WarSclerotic

Fire Continues: Terror Rocket hits Sderot – Defense/Security – News – Israel National News.

Qassam rocket (archive)

Flash 90

Gaza terrorists launched a rocket at the town of Sderot on Sunday evening. The rocket hit an unpopulated area and did not cause injury.

Earlier in the day terrorists fired two rockets at the city of Netivot. Those rockets hit unpopulated areas as well.

The attacks come as Israelis celebrate the week-long Passover holiday.

Gaza’s many terror organizations have been relatively inactive in recent weeks, but have launched occasional attacks, demonstrating that they do not consider themselves bound by the “calm” Hamas declared after Israel’s last counter-terror activities in the area.

Sunday’s attacks are thought to be linked to an incident Saturday night in which a group of terrorists attempting to fire a rocket were fired on by IDF soldiers. Two of the terrorists were wounded.

Patriot Battery Deployed Near Haifa – Defense/Security – News – Israel National News.

Patriot Missile Battery

IDF/Flash 90

Barak: Sanctions Won’t Halt Iran’s Nuclear Bid – Defense/Security – News – Israel National News.

Ehud Barak

Flash 90

Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Sunday expressed deep misgivings about upcoming talks between Iran and the so-called P5+1, and the efficacy of sanctions on Tehran.

“It is clear that the depths of the sanctions is different for what we had in the past, and it has its impact both the closing of the swift clearing system as well as the sanctions on the oil export and, of course, the coming negotiations that will probably encourage them to move,” Barak told CNNs Fareed Zakaria during a lengthy interview.

“But to tell the truth, we hope for the better, but I don’t believe that this amount of sanctions and pressure will bring the Iranian leadership to the conclusion that they have to stop their nuclear military program,” he added.

During the interview Barak told Zakaria in no uncertain terms what Iran would have to agree to in order to avert an Israeli strike on its nuclear facilities.

“We are not against any kind of effective and urgent sanctions, not even against negotiations. But we told our American friends as well as the Europeans that we would have expected the threshold for successful negotiation to be clear, namely that the P5+1 will demand clearly that, number one, no more enrichment to 20 percent,” Barak said.

“All the already enriched 20 percent material out of the country to a neighboring trusted country. Then all the material enriched to 3.5 percent, probably except for a few hundred kilograms, should be taken out of the country, once again, into a neighboring trusted country.

“Number three, the installation in Fordo near Qom under the ground should be decommissioned in order not to enable them to resume enrichment to 20 percent, and tight inspection by the IAEA, according to protocol 3.1, should be imposed.

“If all these are met, even if they get in exchange fuel rods for their TLR, their research reactor and so on, that could be OK. It would be a different regime,” Barak explained.

However, Barak was also clear that Iran’s current proposal of merely halting the enrichment of uranium to 20% would be unacceptable to Israel.

“But if the P5+1 will settle for a much lower threshold, like just stop enriching 20 percent, it means that basically the Iranians, at a very cheap cost, bought their way into continuing their military program, slightly slower, but without sanctions. That will be a total change of direction for the world.

“I really see it as a major change for the whole world. I really see it as a critical time for the rest of the world as well. And I really think that the tightest possible sanctions and steps against Iran should be ratcheting in a way that will effectively corner it,” Barak said.

Later, Barak concluded the interview saying Israel was in a unique and dangerous position on the world stage, and stood with a sword in one hand and an olive branch in the other.

“We realize we are living in a tough neighborhood, no mercy for the weak and no second opportunity for those who cannot defend themselves. We want to be strong, ready to protect ourselves, under whatever kind of threat, but at the same time, stretching out our hand to make peace with any neighbor who is ready for it,” Barak said.

US: Iran must halt nuclear program – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Days before six powers, Tehran embark on atom talks, Washington says Iran must abide by Security Council resolutions, bring uranium enrichment to complete stop

Yizhak Benhorin

WASHINGTON – After Iran rejected calls to reduce Uranium enrichment to a level of 20%, Washington on Monday put its foot down, saying that Tehran must bring uranium enrichment to a complete stop in accordance with UN Security Council resolutions.

Five days before the six powers and Iran are set to resume talks in Istanbul, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said the US’ stance has been made clear. Carney expressed hope that Iran realizes the whole world is in agreement that it must give up its nuclear program.

Related stories:

• Iran lawmaker: Country can produce nuclear weapon
• US, Europe to ‘demand’ Iran close nuclear facility
• Iran rejects West’s ‘demands’ before talks 

“Our position is clear…that Iran must live up to its international obligations, including the full suspension of uranium enrichment as required by multiple UN Security Council resolutions,” he said, adding: “Our bottom line is the cessation of uranium enrichment and the verifiable decision by the regime in Tehran to forgo pursuit of a nuclear weapon.”

On Sunday, Iran rejected Western demands to close its Fordo nuclear bunker and give up higher-level uranium enrichment.

Map of Iranian nuclear facilities  

These two demands, outlined by European and US diplomats to The New York Times newspaper, were “irrational,” the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, Fereydoon Abbasi Davani, told ISNA news agency in a lengthy interview.

“We do not see any rationale for such a request from the P5+1,” he said.

But, he added, “We will not produce 20% enrichment fuel more than what we need, because it is not in our benefit to produce and keep it.”

During a press briefing at the White House, Carney noted that President Obama made it clear that the window for a diplomatic solution is closing, and that “time is not infinite here.”

However, Carney added, “There is enough time and enough space at this moment to pursue a diplomatic solution – that’s why the resumption of these talks is important.”

Meanwhile, State Department Spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said on Monday that the United States does not intend to hold public negotiations with Tehran, adding that they will react to what is said behind closed doors during talks in Istanbul.

Iran Ahead of Upcoming Nuclear Talks: Majlis Member: We Can Manufacture Bomb, But We Won’t; ‘Kayhan’: The U.S. Has Capitulated.

Herman Wouk to publish new book with Simon & Schuster – latimes.com.

Herman Wouk, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “The Caine Mutiny,” will publish a new novel, “The Lawgiver,” with Simon & Schuster, the publisher announced Monday. Wouk, who was given the Library of Congress’ first Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Writing of Fiction in 2008, will celebrate his 97th birthday in May.

Wouk’s long and successful publishing record also includes “Marjorie Morningstar,” “The Winds of War” and “War and Remembrance.” His most recent book, “The Language God Talks: On Science and Religion,” published in 2010, discussed science and faith. In a release, Simon & Schuster described the upcoming “The Lawgiver”:

Mr. Wouk’s new book is an epistolary novel about a group of people making a movie about Moses in the present day.  The story emerges from letters, memos, emails, journals, news articles, recorded talk, tweets, Skype transcripts, and text messages.  “I loved reading The Lawgiver,” said [Simon & Schuster Publisher Jonathan] Karp.  “Within just a few pages I was captivated, once again in the thrall of Wouk’s sharply conceived characters, amusing narration, irresistible command of story, and the wisdom of a lifetime.  I found myself marveling at the verve and wit of this great American storyteller, now 96.  The insights into Moses have remarkable vitality and depth.  His heroine, Margo (‘Mashie’) is a twenty-first century incarnation of one of my favorite literary characters of all time, Marjorie Morningstar.”

Karp must have been impressed by the manuscript. When he reviewed Wouk’s “An Ache in the Heart” for The Times in 1993, he found something missing. Wouk, he wrote, “is still a master of the historical novel, and — at nearly 700 pages — ‘The Hope’ is a surprisingly fast read. And yet, perhaps it is a bit too fast.”

Perhaps Wouk sees that slightly negative review as being in the past — or perhaps he’s looking even further back. “I knew Dick Simon and Max Schuster well,” he said in the release. Yes, he means, that Simon and that Schuster. “Few of my contemporaries can make that statement!  They brought out my first novel, Aurora Dawn, in 1947, and returning to their imprint after 64 years is an uncommon pleasure.”

Simon & Schuster will publish Wouk’s “The Lawgiver” this fall.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report April 9, 2012, 7:37 AM (GMT+02:00)

Ahmadinejad celebrates Nuclear Day

debkafile’s Washington sources disclose exclusively that the Obama administration and Netanyahu government have secretly agreed on “Formula of 1,000” as their final concession at the end of the forthcoming Six Power nuclear talks with Iran which starts Saturday, April 14. In substance, this formula would let Iran keep 1,000 centrifuges for enriching uranium up to 3.5 percent and stock 1,000 kilograms of the same grade uranium while, aside from a small amount for medical research, giving up its store of 20-percent grade uranium which can be jumped quickly to weapon quality.
US sources told debkafile that Russia and China have accepted the deal.
According to our Iranian sources, Tehran was informed of this formula through its back-channel contacts with Washington (which debkafile has been tracking since mid-February).  That is why in Iranian public statements in the last couple of days have harped on the issue of uranium enriched to 20 percent. US-Israeli permission to keep 3.5 percent grade is in the bag before the talks begin, so Iran is treating it as the starting-point for bargaining, not the end result, and concentrating on raising the ante through the negotiating process to come.
The concession Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak made to the Obama administration, to let Iran to continue to enrich uranium, has not been brought before any Israeli government or military forum.  Their remarks Sunday, April 8, conveyed the mistaken impression that there were at odds on the nuclear issue in the run-up to international talks.
Netanyahu said Israel would satisfied with nothing less than the total discontinuance of uranium enrichment and the removal of all quantities out of Iran, while Barak’s words came closer to the secret deal with Washington when he spoke of consenting to Iran continuing to produce low-enriched uranium and holding on to a few hundred kilos.
At his meeting with the new Italian prime minister Mario Monti in Jerusalem, Netanyahu repeated that Israel had not changed its position and that the Six Powers must make Iran stop enrichment entirely.
But in fact, as debkafile reveals here, Israel’s position has undergone a dramatic transformation and given in to Iran except for medical research on a major point of principle, i.e. enrichment.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad walked through the door this opened for him Sunday night and slapped down three fresh demands which Tehran would put before the Six Power negotiators in Istanbul Saturday:

1.  Clearance for the new system about to be activated for converting 3.5 enriched uranium to nuclear fuel rods in the first stage and nuclear plates in the second.

Producing 20 percent uranium from nuclear plates is relatively fast, efficient and cheap.
2.  Permission for homemade production of nuclear fuel rods for the heavy water plant under construction at Arak.
This would provide Tehran with the option of plutonium in addition to enriched uranium for making weapons.
3.  Iran’s first nuclear reactor at Bushehr is now operating at 75 percent capacity under the management of the Russian engineers who built it. Tehran wants Iranian engineers to take over the reactor’s management in full in seven months.
Iran is putting those three demands on the table to counter the US-Israeli insistence on shutting down the underground nuclear plant at Fordow, near Qom.
debkafile’s sources add that the Israeli prime minister, by giving crucial ground on the major sticking point of uranium enrichment, appears to have calculated that after going the extra mile, Obama will not be able to block Israeli military action against Iran’s nuclear sites if Tehran continues nonetheless to play games and cheat the International Atomic Energy Agency and its inspectors.
Netanyahu may have miscalculated the odds. His concession gave Obama enough rope to pull the Iranians to the negotiating table through his back channel to Tehran. That channel will remain open and the US is more likely to be induced by Iranian wiles to make more concessions than it is to give Israel the nod for military action.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report April 9, 2012, 11:04 PM (GMT+02:00)

Saudi Air Force warplanes

At least 200 American and Arab Gulf fighter-bombers thundered overhead Sunday, April 8 at the outset of the biggest air force exercise ever conducted in the Gulf region. They are simulating war with Iran and an operation for reopening the strategic Straits of Hormuz if it is closed by Tehran. debkafile’s military sources report that 100 of the warplanes took off from the USS Enterprise and USS Abraham Lincoln which are cruising with their strike groups opposite Iranian shores. The Saudi, UAE, Kuwaiti and Bahraini air forces contributed the other 100.
In an unprecedented show of military solidarity with the US, Bahrain, which hosts the US Fifth Fleet High Command, was also chosen by Gulf Cooperation Council – GCC – members for their unified exercise headquarters to be located at the Shaikh Isa Air Base.

Tehran was being told that neither the Obama administration nor the Gulf Arab governments were deterred by its threats of retaliation against emirates placing bases at the disposal of foreign forces for an attack on Iran.

However, shortly after the exercise began, Iranian ambassador to Kuwait Rouhullah Qahremani called urgently on Kuwait Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen Khalid Al-Sabah with a warning that the Iranian air and navy would attack the Gulf nations taking part in the exercise unless they withdrew at once.

The Kuwaiti army chief then too the warning to the GCC Secretary General for Military Affairs Maj. Gen. Khalifa Humaid Al-Kaabi, with several high-ranking Kuwait officers in attendance. Kuwait and Riyadh also briefed the Americans. warning.
The exercise is due to end on April 15, the day after the six world powers launch resumed nuclear negotiations with Iran in Istanbul. However some Iranian sources were hinting Monday that they would not come to the talks under military threat.
Although the participants are keeping the exercise’s scenario under wraps, debkafile’s military and intelligence sources are able to outline its five segments:
1. A practice operation to pry open the Strait of Hormuz should Iran try to block the waterway through which one-fifth of the world’s oil is exported – whether by deploying warships, scuttling old vessels, strewing sea mines or firing shore-to-ship missiles from the Iranian-controlled islands of Abu Musa, Great Tunb, Lesser Tunb and Sirri Island.
The combined US-Gulf force is practicing air and naval assaults against those Iranian island bases and the Revolutionary Guards Corps’ mainland facilities facing them from Bandar-e-Abbas, Bandar-e-Lengeh and Qeshm island. They plan to  cut off Iranian reinforcements en route to Hormuz.
2.   They also aim to prevent Iranian air or sea assaults on the Persian Gulf emirates’ oil facilities and export terminals, focusing mainly on Saudi, Bahraini and Kuwaiti oil facilities and fields.
3.  Air strikes are conducted against Iranian naval vessels, including speedboats, in a simulated exercise to head them off before they strike American aircraft carriers and warships or Gulf fleet vessels.
4.  Testing the degree of coordination between US air, sea and marine forces and their Persian Gulf counterparts.

5.  The Gulf exercise is in fact the sequel of Noble Dina 12, the US-Israeli-Greek war game conducted earlier this month in the Mediterranean and Aegean Seas. That war game practiced runs by Israeli fighter-bomber from their home bases to the big American facility on Crete, fueled in flight by American and Israeli tanker planes. The distance between the two points is roughly equivalent to the 1,200 kilometers between Israel and Iran.
In a furious response to that maneuver, the Iranian Chief of Staff Gen. Seyed Hassan Firouzabadi, declared Saturday April 7: “Iran will bulldoze and destroy the illegal Zionist nest.”

Netanyahu: Iran Uses Talks to Deceive – Defense/Security – News – Israel National News.

Netanyahu

Reuters

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu met Sunday afternoon with his Italian counterpart Mario Monti. Following the meeting, Netanyahu spoke to reporters and mentioned the P5-1 talks with Iran scheduled for next week.

“We have seen that Iran uses the talks in order to deceive and mislead,” he said. “We will follow the talks.”

“Our policy with regard to Iran has not changed, and that is also what needs to happen at the talks,” he added. “The demands from Iran must be clear – remove the enriched [nuclear] material, stop the enrichment and dismantle the installation at Qom.”

Iran, meanwhile, has rejected these very demands, after they were spelled out to by European and US diplomats to The New York Times. The head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, Fereydoon Abbasi Davani, told Iran’s ISNA news agency that the demands were “irrational.”

The Fordo site, an underground bunker near Qom, “is built underground because of sanctions and the threats of attacks,” he explained. “If they do not threaten us and guarantee that no aggression will occur, then there would be no need for countries to build facilities underground. They should change their behavior and language,” he said.

Iran’s enrichment of uranium to 20 percent purity would also continue, he vowed, the P5+1’s requests notwithstanding. “We do not see any rationale for such a request from the P5+1,” he said. However, he added, “We will not produce 20 percent enrichment fuel more than what we need, because it is not in our benefit to produce and keep it.”

Israel ‘satisfied’ with Iran’s rejection of West’s demands – Israel News, Ynetnews.

State officials glad to see Tehran exposed its true face by rejecting Obama’s reported demands, estimate US president will now be forced to toughen sanctions

Attila Somfalvi

Senior state officials were satisfied Sunday with Iran’s rejection of Western proposals for the nuclear crisis. “As far as Israel is concerned, the Iranian response is good,” one state official said. It has been estimated that this will force US President Barack Obama to toughen sanctions on the Islamic Republic.

Senior state officials said that Iran is hardening its position in an effort to challenge Obama. “They believe that the White House does not want a conflict on an election year,” one state official said. “Once they form an official stance we’ll know how financially stressed they are.

“If Obama sees he’s being challenged he will be forced to toughen the sanctions in an unequivocal manner.”

Another senior official said the Iranians are stalling for time. “As far as Israel is concerned the Iranian response is good because ultimately Obama will be forced to toughen the sanctions.”

World powers will hold the next round of nuclear negotiations with Iran on April 14 in Istanbul.

Iran on Sunday rejected demands the West is reportedly to submit at the talks saying it will neither close its Fordo nuclear bunker nor give up higher-level uranium enrichment.

After meeting with Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: “Our policy on Iran has not changed. We have seen that Iran is using the talks to stall and deceive. We will follow the talks. The demands of Iran must be clear: to take away the enriched material, halt the enrichment and dismantle the facility in Qom.”

‘Israel’s military options restricted’

Meanwhile, the military journal Jane’s Defense Weekly has cast doubt on Israel’s ability to mount a successful operation saying it would face “substantial difficulties,” The Telegraph reported.

According to the paper, experts believe Israeli military options are restricted to high risk choices, such as a long range missile bombardment from Israel or a special forces raid involving troops attack facilities on the ground.

Iran’s Ahmadinejad with t-shirt of slain scientist (Photo: AFP)

“The significant distances involved and hardened features of Iran’s nuclear facilities make any ‘massive surprise’ aerial attack a very high-risk operation for Israel to undertake on its own,” Jane’s concluded in a recent study.

“This is not going to be one strike and they are out, not like Syria or Iraq where facilities were not underground, it is much harder than that,” said Malcolm Chalmers of the Royal United Services Institute.

A former SAS commander raised the possibility that Israel will send a commando force of 60 men who will target one facility, “potentially the uranium enrichment site at Fordow” but admitted he would be surprised if Israel tried to carry this out.

Iran: You can’t stop us

In an address on Iran’s annual day to celebrate its nuclear achievements, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad warned Western powers that Iran would continue to pursue its swift scientific progress.

“The nuclear industry is like a locomotive that can carry other industries along with it. It is like the space industry that has raised tens of sub-industries under it and it is clear that we must continue on this path,” the Iranian state news agency quoted him as saying.

“You are blind if you think you can block scientific growth in Iran by martyring Iranian scientists,” he added, referring to the killing of four Iranian scientists since 2010. “Don’t think you can stop this roaring river, and know that if you assassinate one scientist, hundreds and thousands will take his place.”

Reuters contributed to this report