PanARMENIAN.Net
U.S. Army: Israel has the bomb
21.03.2009 14:09 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The Army has let slip one of the worst-kept secrets
in the world – that Israel has the bomb, DoDBuzz reports.
Officially, the United States has a policy of `ambiguity’ regarding
Israel’s nuclear capability. Essentially, it has played a game by
which it neither acknowledges nor denies that Israel is a nuclear
power.
But a Defense Department study completed last year offers what may be
the first time in an unclassified report that Israel is a nuclear
power. On page 37 of the U.S. Joint Forces Command report, the Army
includes Israel within `a growing arc of nuclear powers running from
Israel in the west through an emerging Iran to Pakistan, India, and on
to China, North Korea, and Russia in the east.’
The single reference is far more than the U.S. usually would state
publicly about Israel, even though the world knew Israel to be a
nuclear power years before former nuclear technician Mordechai Vanunu
went public with facts on its weapons program in 1986.
Several years later investigative reporter Seymour Hersh published
`The Samson Option,’ detailing Israel’s strategy of massive nuclear
retaliation against Arab states in the event it felt its very
existence was threatened. Israel’s nuclear arsenal has been estimated
to range from 200 to 400 warheads.
Yet Israel has refused to confirm or deny its nuclear capabilities,
and the U.S. has gone along with the charade.
As recently as Feb. 9 President Barack Obama ducked the question when
asked pointedly by White House correspondent Helen Thomas whether he
knew of any country in the Middle East that has nuclear
weapons. Keeping the blinders on is necessary politically in order to
avoid a policy confrontation with Israel.
By law, the U.S. would have to cease providing billions of dollars in
foreign aid to Israel if it determined the country had a nuclear
weapons program. That’s because the so-called Symington Amendment,
passed in 1976, bars assistance to countries developing technology for
nuclear weapons proliferation.
Given the U.S.’s long history of selective blindness when it comes to
Israeli nukes, it’s unlikely that the Joint Operating Environment 2008
report compiled by the Army amount to much more than a minor faux pas.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz, in a March 8 article on the report,
observed: `It is virtually unheard of for a senior military commander,
while in office, to refer to Israel’s nuclear status. In December
2006, during his confirmation hearings as Secretary of Defense, Robert
Gates referred to Israel as one of the powers seen by Iran as
surrounding it with nuclear weapons. But once in office, Gates refused
to repeat this allusion to Israel, noting that when he used it he was
`a private citizen.’ ‘