The window is closing?
At least some 'Israeli officials' are whispering that the window for Israel to strike Iran will close this summer, and that we must strike before then if we are to be effective. Key Israeli defense officials believe that the time to strike, if such a decision is made, would have to be by the middle of this year.Read the whole thing.
Complicating the task is the assessment that Iran is stepping up efforts to move its work on enriching uranium deep underground.
Several officials at the heart of the decision-making structure, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were discussing some of Israel's deepest secrets, said they feel compelled to give the sanctions time.
In this way, somewhat paradoxically, the new economic sanctions the US and Europe are imposing – while meeting a repeated Israeli request – have emerged as an obstacle to military action.
An Israeli strike would risk shattering the US-led diplomatic front that has imposed four additional rounds of sanctions on Iran and jolt the shaky world economy by causing oil prices to spike. Still, the officials said that if Israel feels no alternative but to take military action, it will do so.
The US has sold Israel dozens of 100 GBU-28 laser-guided "bunker-buster" bombs. The 2.5-ton bombs are capable of penetrating more than 20 feet of solid concrete.
It's not clear how much damage the bunker-busters could actually do. Iran's main enrichment site at Natanz is believed to be about 25 feet (6 meters) underground and protected by two concrete walls.
US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told The Wall Street Journal last week that even more sophisticated US bunker-busters aren't powerful enough to penetrate all of Iran's defenses.
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A one-time surgical strike, the most likely attack by Israel, "can't do more than politically declare that we aren't willing to tolerate" a nuclear Iran, Shapir said.
That has raised speculation that Israel's veiled threats are no more than attempts to get Iran to back down.
I don't expect Iran to stop unless they are forced to stop, and it seems that Israel can delay them at best. But if no one else does anything, we may have no choice but to try.
What could go wrong?
Labels: bunker busters, Iranian nuclear threat
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:59 PM
2 Comments:
No conventional weapon will, even though a small tactical nuclear may. But they were conceived for different use, ie gaining time against concentrated soviet artillery battalions invading western europe, while heavy forces reach the theater. These small devices cause untold destruction within a few km radius, but are not meant to penetrate heavy concrete in multiple layers. In order to destroy these installations, one may have to send forces to take them over and enter within. That is, one must first of all destroy the country (tens of millions of dead, possible use of strategic nuclear weapons; Iran is no joke, see the Iran-Iraq war where Saddam Hussein was supported by USA, UK, France), in the meantime Iran will have used its 4-5 small bombs, and even if the production is disrupted, they will keep using material for dirty bombs (do you remember all the terror about "impoverished uranium"? well, this time it'll be enriched).
How long will China and Russia stay silent and still?
I feel like throwing up.
A one-time surgical strike, the most likely attack by Israel, "can't do more than politically declare that we aren't willing to tolerate" a nuclear Iran,
Hmmm....Unless small battlefield nuclear weapons are used?How long would it take to build them?
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