WarSclerotic

Obama Gave Bunker-Busters To Israel.

A GBU-28 “bunker buster” bomb is unleashed on its target

The Obama administration has supplied GBU-28 bunker-busting bombs to Israel for a probable attack on Iran’s fledgling nuclear program, despite a media-induced perception that the two powers have a bitter relationship.

Newsweek, which broke the story on September 25, also reports that Israel has set up a radar defense system with some of its Arab neighbors to give an early warning of an Iranian missile attack.

The Bush administration rejected Israel’s first request for the bombs back in 2005, along with a Pentagon freeze on all US-Israeli joint defense projects out of concerns that Israel was selling the technology to China.

“In 2007, Bush informed then–prime minister Ehud Olmert that he would order the bunker busters for delivery in 2009 or 2010,” Newsweek reports. “The Israelis wanted them in 2007. Obama finally released the weapons in 2009, according to officials familiar with the secret decision.”

The GBU-28 question surfaced in a November 2009 US cable released by Wikileaks, in which the US embassy in Tel Aviv noted that “the transfer should be handled quietly to avoid any allegations that the USG is helping Israel prepare for a strike against Iran.”

Back in March 2010, the US Navy shipped bunker-buster bombs to its base on the British Island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. Strategists at the time identified it as a sign of an imminent attack on Iran.

It’s a deal: Obama agreed to send the bombs to Israel while publicly antagonistic towards the nation.

While the bombs were being quietly delivered, media focus remained on an apparent falling out between the Obama administration and Israel over the issue of settlement building in the West Bank. During a 2009 White House press event with prominent Jewish leaders, Obama declared, “I’ll always be there for [Israel], but we are going to ask to make hard political choices—settlements, borders,” Newsweek reports.

When asked about the bomb delivery by The UK Guardian, an Israeli official would say only: “The strategic relationship between Obama and Netanyahu is deeper than meets the naked eye.”

However, The UK Guardian notes that Israel has a history of making strongly-worded statements against Iranian support of nuclear power. Back in January 2005, Israel declared to strike the Islamic republic if their development program reached “a point of no return” only to do nothing but drop the phrase when those thresholds were met.

The current set of “red lines” defined by Israeli diplomats have been pushed back repeatedly to a point where a military strike would only occur if Iran broke international nuclear safeguards to build a warhead, the paper writes.

This entry was posted on November 10, 2011 at 5:55 PM and is filed under Uncategorized. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.