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Israel downplays Iranian threat to fire 600 missiles
Israeli officials are treating Iran's latest claims that it has 600 Shihab-3 missiles aimed at targets throughout the country the same way it treated Teheran's claims last month to have crossed a key nuclear threshold: by listening carefully, but not believing everything they hear. "We don't believe all the Iranian rhetoric. I don't even think the average Iranian believes it," a senior official in the Prime Minister's Office said of the Monday claim. "We are not flippant and are watching carefully, but that doesn't mean we believe everything they say." The official said that few in the world believed Iranian claims earlier this month that they had 3,000 centrifuges in place and running - a process that could produce enough enriched uranium for an atom bomb within a year. "They just want the world to believe that they have passed the point of no return, so that any further pressure would be useless," the official said. Likewise, regarding the Shihab missiles, the official said the Iranians wanted to try and frighten the world away from thinking about possible military action. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert made a similar statement at a briefing with senior journalists from Israel's Russian-language media on Monday, saying that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was trying to frighten the world into thinking that it was "too late" to get the Iranians to stop their nuclear march. Olmert said Israel was not afraid of the situation in Iran: "We are concerned, but we don't have to lose our head." Earlier Monday, an Iranian Web site affiliated with the regime reported that 600 Shihab-3 missiles were pointed at targets throughout Israel and would be launched if either Iran or Syria were attacked. "Iran will shoot 600 missiles at Israel if it is attacked," the Iranian news Web site, Assar Iran, reported, saying such a barrage would "only be the first reaction." Posted by: Fred 2007-09-18 |
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