Behind The Story Of Israel’s Aborted Nuclear Strike

Feb 20, 2007 07:48

A digest of "Behind The Story Of Israel’s Aborted Nuclear Strike"

CAN YOU CONFIRM?

On Tuesday, January 9, I passed through a telephone security screen to reach my deepest and most trusted source, a combat veteran whose “chops” included exceptional “boots on the ground” connections within the military, government and intelligence agencies of the United States and, as he put it, “non-U.S.” countries.

Having broken major stories together over many years, I knew my source to be precise and accurate in his statements. This soldier told it straight, without exaggeration.

After exchanging high-fives over the phone I told him that I had been tipped to an Israel nuclear strike against Iran on January 7. Could he confirm?

“Yes,” he said without hesitation.

After a stunned silence, I asked, “Would you care to expand on that?”

He wouldn’t.

It took a three-and-a-half hour conversation to elicit details describing how a trio of minimally marked Israeli F-16s from a “no name” IAF detachment had flown a regulation “racetrack” pattern over Iraq.

With their pilots hidden behind polarized canopies, the nondescript Israeli jets had “tanked up” from an American KC-135 tanker, before suddenly diverting “downtown” towards the Iranian border.

Intercepted by American fighters, the Israeli high command had once again ordered them to return to base.

Once again?

This was the third attempted Israeli nuclear strike on Iran, my source told me. Though he would not provide the earlier dates, he said that each raid had been launched after public statements by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad were interpreted as clear or coded signals for imminent war on Israel.

How big were each of the three bombs carried by the Israeli F-16s, I asked my source.

His reply was immediate: “Twenty kilotons.”

“Twenty kilotons!”

Within four hours of my story being posted online, the operatives who keep tabs on my primary source were knocking on his door.

“These are serious guys,” he informed me when I reached him for a follow-up. But this time they were acting as “point people” sent to deliver a message from a list of governments and intelligence agencies that took 45 seconds to recite.

“I timed them,” he said.

http://www.willthomas.net/Convergence/Weekly/Aborted_Israeli_Air_Strike.htm