indeed long resisted Israel's request to help finance the cost of the submarines.
According to foreign media reports, the growing concern over Iran acquiring nuclear weapons has led Israel to develop nuclear "second-strike capability," and submarines, which cannot be detected and targeted, constitute an effective means to that end. That conclusion, according to foreign media reports, was also drawn from the fact that the torpedo hatches on the Dolphin submarines supplied to Israel have been substantially widened - which ostensibly indicate they are intended for launching nuclear missiles.
Second-strike capability is a country's ability to respond with nuclear weapons even after a nuclear attack. Second-strike capability requires nuclear missiles concealed underground or installed on submarines.
by Staff Writers Tehran (AFP) Mar 07, 2006 Iran's armed forces have deployed a new locally-built submarine in Gulf waters, state television reported Tuesday. The vessel is named the Nahang, meaning whale, and was "built by specialists in the Iranian defence ministry and has the capability to carry multipurpose weapons for different missions", Rear Admiral Sajjad Kouchaki said. "The submarine is fully adapted to the Persian Gulf," he said, adding that the Iranian navy was pursuing a policy of deterrence in the strategic waters -- home to the world's largest oil reserves.
No further details on the submarine were given.
Last May state media announced Iran had begun producing its first locally-built submarine. At the time it was called the Ghadir, named after a Shiite religious holiday.
According to foreign military experts, Iran's inventory of submarines patrolling Gulf waters includes up to six Russian-built SSK or SSI Kilo class diesel submarines.
In recent months Israel has been dangling the threat of pre-emptive action to stop Iran's disputed nuclear energy programme -- seen as a mask for weapons development.
The United States has also refused to rule out military action against Iran.
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