WarSclerotic

Israeli ICBM Test Raises Possible EMP Attack on Nuclear Iran.

(Bibi’s “ace in the hole?” – JW)

Israel announced Wednesday, the successful test of a Jericho III ICBM with a range of 4000 kilometers, approximately 2,500 miles. Yaakov Katz, Jerusalem Post military analyst, commented in an article today, “Rattling the Cage”:

“The Israel Air Force announced that it had returned from a week of joint maneuvers with Italy over Sardinia that included long-range flights, midair refueling and complicated bombing runs. On Thursday, the Home Front Command held a large-scale civil defense exercise aimed at preparing the public for missile attacks in the center of the country.”

The Jericho III ICBM equipped with a nuclear warhead provides Israel with a powerful deterrent against a nuclear Iran. It gives Israel a credible Electronic Magnetic Pulse (EMP) capability to loft a low kiloton yield warhead to an apogee over Iran that upon detonation would destroy the country’s industrial infrastructure, frying motherboards of hundreds of thousands of computers, disabling telecommunications, transportation and industrial systems.

According to veteran Iran watcher, Ken Timmerman, President and CEO of the Foundation for Democracy in Iran, that possibility was confirmed by ex-CIA case officer Chet Nagle at a Capitol Hill EMPact America press conference in Washington, DC on Tuesday, the day before the Jericho III test was announced.

Doubtless an Israeli EMP attack would cause thousands of whirling centrifuges enriching uranium at the Natanz cascade hall and the Bushehr nuclear plant producing plutonium to be shut down. It might spare Iran’s vital oil and natural gas producing region in the Gulf. It would free Iran’s restive people from the nuclear nightmare of the Mullahs.

If the EMP apogee was low enough, then according to Timmerman, it would largely spare Iran’s agrarian rural areas and the country’s bread basket. The Islamic regime and industrial infrastructure concentrated in the Tehran region could collapse. Moreover, he said, the neighboring Gulf region would be spared collateral effects.

The Israelis hope that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, President Ahmadinejad and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) leaders got the message behind the ICBM test on Wednesday…

Israel has a full quiver of options. These include its own nuclear capable missile the Jericho III, cruise missiles launched from its Dolphin submarine fleet, and cyber warfare techniques like Stuxnet that have disabled Iran’s nuclear development infrastructure. Conventional air attack scenarios that would endeavor to reduce the Natanz and other nuclear underground facilities would be fraught with complex air route and logistical problems. Obtaining Saudi, Iraqi and even Turkish airspace permission would be doubtful.

In the wake of the Jericho III test there are Ha’aretz reports about Security Cabinet debates in the Netanyahu government pressing for an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities and the IRGC. According to MSNBC, polls show that the Israeli population is divided about such a prospect. This despite an assessment by Iranian Defector and ex-CIA spy Reza Khalili in a recent report in the Washington Times who said that Iran already has nuclear arms.

This entry was posted on February 19, 2012 at 1:17 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.