NYT Exposé: Bush said "hell no" to Israeli strike against Natanz

[Darius871]

Who's gloating? DinoDoc?

[Sirotnikov]

The amount of secret intelligence and information leak in this article is staggering.

This will surely seriously hurt efforts to get more information about the Iranian project or hurt it without reserting to bombs...

In a way this article makes an Israeli strike more likely, given how it weakens the shroud of means and methods failing the entire effort.

[Naked Gents Rut]

The amount of secret intelligence and information leak in this article is staggering.

It's not staggering at all to anyone who follows the New York Times.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Nah, my estimation of them doesn't go up. You don't gain point for seeing the obvious.

Yeah, but it's a nice counter to all those idiots who were saying Bush was going to invade Iran.

[Darius871]

The amount of secret intelligence and information leak in this article is staggering.

This will surely seriously hurt efforts to get more information about the Iranian project or hurt it without reserting to bombs...

In a way this article makes an Israeli strike more likely, given how it weakens the shroud of means and methods failing the entire effort.

Yes, I'm sure that piece was required reading today for every nook and cranny of Iran's counterintelligence community. Get ready to see more articles like this (from just six weeks ago) in the coming months:

Passdaran Guards Arrest Mossad "Nuclear Spy Ring"
November 11, 2008
Azadeh Mirrazi

Two days after a senior official from Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence announced that an Iranian businessman charged with spying had been executed, and spoke of the heightening intelligence war between Iran and Israel, the supreme commander of the Passdaran Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) announced the discovery and arrest of a “nuclear spy ring” and a “heavy blow against Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency at the hands of the Passdaran.” This is despite the repeated assurances of Iranian authorities that the country’s nuclear activities have no links to military institutions of the country, and the law establishing the ministry of intelligence confines the mission of this ministry to confronting security threats, particularly espionage.

Speaking to Sepah News (the official news agency of the Passdaran Corps) General Aziz Jaafari announced the discovery and destruction of an Israeli spy network in Iran by Passdaran’s intelligence and security forces, it declared that this network had “ties to the military institutions of the country,” adding that the spy ring was engaged in gathering intelligence on Iranian military commanders and centers. In the past, the ministry had made similar claims about Ali Ashtari who was accused of spying for Israel and was executed last week in Iran. In Ashtari’s case too, it was announced that he was connected to the Iranian defense industries who intended to steal intelligence data by selling polluted equipment to Iran Defense Industries and other sensitive institutions.

Iran and Israel have in the past repeatedly accused each other of espionage for the other country and individuals have been arrested and tried on such charges in both countries. The Islamic Republic has on a number of occasions officially accused Israel of satellite espionage against Iran and even attributed some of he social unrest and anti-security incidents and ethnic disturbances in Iran to Israel. Earlier this year, Israel too arrested and charged and tried an Israeli military officer for spying for Iran.

The newly established Sepah News news agency launched by the Passdaran’s office of public relations quoted the supreme Passdaran commander as saying, “With the destruction of this espionage network, the sophisticated and advanced communications systems, and modern infrastructure and camouflaging related to Mossad had been discovered and confiscated.”

Training of Nuclear Spies in Israel
Soon after Iran’s official state news agency IRNA quoted the Passdaran news site in this regard, it corrected its news coverage and added the term “Nuclear” to the title “Destruction of an Espionage Network” in its news, in an effort to emphasize Israel’s determination to engage in nuclear espionage against Iran and the role of the Passdaran in uncovering and destroying it.

The commander is quoted to have said, “This network had received special bombing and terror training in Israel and had purchased a lot of equipment and vehicles through financial support of Mossad,” while also promising to announce shortly greater details of the case through the media.

The announcement of the arrest of a new spy ring comes just a few days after the first open trial of the suspects in connection with the bomb explosions at a mosque in Shiraz. In that case too, the ministry of intelligence had announced that the accused belonged to a terrorist group and had taken measures to bomb a number of places in Iran. Another charge added to that list was the planning of the group to assassinate the leader of the Islamic regime.

The Military and Intelligence Work
The announcement by the supreme Passdaran commander of the discovery by the Passdaran contrasts with the mission of the force as defined in the law that created it. The law defines the force as a military force which lacks the authority to engage in intelligence activities, and particularly “counter-intelligence.”

In the Islamic Republic of Iran, counter-intelligence activities are the sphere of the Ministry of Intelligence and this has been stressed in the laws that created the Passdaran. To accomplish this, the Ministry of Intelligence established a deputy for intelligence activities and all political and security agencies and offices in the country have been tasked to provide their intelligence regarding espionage to this office.


While the Passdaran has a long history of competition with the Ministry of Intelligence over intelligence and security activities, its two divisions named Intelligence Protection and Deputy for Intelligence, this work is a duplication of what the Ministry does in the sphere of intelligence gathering in the context of its security activities.

It was precisely because of this parallelism that during the reform years in Iran - i.e. the period when Mohammad Khatami was the president from 1997 to 2005 - many reports were published indicating Passdaran’s confrontations with political, civil and media activists in the country. These reports even included details about secret detention centers run by Passdaran’s intelligence unit which kept non-military individuals.

Passdaran’s Activities in the Nuclear Field
But this recent news announcement may be the first time that the role of Passdaran is expressly mentioned in relation to “counter intelligence” activities, which is supposed to include only its own personnel and which must report any counter security activities outside the force to the Ministry of Intelligence. The issue becomes even more prominent when the discovery of a nuclear espionage ring is attributed to the Passdaran and its Intelligence Protection wing. It should be noted that during the recent years Iranian diplomats have been making an all-out effort to deny any connection between the country’s military institutions and nuclear research activities, while stressing that Iran’s nuclear activities and programs are purely for research and scientific, and not military or operational. In his latest interview general Jaafari did not explain what the relationship between Passdaran’s Intelligence Protection bureau and the country’s nuclear programs was which led to this military force’s discovery of spies in connection with nuclear programs.

http://www.roozonline.com/english/ar...st_of_a_n.html

[GePap]

Out of curiousity, since the Jeddah Convention declared much of the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden quasi-international waters IIRC, couldn't Israeli aircraft - with sufficient refueling capacity of course - simply go around the Arabian Peninsula? Or are there more strings attached to those areas' legal status? Also, what would happen if they did decide to fly over the emptiest expanses of Saudi Arabia - would the Saudis have both the capacity and the will to shoot them down? Would a fake civilian airliner be a possibility? I'd have to think an Iraq flyover would be only the easiest option, not the only one, but even the more far-fetched ideas one might imagine would still require the equipment that Bush denied.

The Saudis have a pretty advanced air defense system, including AWACS capability, so they would likely be able to track the amount of sorties that the Israelis would have to use to have any chance of making a dent on Iran's program. The Saudis have the second best air force in the region (after the Israelis) and I seriously doubt war with KSA, plus the likely loses to Saudi air defenses (one equiped with patriots and F-15s), would be something the Israelis were willing to accept.

I also don't know if Israel does have the air refueling capabilities to go around KSA, which is a pretty long ride, and they certainly don't have any airbases besides those on their own territory that they could use. They could try to overfly turkey, but I doubt Turkey would give them the permission, and then of course, without their permission, that is committing an act of war against a NATO member, another big no no.

On the airliner idea, airliners are supposed to fly prescribed routes and have to file routes. I have no idea if any El-Al flights take routes over countries that don't recognize Israel, like KSA. Besides, what would a disguised airliner do? They are slow - soon after it crosses into Iranian airspace, specially getting near any of those sites, which I assume are restricted, it would be a sitting duck and simple enough to shoot down.

[GePap]

I think its amusing in a way that US control over Iraqi airspace complicates any israeli plans to attack Iran. After all, they wouldn't care about overflying Jordan or Syria, nor Saddam's Iraq, with its backwards and depleted air defenses. But they can't overlfy Iraq now without US permission (unless they were willing to militarily confront the US, and that would not happen), and even the mot pro-Israel administration ever would not be willing to sink its pet Iraq project over that.

[Barnabas]

Yeah Bush, stick it to the juice!!

[Naked Gents Rut]

Kill all juice.

[Darius871]

I also don't know if Israel does have the air refueling capabilities to go around KSA, which is a pretty long ride, and they certainly don't have any airbases besides those on their own territory that they could use. They could try to overfly turkey, but I doubt Turkey would give them the permission, and then of course, without their permission, that is committing an act of war against a NATO member, another big no no.

According to Haaretz's August article on Ehud Barak's attempt to obtain more, "[t]he IAF has in its possession only seven refueling planes, many of which are more than 40 years old." Now IIRC F15's and F16's (of which Israel has two dozen each) have ranges up to 3,500 miles with external tanks, and the trip around the peninsula to the target and back is just over 7,000, so presumably each fighter-bomber would need to refuel at least three times. I'm not sure of each tanker's capacity, but even supposing each could go as far as necessary and each could fully refuel four F15's/F16's (roughly equivalent to the U.S.' old Boeing 707's), that would only be enough for a paltry 9-10 bombers. Whether a strike that small, with limited bomb payloads given the burden of external tanks, would be effective (even if timed to mop up after a barrage of Jericho missiles) is anyone's guess.

But in any case I'm not totally clear on the legal status of the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden - it could be that any leeway is strictly limited to non-military surface ships anyway, in which case KSA or even Egypt could just blow any Israeli warplanes out of the sky.

[Dr Strangelove]

I think the point is that any Israeli strike on Iran would have to pass over air space controlled by the US or its allies, so if Israel did bomb Iran the blame would inevitably fall on us.

[chequita guevara]

I'm still not wrong. In a week I may be, but I'm not wrong yet.

[Dinner]

I'm happy to say I never fed into or believed in that talk about "bomb, bomb, Iran".

Oh, and DinoDoc is still a sad little *****.

[DinoDoc]

Don't take your frustration at San Diego getting spanked on me.

[Dinner]

I didn't see any team from Nebraska (I believe that's where you're from) in the play offs.