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Israeli air force unable to destroy Iran nuclear plants, says report
Israel would not be able to destroy Iran's nuclear program in a pre-emptive air strike with its air force, forcing its leadership to look for alternative means of attack, a defence report has said.Experts believe Israel's military options are restricted to high-risk choices, such as a long-range missile bombardment from Israel or a special forces raid on the ground. The military journal Jane's Defence Weekly cast doubt on Israel's ability to mount a successful operation, saying it would face ''substantial difficulties''. ''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,'' it said. Israel has the most powerful air force in the Middle East but would struggle to mount the complex strikes necessary to deal a real blow to Iran's nuclear plants. Advertisement: Story continues below Senior Israeli officials have said the country is prepared to take unilateral action to stop Iran acquiring a nuclear bomb. Israel destroyed Saddam Hussein's Osirak nuclear reactor in 1982 and hit a Syrian reactor in 2007. However, for Iran, the air force would have to carry out numerous strikes with air-to-air refuelling, possibly over several days. ''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. ''And the Iranians are experts in building reinforced concrete because of their long problems with earthquakes. But air strikes could destroy power plants, supply facilities, communications and the centrifuges themselves would be very sensitive to blast. They could do quite a lot of damage which would set back the program for a period.'' Posted by: tipper 2012-04-09 |
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