Israel plans preemptive strike on Iran

Israel is updating plans for a preemptive strike on Iran's nuclear facilities which could be launched as soon as the end of March, according to military and intelligence sources. But analysts say Israel has no intention of carrying them through while diplomatic pressure is growing on Tehran. The Israeli raids would be carried out by long-range F-15E bombers, cruise missiles and bunker busting bombs supplied by the US against a dozen key sites. The Israeli air force's elite 69 squadron pilots have been briefed on the plan and have conducted rehearsals for their missions. The prime targets would be the uranium enrichment plant at Natanz, 150 miles south of Tehran, a heavy-water production site at Arak, 120 miles south-west of the capital, and a site near Isfahan in central Iran. Sources say possibly two airfields in Kurdish northern Iraq have been earmarked as launch-points to reduce flying time over Iran. Israel regards Tehran as the single greatest threat, a view sharpened by the Iranian president's call for the destruction of the Jewish state and his denial of the Holocaust. Last month Binyamin Netanyahu, the former Israeli prime minister and leader of the Likud party, said that if he wins the general election in March he would follow the example of former prime minister Menachem Begin who ordered the Israeli air force bombing of the Osiraq nuclear center in Iraq in 1981. "The Iranian threat is an existential one. In this regard I will continue the legacy of Menachem Begin, who thwarted Iran's neighbor, Iraq, from acquiring nuclear weapons by adopting bold and daring measures. I believe that is what Israel needs to do," he told Israel radio. "The military option is being considered already, they are just not talking about it because it would be deeply unpopular," said Dr. Ali Ansari a leading Iran expert at The British Royal Institute for International Affairs in London. "Certainly, what they are considering is air strikes, I don't think they will carry out an invasion," Ansari said. After the Iraq experience that is not likely, he said. British Prime Minister Tony Blair has said that the military option is not being ruled out. He said the referral of the matter to the United Nations Security Council was only a first step. "Then we have to decide what measures to take, and we obviously don't rule out any measures at all," he said. Holding out such options puts Britain and the United States back in a position similar in many ways to that before the invasion of Iraq. If the Security Council fails to deliver what some Western governments want, they have demanded the right to act on their own. Some reports suggest that Israel on its own could carry out an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities, with tacit backing from the United States and Britain.