How long till Isrial hits the Iranian nuke plant?

[FuBaR]

Israel FTW Israel FTW!!!!!!

[DrDea]

I dont think they have a choice but to hit it..Iran supports Hammas,has vowed to wipe out Israel and shows no intention of backing down from that stance.Israel is backed into the proverbial corner.

[weaselsan]

Originally posted by wetrat
I heard they had a cessna with a bomb rack.

No....that's Canada.

[xrtoronto]

Originally posted by weaselsan
No....that's Canada.

not anymore...our bomb rack got reposessed

[~Caligula~]

It could be done in one night
By Edward N. Luttwak

Many commentators argue that a preemptive air attack against Iran's nuclear installations is unfeasible. It would not be swift or surgical, they say, because it would require thousands of strike and defense-suppression sorties. And it is likely to fail even then because some facilities might be too well hidden or too strongly protected. There may well be other, perfectly valid reasons to oppose an attack on Iran's nuclear sites. But let's not pretend that such an attack has no chance of success. In fact, the odds are rather good.

The skeptics begin sensibly enough by rejecting any direct comparison with Israel's 1981 air attack that incapacitated the Osirak reactor, stopping Saddam Hussein's first try at producing plutonium bombs. Iran is evidently following a different and much larger-scale path to nuclear weapons, by the centrifuge "enrichment" of uranium hexafluoride gas to increase the proportion of fissile uranium 235. It requires a number of different plants operating in series to go from natural uranium to highly enriched uranium formed in the specific shapes needed to obtain an explosive chain reaction. Some of these plants, notably the Natanz centrifuge plant, are both very large and built below ground with thick overhead protection.

It is at this point that the argument breaks down. Yes, Iraq's weapon program of 1981 was stopped by a single air strike carried out by less than a squadron of fighter-bombers because it was centered in a single large reactor building. Once it was destroyed, the mission was accomplished. To do the same to Iran's 100-odd facilities would require almost a hundred times as many sorties as the Israelis flew in 1981, which would strain even the U.S. Air Force. Some would even add many more sorties to carry out a preliminary suppression campaign against Iran's air defenses (a collection of inoperable anti-aircraft weapons and obsolete fighters with outdated missiles). But the claim that to stop Iran's program all of its nuclear sites must be destroyed is simply wrong.

   

An air attack is not a Las Vegas demolitions contract, where nothing must be left but well-flattened ground for the new casino to be built. Iran might need 100 buildings in good working order to make its bomb, but it is enough to demolish a few critical installations to delay its program for years - and perhaps longer because it would become harder or impossible for Iran to buy the materials it bought when its efforts were still secret. Some of these installations may be thickly protected against air attack, but it seems that their architecture has not kept up with the performance of the latest penetration bombs.

Nor could destroyed items be easily replaced by domestic production. In spite of all the claims of technological self-sufficiency by its engineer-president, not even metal parts of any complexity can be successfully machined in Iran. More than 35 percent of Iran's gasoline must now be imported because the capacity of its foreign-built refineries cannot be expanded without components currently under U.S. embargo, and which the locals cannot copy. Aircraft regularly fall out of the sky because Iranians are unable to reverse-engineer spare parts.

The bombing of Iran's nuclear installations may still be a bad idea for other reasons, but not because it would require a huge air offensive. On the contrary, it could all be done in a single night. One may hope that Iran's rulers will therefore accept a diplomatic solution rather than gamble all on wildly exaggerated calculations.

Edward N. Luttwak is a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic & International Studies in Washington. The article was originally published in The Wall Street Journal.

link

[Seagoon]

Hello Caligula,

Thanks for posting that piece

The following article in Defense Update indicates that the Iranians are in the process of updating their point air defenses: http://www.defense-update.com/2005/12/irans-point-defense-upgraded.html

mostly via the the purchase of Russian  TOR M-1 Anti-Aircraft/Anti-Missile systems my favorite quote from the article is: "Russian officials claim the Tor system is "a weapon of defense" and does not represent a danger to the U.S. as long as Washington does not attack Iran."

In any event, while the Iranian point air defenses would present a problem for the IAF, they wouldn't provide a serious threat to the US which could neutralize them fairly easily. It's quite possible they wouldn't lose a single aircraft in the strike. The problem remains in striking active Nuclear sites. Do you know of a method of bombing an active Nuclear reactor without creating fallout? Can you imagine the political consequences of a few Chernobyls in Iran? The Israelis struck Osirak when they did specifically because they wanted to hit a cold reactor, the Iranian ones are already "hot" and have been for years.

The only thing worse than the nuclear fallout would be the political fallout.

Taking out a few of the key sites, would undoubtedly prompt an Iranian response including a declaration of war, switching over their nuclear program entirely to a covert bomb making status, immediate attempts to hit Israel and US targets in the Middle East with their over 500 Shehab missles, plus of course giving the Shi'a in Iraq the go-ahead to begin active operations against the coalition there. Such a move added to Suni terrorism would make Iraq essentially ungovernable. I can't see any other course but a full blown conventional war with Iran and another "bags of fun" occupation. How long do we seriously expect we could occupy Iran under our current rules of engagement? Think the US public would stand for it? The result of such an occupation would undoubtedly be regime change in Washington D.C.

- SEAGOON

[~Caligula~]

Well....it needs to be done. They won`t stop and we can`t afford to let them finish it.The article talks about those other sites, that wouldn`t create fallout if hit. I`m not worried about formally being in war with Iran...how much worse it can be?They will for sure launch a massive missle attack against Israel.If they`ll use chemical weapons, they`ll get nuked.Not looking too good.
About the russians selling them weapons...go figure. But the US and Israel have quiet an experience how to deal with soviet built air defences.

[fartwinkle]

All they need is one bomb the right bomb:O

[Suave]

Originally posted by ~Caligula~
But the US and Israel have quiet an experience how to deal with soviet built air defences.

We got your back.

[Suave]

Isreals enemies had state of the art soviet export model AA missle batteries deployed.

Isreal defeated them deftly with inexpensive RC planes.


At a point in history when Iraq was a borderline military super power. Isreal destroyed Iraq's most guarded and valued fascility with only two jets and  a flying fuel tanker camoflaged as a comercial airline jet.

I think maybe they make it look so easy just to add insult to injury

[Staga]

Originally posted by Suave
...a flying fuel tanker camoflaged as a comercial airline jet.

Whoah; good thing USS Vincennes wasn't anywhere near

[john9001]

Originally posted by Staga
Whoah; good thing USS Vincennes wasn't anywhere near

forget to turn on your transponder and fly toward a war ship engaged in a fight and when they ask you to identify yourself don't answer.

[Suave]

Yeah the Iranian's tried to employ similar tactics with their fighters, only the iranians used unknowing real airline jets.

[Staga]

Originally posted by john9001
forget to turn on your transponder and fly toward a war ship engaged in a fight and when they ask you to identify yourself don't answer.

Looks like its transponder was on ?

Vincennes
A Case Study
by
Lieutenant Colonel David Evans, U.S. Marine Corps (Retired)

Captain Mohsen Rezaian was piloting his fully loaded Iran Air Airbus through 13,000 feet on a
routine Sunday morning flight across the Persian Gulf to Dubai, when a burst of shrapnel ripped
off the left wing and tore through the aft fuselage.
We shall never know Captain Rezaian's last moment, but in that instant before oblivion he may
have looked in horror out his left window and thought that the slab of flapping aluminum and
severed hydraulic lines where the wing had been was the result of some sort of structural defect.
It is doubtful that he ever saw the two fiercely burning points of light streaking up at his airplane,
the Standard missiles launched by the cruiser USS Vincennes (CG-49).
It is also doubtful that Captain Rezaian ever heard the warning messages broadcast by the
Vincennes, or by the frigate USS Sides (FFG-14), about 18 miles from the cruiser. The two ships
were broadcasting on military and international air distress frequencies, and during the busy
climb-out phase of his flight, Captain Rezaian likely was monitoring the approach control
frequency at Bandar Abbas, where he took off seven minutes before, and air traffic control at
Tehran Center.
If he had been monitoring the distress frequencies, the American-educated Captain Rezaian,
although fluent in English, might not have known that the warning transmissions were intended for
him. Indeed, as the Navy's report to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) would
later state, only one transmission made by the Sides, just 40 seconds prior to the Vincennes' missile
launch, was clear enough that it could not have mistaken as being intended for another aircraft.
Besides, Captain Rezaian's Mode 111 transponder, the civilian equivalent of the military's
"identification friend or foe" (IFF) electronics, was broadcasting the unique code of a commercial
airliner."
Flying at a speed of about six miles per minute, the Iranian pilot had no way of knowing that
moments earlier he had crossed the 20-mile point where Captain Will Rogers, the skipper of the
Vincennes, had announced to his crew and to other U.S. naval elements in the area, that he would
shoot if the Iranian aircraft did not change course. Captain Rezaian could not have guessed that by
now his lumbering A-300 Airbus had been evaluated in the Vincennes as a diving Iranian F-14--the
spearhead of a "coordinated attack" from the air from gunboats on the surface-and that Captain
Rogers had given him an unspoken momentary
reprieve by waiting until the airliner was 11 miles from the Vincennes before he authorized firing of
the ship's SM-2 antiaircraft missiles.
As torn aluminum and 290 bodies from the shattered airliner rained down on the waters off Qeshm
Island, the pieces fell into place for Captain David Carlson, who as a commander then was skipper
of the frigate Sides. This curious track number 4131, designated an Iranian F-14 by the Vincennes,
simply had not behaved like a combat aircraft.
Indeed, as Captain Carlson would learn minutes after the Airbus plummeted into the water, the
electronic specialists in the Sides combat information center had correctly identified the aircraft's
commercial transponder code at virtually the same instant that the Vincennes fired her missiles.
Captain Carlson recalled their exclamations: "He shot down COMAIR [a commercial aircraft]!"

According to Admiral
Fogarty's report of investigation, "The data from USS Vincennes' tapes, information from USS
Sides and reliable intelligence information corroborate the fact that TN 4131 was on a normal
commercial air flight plan profile...squawking Mode 111 6760, on a continuous ascent in altitude
from take-off at Bandar Abbas to shoot down."
The number in the 6700-series indicated it was a commercial aircraft.
Both Captain Rogers and Captain Carlson had this information.

[Ping]

And then they got medals.

I also heard a report that put the ship in Iranian waters at the time of the shooting.