Posted on 09/23/2011 4:36:57 AM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
'Obama sold special bombs to Israel'
New report claims US secretly approved transfer of 'bunker buster' bombs that could be used in attack against Iran just months after Barack Obama took office, even though Bush administration had previously blocked deal
Ynet Published: 09.23.11, 11:25 / Israel News
The upcoming issue of Newsweek, which is set to hit newsstands on Monday, claims that two years ago US President Barack Obama secretly approved the transfer of 55 "bunker-busters", a form of deep-penetrating bombs, to Israel. The country had been requesting the bombs since the time of the Bush administration, the Daily Beast website reported on Friday.
According to the report, US and Israeli officials told Newsweek that the GBU-28 type bombs, which could be potentially be used in an attack on Iran's nuclear sites, were transferred to Israel in 2009, just several months after Obama came into office.
Israel had asked the US for "bunker-busters" in 2005, but the Bush administration refused the request. At the time, the report noted, the Pentagon had frozen nearly all joint Israel-US defense plans over fears that Israel was transferring advanced technological intel to China.
In 2007 Bush told then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that he would order the bomb transfer in 2009 or 2010. Now the report reveals that Obama had already approved the transfer of the advanced weapons two years ago.
The report said that James Cartwright, the Marine Corps general who served until August as the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, noted that the military chiefs had no objections to the sale.
Cartwright said, there was a concern about “how the Iranians would perceive it,” and “how the Israelis might perceive it.” It was feared that the move would be seen
(Excerpt) Read more at ynetnews.com ...
See! Obama really is a friend of Israel!
The media is trying to repaint the picture to get the Jewish vote back...
Sounds like the left is worried about the Jewish votes.
nobama is a “friend” of everyone. We peons are miserably misinformed. How dare we doubt the nobama.
As I recall Bush approved this request, but then Obama left them on Diego Garcia for the past 2 years. Did he finally allow the final shipment?
If I remember correctly, Obama then refused to sell Israel the planes necessary to deliver these bombs...
From wikipedia:
The first foreign sale of the GBU-28 was the acquisition of 100 units by Israel, authorized in April 2005.[9] Delivery of the weapons was accelerated at the request of Israel in July 2006. Delivery was described as "upcoming" in a cable dated November 2009 which suggested that the weapon could be used against Iran's nuclear facilities.[10]
If he did, the Israelis had better check them to make sure they will work.
Everything I see on this says it was blocked by the Obama admin and the load was diverted to Diego Garcia.
The United States has diverted a shipment of bunker-busters designated for Israel.
Officials said the U.S. military was ordered to divert a shipment of smart bunker-buster bombs from Israel to a military base in Diego Garcia. They said the shipment of 387 smart munitions had been slated to join pre-positioned U.S. military equipment in Israel Air Force bases.
http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-421788
Because B.O. is the first Jewish President doncha see.
And Bush? Not quite s’much.
Thus sayeth Newsweek.
If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.
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I don't believe the article is true. There have been numberous articles indicating that while Obama did approve the transfer, GWB didn't, but he "delivered" them to Israel at Diego Garcia, essentially useless without US consent.
“President Obama is our friend!” - /s
Sounds likely.
Alternate explanation being that his Saudi masters are soiling their sheets at the prospect of the Persian Bomb and pressing for something to be done about it, even if that means surreptitious support for Israel to do the deed.
What planes were those? I am trying to think of what they could be (unless you mean selling them F-22 Raptors) and I am not coming up with anything. Especially considering the Israelis operate one of the bigger fleets of F-15s (both C and E variants) and F-16s; and will be getting the F-35 (if it ever solves all its technical/cost issues). What planes are you referring to? Or do you mean the F-15 Silent Eagle concept, of which none exists apart from a mock up of a modified Strike Eagle (to show what the Silent Eagle would look like) plus another modified Strike Eagle (with comformal weapon bays that was used to test firing of AMRAAMs from them). And even then it cannot be the F-15 SE concept because the only weapons it can carry internally are the AMRAAM, the Sidewinder, the JDAM and the SDB. The GBU-28 bunker buster referred to in the article is a 5,000 pound class weapon which is 25 feet long that cannot be carried internally by a fighter sized aircraft. Meaning it cannot be carried by the F-15 SE (if it gets produced), or the F-35 or F-22 for that matter. The only fighter size aircraft that can carry the GBU-28 penetrator is the F-15E (the F-111 was also cleared for it, and Australia was the last user of the Aadvark), and Israel probably has the second highest number of F-15Es in existence after the US. Hence my wondering what aircraft were denied to them for carrying this weapon.
According to every thing I read, Obama has refused to sell or deliver any military aircraft to Israel since he took office...
The C-130J is the one I was thinking of...I understand that Israel was looking for the capability to deliver bombs that required something big such as the B-52 or a C-130 type of plain...
plain=plane
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