Posted on 09/04/2002 6:51:20 AM PDT by kattracks
JERUSALEM, Sept 4 (Reuters) - Israeli officials have told emergency and security services to complete preparations within a few months for Iraqi attacks against Israel in the event of a U.S. assault on Iraq, security sources said on Wednesday. Israel's Ha'aretz newspaper reported that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon gave the order and set an early November deadline for the preparations to be finished.
A spokesman for Sharon declined to comment on the report.
Ha'aretz reported that Israel had not received word from Washington on the timing of any attack on Iraq and that Sharon had chosen November 1 as a reasonable deadline for preparations.
The security sources told Reuters that Israeli security and military chiefs have been holding constant consultations about the possible threat from Iraq, which fired 39 Scud missiles at Israel during the 1991 Gulf War.
In those meetings, emergency and security services were instructed to complete their civil defence preparations within several months, the sources said.
Since the Gulf War, the army has been issuing gas masks to all Israelis as part of a regular nationwide distribution programme prompted by fears Iraq may have non-conventional weapons such as nerve gas or biological agents.
Israeli Deputy Defence Minister Weizman Shiri said in an interview published on the website of Israel's biggest newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth on Wednesday that Israeli health authorities would have 15 million smallpox dosages on hand by November.
Under U.S. pressure to avoid action that could shatter an Arab coalition that Washington forged in the 1991 campaign to oust Iraqi invasion forces from Kuwait, Israel held its fire when Scuds slammed into its cities.
ISRAEL LIKELY TO RESPOND TO IRAQI ATTACK
Israeli officials have signalled Israel would not sit still this time if Iraq launched missiles against it.
"Israel will respond to any attack by Iraq," Shiri said in the interveiw.
He said the Israeli military response would be proportionate to the type of attack Iraq launched.
"We do not want to harm the Iraqi people, starve them or deal a heavy blow to their electrical grid," Shiri said. "Our problem is not with the Iraqi people but with its leader. Since Hitler, there has never been a man as dangerous as Saddam Hussein."
Shiri noted that Israel had developed the Arrow anti-missile missile against the Scud threat and the capability to track incoming ballistic missiles almost from the point of launch.
Israel also has U.S.-supplied Patriot missiles, which largely failed to intercept Scuds during the 1991 war. But the missiles have since been improved and Israeli media recently reported the Israeli military had conducted Patriot drills in northern and southern Israel.
"After a tour of the homeland defence command and consultations in the defence establishment...I can say we are well prepared for any eventuality," Shiri said. ((Jerusalem newsroom, +972-25370502, jerusalem.newsroom@reuters.com))
The pali's get bubkis....
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