Mossad Involved In Leaks On Israel's Plan To Attack Iranian Nuclear Plants

Asaad Telhami     Al-Hayat     2003/10/13

Nazareth

Major Israeli commentators have confirmed that high-ranking Mossad officials are responsible for the proliferation of reports that have appeared over the past two days in a number of foreign newspapers, about Israel's plan to carry out "a decisive preemptive strike" against Iranian nuclear plants, and about modifications operated by the Israeli Navy on American ballistic missiles, allowing them to launch nuclear heads from submarines. The commentators have maintained that the leaks are designed to prompt the international community to exert strong pressure on Tehran to have it cease its nuclear program, which Israel considers as "the biggest threat to its existence." They explained that Israel's army staff prefers to leak information on its nuclear capacity to the foreign media rather than announce it officially, in a bid to avoid having to reveal the nuclear arsenal they own.

According to the Los Angeles Times and the British weekly Observer, which have both American and Israeli sources, Israel has modified some nuclear heads so that they could fit ballistic missiles of the Harpoon type, used on a wider range, and that they would be carried over three "Dolphin" submarines, which run on diesel, which were delivered by Germany in the late 1990s.

London's weekly Observer reported yesterday that American and Israeli officials have admitted that America and Israel were cooperating to spread Harpoon missiles, which come with nuclear warheads in an Israeli fleet of Dolphin submarines, "a fact that gives the only nuclear power in the Middle East the ability to strike any of its neighboring Arab countries." The paper added that this fact was revealed simultaneously with an Israeli declaration saying that those states harboring terrorists are "legitimate targets," which came in response to Syria's announcement of its right to defend itself in case Israel attacked its territories one more time.

According to Israeli officials and others in the Bush administration who were interviewed by the Los Angeles Times, the ability to launch the missiles in the sea allows Israel to target Iran easily in case the Iranians developed their nuclear weapons.

These reports were published at the same time that the German newspaper Der Spiegel reported that the Mossad received months earlier, instructions from Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to draw a plan for striking six Iranian nuclear sites. Yossi Melman, the Ha'aretz military commentator, believes that this simultaneity is not a coincidence, but falls within Israeli attempts to mount the international public opinion against the Iranian nuclear project and to prevent Iran from reaching the point of no return in producing enriched uranium. He noted that Israel is aware of the fact that the mission is not easy and that it is much more complicated than the attack it made on the nuclear reactor in Iraq two decades ago, considering Iran's attack capacity and the fact that it owns developed missiles and chemical weapons, not to mention that the Iranian leadership would not hesitate to respond to any Israeli attack.

As for Aluf Benn, Ha'aretz political commentator, he wrote that the Mossad's priority mission has become to obstruct the development of the Iranian nuclear armament, and that the organization views the foreign media as an important tool in this effort. Hence, it leaks information to the press, in a bid to mount the international public opinion to exert greater pressure on Iran. Benn mentions that the Washington Post had reported over a year ago that Israel had provided its submarines with nuclear missiles and that it had already tested them.