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Middle East
U.S. military plugs Israel into real-time war monitoring
2003-03-04
Israel and the United States have set up a joint command post next to the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv at which Israeli army officers will be able to view real-time pictures of the movements of American war planes over Iraq in the event of a war. In addition, an American early warning system that is hooked directly into U.S. intelligence satellites over Iraq was transferred to Israel a few weeks ago, giving Israel direct access to information on any Iraqi missile launches at its terrority. The aim is to prove to Israel that the U.S. is doing everything in its power to prevent Iraqi missiles from landing here, and therefore to convince it not to retaliate should any missiles nevertheless hit.
Why not? They held off last time. They've said they won't hold off this time. Why try and make them? To comfort Soddy Arabia?
According to the Wall Street Journal, Israel will be the only country other than the U.S. hooked directly into the U.S. Central Command's communications system. The joint command post in Tel Aviv will enable Israel Defense Forces officers to view what is termed the "common air picture". Israeli officers will thus be viewing exactly the same pictures as the U.S. officers running the war from the CENTCOM base in Qatar. A senior U.S. official told the Journal that this decision was made because the Americans' experience in the 1991 Gulf War convinced them that the best way to restrain the Israelis was to let them see for themselves that the U.S. was doing everything possible to eliminate the Iraqi threat. However, Israel will not be able to use this real-time information to launch its own attack on Iraq, since the Israeli air force will not be able to enter Iraqi airspace unless the U.S. supplies it with the IFF codes that distinguish friend from foe.
Bet they have them ready, just in case.
The other measure, the loan of the early warning system, is equally revolutionary. During the Gulf War, Israel received U.S. information about incoming Iraqi Scuds only three minutes after the missile launch — greatly shortening the available reaction time, since a Scud takes only six or seven minutes to travel from western Iraq to Tel Aviv. The satellite data was first relayed to America's ALERT system in Colorado, then to the U.S. Army command and only then to Israel. In 1996, the Clinton administration decided to hook Israel directly into the ALERT system, but even with this improvement, there was a 90-second lag time before Israel received the information. The loan of America's JTAGS early warning system will reduce the lag time to almost zero, giving Israel ample time to operate its Arrow and Patriot anti-missile batteries. In addition, unlike the ALERT system, JTAGS does not filter out any of the data.

The U.S. has also decided to set up a special sub-command, headed by a general from one of its special forces units, for the destruction of missile launchers in western and southern Iraq. The command will seize one or two airfields in western Iraq even before America begins the ground war and will use them as bases for anti-missile operations in the area. The U.S. will employ pilotless drones to locate and destroy the missile launchers. America's hope is that all these measures will persuade Israel to exercise restraint even if Iraq scores a successful missile strike on Israel. The U.S. has also warned Israel that should it respond to an Iraqi attack with non-conventional weapons, it would immediately forfeit all international support.
I guess that I don't have to tell you what "non-conventional" weapons are.
Posted by:Steve

#3  Fred, smartest thing the Israelis can do is play dumb and stay out of this. It's like scoring during a time out. We'll do all the work of removing Sammy, and the Israelis can show everyone how they were willing to restrain themselves in the name of peace. It keeps the Syrians and Soddis from having any excuse to interfere.
Posted by: Steve White   2003-03-05 00:05:33  

#2  The U.S. has also warned Israel that should it respond to an Iraqi attack with non-conventional weapons, it would immediately forfeit all international support.

What about, say, a Syrian attack? I have to believe that a lot of folks (including Israel) are looking at how they can use the impending chaos as cover for other operations.
Posted by: jrosevear   2003-03-04 12:15:45  

#1  It's nice to see that forthought is being given to Scud hunting. It came as an afterthought last time and caused quite a bit of diverting of resources. Sounds like we have the logistics and tactics figured out in advance this time.
Posted by: Chuck   2003-03-04 11:33:06  

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