The other shoe drops: Egypt sponsoring IAEA resolution to monitor Israel's nuclear capability
The other shoe may be about to drop on Israel. Egypt is introducing a resolution at an IAEA meeting in September, which will call on the international regulator to
monitor Israel's nuclear program. Iran is likely to join the resolution. And while the resolution would not be binding like a Security Council resolution, it would certainly cause diplomatic embarrassment to Israel.
A senior Foreign Ministry official said he feared the recent nuclear deal between Iran and the six powers will make it hard for Israel to defeat the resolution.
The resolution, titled “Israeli nuclear capabilities,” has been repeatedly proposed by Egypt in recent years. It condemns Israel, demands that it open its reported nuclear facilities to IAEA inspection, and calls for an international conference on making the Middle East a nuclear-weapons-free zone.
...
Though Egypt is the IAEA resolution’s chief sponsor, Iran seems likely to join the move. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif indicated as much by publishing an article in The Guardian titled, “Iran has signed a historic nuclear deal – now it’s Israel’s turn.”
Zarif wrote that Israel must be pressured to join the NPT and advance an international conference on a nuclear-weapons-free Middle East. Israel, he wrote, has “an undeclared nuclear arsenal and a declared disdain towards non-proliferation, notwithstanding its absurd and alarmist campaign against the Iranian nuclear deal.”
For the last three years, Israel has succeeding in mustering a majority against Egypt’s IAEA resolution, thanks partly to proposals for a direct regional security dialogue with Arab states under UN auspices. Egypt and various other countries rejected these proposals, but they earned Israel considerable international credit.
The campaign to thwart the latest resolution began two weeks ago, when the Foreign Ministry sent a cable to all Israeli embassies and consulates instructing them to urge their host governments to oppose it.
“The resolution is fundamentally biased and mistaken, aimed at diverting global attention from the real dangers of nuclear proliferation in this region,” the cable’s talking points said. “This move will further politicize the IAEA and undermine the trust necessary for any regional dialogue on this issue.”
Israel has also sent personal envoys to several countries it considers key to winning the vote. For instance, former Foreign Ministry director general Nissim Ben Shitrit went to Argentina about 10 days ago, on the assumption that if Argentina doesn’t back the Arab proposal, other Latin American countries would likely follow suit.
Senior Israeli officials are divided over how the Iranian deal will impact the IAEA debate. Some argue that following the Iran agreement, America and other leading countries won’t want to raise the pressure on Israel even further. But others fear that with the Iran deal done, the international focus will shift to Israel’s nuclear program. They also fear Israel will enjoy less American support than in the past, due to the severe tensions with Washington over the Iran deal.
I hope that the 78% of American Jews who voted for this administration are pleased. Surely they will still have those smirks on their ugly faces when - God Forbid - as Mike Huckabee said last week, Israelis are led to the ovens.
Labels: Dimona nuclear reactor, Egypt, IAEA, Iranian nuclear program, Iranian nuclear threat, Israeli nuclear capability
Hamas targets Israel's nuclear reactor
Hamas
targeted Israel's nuclear reactor in Dimona on Wednesday.
Three rockets were launched at Dimona in southern Israel on Wednesday
afternoon. The Iron Dome intercepted one rocket before it could land,
while two other rockets landed in open areas.
Dimona is the location of Israel's nuclear reactor. There was no indication that rockets damaged any part of the reactor.
Hamas claimed responsibility for the rockets, stating that it had been attempting to hit the nuclear reactor.
Militants from Hamas's Qassam Brigades said they had launched long-range M-75 rockets towards Dimona.
Minutes
later the Iron Dome intercepted rockets in Ness Tziona , Yavne and
Rehovot in central Israel as Gaza terrorists extended the range of their
rockets on Operation Protective Edge's second day.
Earlier on Wednesday, two rockets fired from the Gaza Strip were intercepted over the Greater Tel Aviv area.
Code Red rocket alert sirens sounded in Holon and Bat Yam prior to the interceptions.
No injuries or damage were reported in the attacks.
A 90% success rate for this sort of thing is never good enough and certainly not when you're defending a nuclear reactor. What could go wrong?
Labels: Dimona nuclear reactor, Hamas, Hamas rockets, Iron Dome, M-75 rockets
Video: When Israel said no
Every time Israel's interests are in conflict with America's, must
Israel capitulate to American dictates or risk compromising the two
countries' long alliance? A cursory look at recent history reveals that
Israel has consistently rebuffed American pressure when critical
interests were at stake, strengthening the relationship.
Let's go to the videotape.
Labels: David Ben Gurion, Dimona nuclear reactor, Golda Meir, Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, Levi Eshkol, Menachem Begin, Osirak, settlement freeze, Six Day War, White House
Iran claims drone sent pictures of 'secret' IDF bases
Iran is claiming that a drone that was shot down by Israel
transmitted pictures of 'sensitive' IDF bases before it was shot down.
The drone transmitted pictures of Israel's "sensitive bases" before
it was shot down, said Esmail Kowsari, chair of parliament's defense
committee, according to Iran's Mehr news agency. He was speaking to
Iran's Arabic-language Al-Alam, Mehr reported on Monday.
"These
aircraft transmit their pictures online, and right now we possess
pictures of restricted areas," Kowsari was quoted as saying.
...
Iran's military regularly announces defense and engineering
developments though some analysts are skeptical of the reliability of
such reports.
On Sunday Iranian Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi said
the downed drone did not represent Iran's latest know-how in drone
technology, according to Mehr.
In April, Iran announced it had
started to build a copy of a US surveillance drone, the RQ-170 Sentinel,
captured last year after it came down near the Afghan border.
I'll believe it when I see it. If they really had those kinds of pictures, they wouldn't be bragging about it.
Labels: Dimona nuclear reactor, drone, IDF, Iran, Iranian nuclear threat
Hamas targets Dimona nuke plant?
Take this with a grain of salt, because the source isn't always the most reliable, but DEBKA is reporting that
Hamas shot a grad rocket at Israel's Dimona nuclear power plant on Sunday morning.
Palestinian rocket teams early Sunday, Oct.
28, fired Grad missiles as target finders against Israel’s nuclear
reactor in Dimona. This is reported exclusively by debkafile. They exploded on open ground in the Ramat Negev district southwest of the town of Dimona.
The nuclear plant is only 42.5 kilometers as the crow flies from the
southern Gaza Strip. Saturday night, the Israeli Air Force struck a
Palestinian rocket team in the southern Gaza town of Khan Younes,
killing one Hamas operative and injuring a second critically.
...
It was the second time in three weeks that Tehran was seen to be focusing on Israel’s nuclear plant, debkafile’s
military sources note. On Oct. 6, an Iranian stealth drone which flew
over Israel managed to photograph the reactor building and its air
defense system’s radar. The data gathered was given to Hamas to help
guide its first rocket attack on Dimona.
DEBKA is trying to connect this story to the
alleged Israeli attack on the
Iranian weapons plant in Khartoum. I don't believe that has anything to do with it. Iran - whose service Hamas has apparently joined - has an interest in knocking out Dimona that is entirely independent of what happened in Khartoum.
Labels: Dimona nuclear reactor, Grad rocket, Hamas, Iran
Fouad Siniora cries again
By the time this post goes up, I should be airborne again. And since this flight is the longest leg of the trip, it may be a while before posts become regular again.
I'm sure many of you remember former Lebanese President Fouad Saniora, who started
crying in the middle of the Second Lebanon War because Israel hit back at his country for sheltering Hezbullah terrorists.
Fast forward six years.
Fouad still doesn't get it.
Former Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora said that the
Hezbollah-dispatched unmanned aerial vehicle that flew over Israel was
sent at Iran’s behest, and was not a Lebanese decision, a statement
issued by Siniora’s press office said on Sunday.
“Sending the
drone over Israel is not a Lebanese decision, however the move was made
at an Iranian behest. Such act needs techniques only available in Iran,”
Lebanese news site The Daily Star quoted Siniora as telling his visitors at his Sidon’s office.
The
former prime minister did not condemn the infiltration, stating
instead: "We are proud of any triumph against the Israeli enemy, however
Hezbollah Chief Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah hasn’t consulted the Lebanese
state about sending a drone over Israel."
He added in the
official statement that such behavior implicates Lebanon in possible
military operations and Israeli reactions that threaten the security of
Lebanese citizens.
“Nasrallah hasn’t asked the Lebanese if they
are prepared to get engaged in such battle or into a war against
Israel,” he said in his statement.
Hey Fouad - you can't have your cake and eat it too. You can't say that you're proud of any triumph against the 'Israeli enemy' and then disclaim the action as if it was Hezbullah's and not your country's.
Moreover, the last time I checked, your government is controlled by Hezbullah and nothing happens there without their permission. That makes actions by Hezbullah into state actions, doesn't it?
I hope Fouad's butt gets blown out to sea somewhere. He's a typical yellow-bellied, old-style Arab politician with no convictions and no courage to defend them. What a shmuck.
Labels: Dimona nuclear reactor, drone, Fouad Siniora, Hezbullah, Iranian nuclear threat, Lebanon
Report: Iranian drone fed live pictures of Dimona, preps for US-Israel anti-missile exercise
From the beginning of the story regarding the Iranian drone that was shot down over the Northern Negev last Saturday, I said that if the IDF was telling the truth, the incident did not sound too serious, but if they were not telling the whole truth....
The Times of London is reporting in Sunday's editions (behind a paywall) that the Iranian drone flew over Israel for more than three hours before it was shot down, and sent back to Iran
live pictures of Israel's Dimona nuclear reactor and of preparations for the US-Israel joint anti-missile exercise.
The three-hour drone flight was initially downplayed by Israeli officials red-faced over the shocking breach of their airspace.
Even the drone’s ultimate interception by an F-16 jet was botched — it took two tries for the pilot to down the unmanned plane.
An Israeli defense source blamed the drone’s infiltration on its “unfamiliar stealth elements.”
An
Israeli military observer asked: “How could we defend this country from
thousands of rockets and missiles if we can’t block a single Iranian
drone?”
The drone is said to have been a new Shahed-129, unveiled
by Tehran last month. It has a range of up to 1,200 miles and a flight
duration of 24 hours.
Hezbollah vowed to continue drone surveillance flights.
Sheik
Hassan Nasrallah, a Hezbollah leader, said in a televised address that
the drone was built in Iran, launched in Lebanon, and conducted a
reconnaissance of “sensitive and important locations.”
He claimed the Dimona nuclear facility in the Negev desert was one of the sites it overflew.
...
Hezbollah’s TV station broadcast animated footage detailing the
drone’s flight, saying it flew south over the Mediterranean, avoiding
detection by Israeli radar before reaching the Gaza Strip.
The drone appears to have flown unseen over Gaza before
proceeding to the Negev, where it was shot down. The aircraft had
traveled 200 miles, the station claimed.
JPost adds:
Nasrallah
claimed the Ayoub drone was designed and manufactured in Iran and
assembled in Lebanon, denying reports that the drone was a Russian
design.
The Hezbollah leader said the drone was sent as a
response to what he referred to as Israel's violations of Lebanese
airspace since 2006.
"This flight was not our first will not be
our last, and we give assurances we can reach any point we want. We have
the right to dispatch recon planes over occupied Palestine at any
time," Nasrallah said.
But at least one expert is
unconcerned.
Hezbollah has been
flying drones over Israel for years, said Micah Zenko of the Council on
Foreign Relations, who specializes in drone technology proliferation and
the Middle East.
"That it happened again is absolutely insignificant," he said.
He described Nasrallah's comments as blustering and largely empty.
"Israel usually tracks
these drones as they come across the border and often doesn't bother to
shoot them down," Zenko said. "They just want to see what Hezbollah
thinks it can do."
Drones like the one shot
down on Saturday cannot even be piloted until someone has "line
control" of the device, or is at least within 50 kilometers of it, he
said.
"To call them rinky-dink
would be polite," he said. "The drones that Iranians display at
airshows or that they tout for sale, defense industry press people
describe them as crude."
These drones don't have
"hard points," or brackets, on which ammunition can be fixed, Zenko
said, but they do have the ability to conduct surveillance. It's unclear
if the Iranians have drones that can do surveillance in real time, he
added.
That's easy for him to say. He's thousands of miles away....
Labels: Dimona nuclear reactor, drone, IAF, Iranian nuclear threat
Breaking: Defense Ministry Diplomatic-Security chief says (Iranian) drone totally failed to accomplish its mission
Defense Ministry Diplomatic-Security chief Amos Gilad told Israel Radio on Tuesday that whoever sent the drone over Israel this past Saturday
totally failed.
The entity
responsible for sending a small unmanned aerial vehicle over southern
Israel failed in both of its mission: retrieving intelligence data, and
harming the image of Israeli air defense, Defense Ministry
Diplomatic-Security chief Amos Gilad told Israel Radio on Tuesday.
Gilad
said that the UAV was identified over a long distance and, due to
operational concerns, was only shot down by the IDF when it reached an
open area.
Gilad added that Israel was still unsure who had sent the aircraft.
Hmmm.
In an earlier post, I reported that
Iran has confirmed to Al-Arabiya that it was the party who sent the drone. That report also came from Israel Radio. For now, at least, the Defense Ministry cannot confirm or does not want to confirm that report.
Labels: Dimona nuclear reactor, drone, Iran
Breaking: Confirmed: Iran sent that drone
Citing al-Arabiya, Israel Radio is reporting (11:00 pm) that,
as I reported was likely earlier this week, Iran sent the drone that was
shot down over the Northern Negev desert on Saturday.
Israel Radio also reports that al-Arabiya cited Iranian sources that claim that Iran sent the drone to gather intelligence on Israel's nuclear reactor in Dimona. Iran claims that it can destroy the Dimona reactor if Israel attacks Iran's nuclear facilities.
Hmmm. I guess now it becomes really important to know how soon the IAF picked up that drone. And they're not saying.
UPDATE 11:44 PM
Welcome
Power Line readers.
Labels: Dimona nuclear reactor, drone, IAF, Iranian nuclear threat, Israeli attack on Iran
Downed drone was likely Iranian
In an earlier post, I reported on a Lebanese claim that the drone that was shot down by the IAF on Saturday was
American. It is far more likely, however, that the drone was Iranian and that it was dispatched from Lebanon. In fact, YNet even suggests the possibility that it was
sent by Iran itself (Hat Tip:
Doug Ross) to photograph the Dimona nuclear reactor.
A few hours after two fighter jets shot down
a small unmanned aircraft that penetrated Israeli airspace in the
south Saturday morning, it is safe to say that an element operating in Lebanon
under the auspices of Iran and with its support, apparently Hezbollah,
activated the drone. The drone itself, which was downed in the south Mount Hebron area, was apparently made in Iran.
Operating a drone by remote control from such a long distance requires advanced capabilities, which Israel
was not aware Hezbollah had acquired.
Hezbollah's drones
have infiltrated Israeli airspace in the past, from the north, but their
activation did not require any navigation system. The unmanned aerial
vehicle (UAV) that infiltrated Israel on Saturday did require such a
system. The incident showed that the Air Force has the ability to detect
and intercept drones at any stage of their flight.
The drone was apparently launched by Iran or one of its allies to
test the IDF's detection and interception capabilities, and perhaps even
to search for specific targets in south Israel. The drone apparently
began its flight in Lebanon and then headed in the direction of Gaza's
coastline after flying over the Mediterranean Sea. This route was chosen
not only because it utilized the depth of the sea's airspace, but also
because Israeli UAVs regularly hover above Gaza.
...
Hezbollah tried to
conceal the fact that it had sent the drone by selecting a long route
that passed through the Mediterranean Sea. It wanted the drone to enter
Israel near Gaza, perhaps in an attempt to place the blame on Hamas,
which is currently considered hostile to elements that are loyal to
Iran.
The fact that the drone flew over the Sea rather than over land as first reported makes it more likely that the IDF had located the drone earlier in its flight as claimed. The question is what will happen if Hezbullah or Iran or Syria (or some combination of them) launch multiple drones together. Will the IAF be up to the challenge? We can only hope and pray that's the case.
And by the way, what would the IAF have done if the drone was full of explosives? Try to force it out to see first by taking over its navigation system? Hmmm.
Israel Radio reports that four IAF jets flew over Lebanon on Sunday creating sonic booms to entertain the public.
Labels: Dimona nuclear reactor, drone, Hezbullah, Iran
Israel to shut Dimona and Nahal Sorek reactors in the event of missile attacks
Haaretz reports that in the event of missile attacks on the home front by Iran, Hezbullah or Hamas,
Israel will shut down its Dimona and Nahal Sorek nuclear reactors.
The aim of such nuclear stoppage would be to prevent damage to the reactors' outlying area, should missiles penetrate the facilities' defense shields. A decision for such a stoppage was reached by the Israel Atomic Energy Commission, in coordination with the IDF Home Front Command.
The working assumption shared by the Home Front Command and the IAEC management officials responsible for the two reactors is that the multilayered defense systems, which feature anti-missile missiles calibrated to intercept missiles at various heights, along with fortified installations, should be sufficiently effective to minimize damage in an attack against the reactors.
Nonetheless, in principle any defense system can be penetrated. For this reason, nuclear activity in the reactors will be halted should warnings come of impending war. This stoppage procedure could also be applied in non-war periods of escalated skirmishes that involve rocket attacks against Israel.
The official explanation for this policy is that activity at the reactors is carried out for research purposes, and such research work does not need to be carried out constantly, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
The IDF and the IAEC, which is subordinate to the prime minister, are prepared for the possibility of an attempted attack on the reactors during a conflict with Iran, Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon or Hamas and other Palestinian organizations in the Gaza Strip.
Such attacks could be carried out using missiles, rockets, planes or drones. Workers at the reactors will continue to report for duty, but will be active in specially fortified installations and bunkers, as happens with workers employed at other infrastructure or security facilities.
Iraq shot SCUD missiles at Dimona in 1991. They missed.
As long as this doesn't prevent us from deploying any of our weapons, it shouldn't matter.
Labels: Dimona nuclear reactor, Israeli nuclear capability
All hell breaking loose?
The threats from Iran are coming fast and furious. In fact, they are coming in so many different directions that it's getting kind of hard to keep track of all the threats.
On Friday, Ayatollah Ali Khameini's website published an '
analysis' of the threats facing Iran.
The article details three possible war scenarios Iran could be faced with if Israel or the US proceed with a strike:
1. An all out war of attrition that would combine aerial and ground forces attack.
2. Limited war as a preparatory action for political proceedings. This would include hitting Iran’s control centers for the purpose of disrupting the stability of the Islamic regime. The best case scenario here would be that war leads to the regime's fall; the worst case would see Iran surrendering at the negotiating table.
3. A war on specific targets with the aim of destroying the regime's assault capabilities, especially against the "Zionist regime."
The Iranian commentator goes on to assess the possibility of likelihood of each scenario. He believes the feasibility of the first option is due, among other things to the fact that "the western countries' capabilities to carry out such a complex operation are very limited and nearly nonexistent."
Mohebian also mentioned the upcoming US presidential elections and the fact that the west doesn't have sufficient intelligence on Iran. In light of these problems Mohebian believes that the chances of an all out war against Iran are close to nothing.
He goes on to point out the main problems of the second and third scenarios: The Iranian regime is prepared for an attack on its centers of power, the Iranian response to such an attack could be unexpected, the attack could turn the regime to an even more extreme path and encourage it to set the Middle East on fire, which would endanger the western world.
Mohebian claims that even the third and most likely scenario has a relatively small likelihood of happening. He notes that the scenario's execution would be complicated. It would be impossible to attack all of the country's nuclear facilities due to its size; a limited war could develop into a regional war.
On Saturday, Iran threatened to
hit Israel's nuclear plant in Dimona if Israel attacked Iran.
Former head of the Guards' Political Bureau Brigadier Yadollah Javani said, "If Israel fires [a] rocket at one of our nuclear facilities or vital centers, it should know that any point of Israel, such as its nuclear facilities, would be a target for our rockets and we have [that] capability," Iranian news agency ISNA reported.
"Today, our enemies have been locked in a quagmire and they see no way out, so they make contradictory comments," he contended. "They raise military threats against Iran whereas they do not possess such a capability."
Curiously,
Iran also threatened Turkey (Hat Tip:
Joshua I).
A senior commander of Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard says the country will target NATO's missile defense shield in Turkey if the US or Israel attacks the Islamic Republic.
Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the head of the Guards' aerospace division, is quoted by the semiofficial Mehr news agency as saying the warning is part of a new defense strategy to counter what it sees as an increase in threats from the US and Israel.
...
"Should we be threatened, we will target NATO's missile defense shield in Turkey and then hit the next targets," the semiofficial Mehr news agency quoted Hajizadeh as saying.
Tehran says NATO's early warning radar station in Turkey is meant to protect Israel against Iranian missile attacks if a war breaks out with the Jewish state. Ankara agreed to host the radar in September as part of NATO's missile defense system aimed at countering ballistic missile threats from neighboring Iran.
Is Iran starting to realize that the sky is falling?
By the way, Israel quietly took delivery on a
shipment of Patriot missiles in the past few weeks.
Labels: Dimona nuclear reactor, Iranian nuclear threat, NATO, Turkey
Iran calls on #OWS to denounce US 'threats' against Iran, calls for destruction of Dimona
Iranian Deputy Chief-of-Staff Brig.-Gen Masoud Jazayeri has called upon the Occupy Wall Street movement to denounce US 'threats' against Iran, and has threatened to destroy Israel's Dimona nuclear reactor.
Let's go to the videotape.
Aren't you glad that Obama has ordered American troops to retreat from Iraq?
Labels: Dimona nuclear reactor, Iranian nuclear threat, Occupy Wall Street
Time to replace the Dimona reactor?
In an interview with Israel National News, Haaretz military affairs correspondent Yossi Mehlman says that it's time for Israel to look into
replacing its Dimona nuclear reactor.
Melman argued, irrespective of the events in Japan, Israel should have decommissioned the reactor in Dimona long ago. "Our reactor is old, from the fifties. Germany closed reactors it built in the eighties. And here we have an older reactor. Our experts say the reactor was retrofitted, but some things are very difficult to improve in a reactor sixty years old. The core area is sealed with concrete and steel is very difficult to replace, unless you disable the reactor and remove the fuel rods."
He added that if, G-d forbid, a nuclear catastrophe happened in Israel, it would not resemble the current disaster in Japan. "Dimona is a research reactor, or according to foreign publications, a reactor to produce nuclear weapons. The Dimona reactor runs on 75 megawatts, while the reactor in Japan runs on 1000 MW. If there is damage to the reactor in Dimona the damage would be of a lesser scale. True, Dimona is close to the earthquake fault of the African Rift, but it poses less concern than an industrial power reactor in Japan."
And you can guess why so far, at least, this has not happened.
Melman noted that the most serious obstacle to Israel's upgrading the Dimona reactor is that it hasn't signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. "There are countries like Israel, India and Pakistan who have not signed the treaty, that for obvious reasons do not want supervision. This makes it very difficult to get assistance from Western countries with the technology to upgrade the reactor."
Israel's refusal to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty stems from its long-term strategic policy of purposeful ambiguity vis-a-vis whether the Jewish State possesses nuclear weapons under which Israeli leaders have said, “Israel will not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons into the region.”
Hmmm. Something tells me that in a world that is hostile to Israel, we will not be replacing that reactor anytime soon. There is no choice.
Labels: Dimona nuclear reactor, IAEA, nuclear ambiguity, Nuclear Proliferation Treaty
Who says Stuxnet is an Israeli project?
Remember that article in the Sunday Times that claimed that the Stuxnet computer worm had been developed by the US and Israel and that it was
tested in Dimona? Jeffrey Carr
doesn't buy it.
And the proof? The journalists give none, because no one wants to go on the record. Fair enough, but with such a sensational claim I’d expect, at the very least, to read some additional supporting evidence. And here it is – “Israeli officials grin widely when asked about its effects.” That’s it. That’s all they’ve got. Some officials grinned.
So how likely is it that an Israeli official who has direct knowledge of Stuxnet testing at Dimona is going to speak to a reporter about it? Based upon the experience of Mordechai Vanunu, who’s considered a traitor to Israel and has spent most of his life in prison after he revealed his knowledge of the top secret facility to the British press in 1986, I’m guessing the answer has something to do with snowballs and hell. To put it mildly, the Mossad was very unhappy with Mr. Vanunu. And everyone in Israel knows it.
As far as Mossad chief Meir Dagan telling the Israeli Knesset on the day before his retirement that Iran’s capabilities to develop a nuclear warhead have been pushed back until 2015, I have no idea where that figure came from or what Mr. Dagan’s motivations would be for saying that but the Israeli Prime Minister, the founder of Israel’s Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) and at least two respected Israeli experts disagree with Mr. Dagan. One of them spent 40 years working in precisely this area.
Read the whole thing. He's got lots of proof. Or maybe this is just the Israeli way of creating plausible deniability? Hmmm.
Labels: Dimona nuclear reactor, Iranian nuclear program, Jeffrey Carr, New York Times, Stuxnet
Avner Cohen on Stuxnet
Just Journalism talks to Avner Cohen about the
Stuxnet worm.
On Monday, Middle East news coverage was given over to the story reported in the New York Times – and subsequently picked up by The Times of London, The Daily Telegraph and The Guardian – that Israel and the United States had coordinated in developing the Stuxnet computer worm, now said to have possibly delayed Iran’s nuclear weapons programme for another four years. The implication in all the articles was that an Israeli military strike on Iran was no longer an imminent event. (Just Journalism analysed the UK media coverage of the New York Times story here.)
Cited as an authority in the original article was Dr. Avner Cohen, a senior fellow at the Monterey Institute of International Studies in California and the author of The Worst-Kept Secret: Israel’s Bargain with the Bomb, a new history of Israel’s undeclared but widely acknowledged nuclear weapons programme. Cohen told the press that from what he could tell, and from what his sources had told him, Israel had indeed had a role in constructing and testing Stuxnet.
Just Journalism spoke with Dr. Cohen over email to further elaborate on the Israel-Stuxnet connection.
Continue reading
here.
Labels: Dimona nuclear reactor, Iranian nuclear program, Natanz, Stuxnet
The day after Stuxnet
Iran analyst Gary Sick looks at the possible Iranian reaction to the news in Sunday's New York Times that the US and Israel are behind the
Stuxnet computer worm.
This comes just a few days before you sit down to negotiate with Americans and others over your nuclear program. Will you be intimidated and therefore demonstrate more willingness to compromise? Or will you play either a stalling game or perhaps a more belligerent game until you can improve your negotiating position?
From this point on, will you be more or less likely to cooperate with the IAEA? Will the Non-proliferation Treaty (in which Iran agreed not to build a nuclear weapon in return for international protection against any nuclear powers) seem like a reassurance or a threat?
Will you retaliate by launching a cyber counter-attack against one or more large U.S. facilities (dams, power plants, refineries, public utilities, nuclear facilities, etc.) which, as the NYT story acknowledges, are known to be vulnerable to cyber attack. Although Iran’s capabilities are hugely overshadowed by those of the United States and Israel, cyber warfare may be an attractive way to level the playing field — the ultimate in asymmetric warfare. U.S. interests, of course, are not all located in the continental United States.
Will you (Iran) cut back your nuclear development or double down on your efforts? (Part of the answer to that question depends on resources. If Iran has been holding back, which is not impossible, then it has some capacity to actually speed up its efforts; if Iran has few or no intellectual, material and scientific reserves, its choices may be quite limited; that seems to be the working assumption of the authors of the worm.)
I wouldn't read so much into the assumptions of the people who developed the worm. Sick is leaving out another aspect of the war on Iran's nuclear capabilities, which might or might not be from the same source: the liquidation of Iran's nuclear scientists. It's not that they're assuming that Iran has no further resources - they're apparently trying to take care of those as well.
There is another assumption that Sick ignores. The perpetrators of Stuxnet (rationally) assumed that Iran will not cooperate in negotiations regarding its nuclear program. They ascribe zero credibility to Iran. Therefore, since they wish to avoid having to take military action against Iran's nuclear plant, with its potential for thousands of deaths, they attacked the program itself through cyberspace. I believe it was a brilliant plan.
Read the whole thing.
Labels: Dimona nuclear reactor, Iranian nuclear program, Natanz, Stuxnet
NY Times: Stuxnet was tested in Dimona
The New York Times is reporting in Sunday's editions that the Stuxnet computer worm was
tested at Israel's Dimona nuclear facility (Hat Tip:
NY Nana).
Behind Dimona’s barbed wire, the experts say, Israel has spun nuclear centrifuges virtually identical to Iran’s at Natanz, where Iranian scientists are struggling to enrich uranium. They say Dimona tested the effectiveness of the Stuxnet computer worm, a destructive program that appears to have wiped out roughly a fifth of Iran’s nuclear centrifuges and helped delay, though not destroy, Tehran’s ability to make its first nuclear arms.
“To check out the worm, you have to know the machines,” said an American expert on nuclear intelligence. “The reason the worm has been effective is that the Israelis tried it out.”
Though American and Israeli officials refuse to talk publicly about what goes on at Dimona, the operations there, as well as related efforts in the United States, are among the newest and strongest clues suggesting that the virus was designed as an American-Israeli project to sabotage the Iranian program.
...
The worm itself now appears to have included two major components. One was designed to send Iran’s nuclear centrifuges spinning wildly out of control. Another seems right out of the movies: The computer program also secretly recorded what normal operations at the nuclear plant looked like, then played those readings back to plant operators, like a pre-recorded security tape in a bank heist, so that it would appear that everything was operating normally while the centrifuges were actually tearing themselves apart.
The attacks were not fully successful: Some parts of Iran’s operations ground to a halt, while others survived, according to the reports of international nuclear inspectors. Nor is it clear the attacks are over: Some experts who have examined the code believe it contains the seeds for yet more versions and assaults.
“It’s like a playbook,” said Ralph Langner, an independent computer security expert in Hamburg, Germany, who was among the first to decode Stuxnet. “Anyone who looks at it carefully can build something like it.” Mr. Langner is among the experts who expressed fear that the attack had legitimized a new form of industrial warfare, one to which the United States is also highly vulnerable.
Officially, neither American nor Israeli officials will even utter the name of the malicious computer program, much less describe any role in designing it.
...
By the accounts of a number of computer scientists, nuclear enrichment experts and former officials, the covert race to create Stuxnet was a joint project between the Americans and the Israelis, with some help, knowing or unknowing, from the Germans and the British.
The project’s political origins can be found in the last months of the Bush administration. In January 2009, The New York Times reported that Mr. Bush authorized a covert program to undermine the electrical and computer systems around Natanz, Iran’s major enrichment center. President Obama, first briefed on the program even before taking office, sped it up, according to officials familiar with the administration’s Iran strategy. So did the Israelis, other officials said. Israel has long been seeking a way to cripple Iran’s capability without triggering the opprobrium, or the war, that might follow an overt military strike of the kind they conducted against nuclear facilities in Iraq in 1981 and Syria in 2007.
Two years ago, when Israel still thought its only solution was a military one and approached Mr. Bush for the bunker-busting bombs and other equipment it believed it would need for an air attack, its officials told the White House that such a strike would set back Iran’s programs by roughly three years. Its request was turned down.
Now, Mr. Dagan’s statement suggests that Israel believes it has gained at least that much time, without mounting an attack. So does the Obama administration.
For years, Washington’s approach to Tehran’s program has been one of attempting “to put time on the clock,” a senior administration official said, even while refusing to discuss Stuxnet. “And now, we have a bit more.”
...
Dr. Cohen said his sources told him that Israel succeeded — with great difficulty — in mastering the centrifuge technology. And the American expert in nuclear intelligence, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the Israelis used machines of the P-1 style to test the effectiveness of Stuxnet.
The expert added that Israel worked in collaboration with the United States in targeting Iran, but that Washington was eager for “plausible deniability.”
Read the whole thing.
Heh.
Labels: Dimona nuclear reactor, Iranian nuclear program, Natanz, Stuxnet
Wow: IAF shoots down 'unidentified object with engine' near Dimona nuclear reactor
Israel's Air Force shot down an
unidentified flying object with an engine near the Dimona nuclear reactor a short time ago.
IAF fighter jets on Thursday shot down an unidentified object near the southern part of the Dead Sea close to the Dimona reactor.
IDF sources said that the unmanned object had an engine, and was flying in closed airspace. After considering possible damage to surrounding structure, including the reactor, the IAF decided to intercept the object.
Earlier reports had suggested that the object was a balloon.
The IAF was investigating the circumstances of the incident, including the possibility that intelligence was being gathered on the Dimona plant.
Hmmm.
Labels: Dimona nuclear reactor, IAF
