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US intelligence: Israel will attack

Click for complete story Friday, 20 July 2001 18:21 (ET)

US intelligence: Israel will attack

By RICHARD SALE, UPI Terrorism Correspondent

The CIA believes Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has decided to launch a retaliatory full-scale attack on Palestinian-controlled territory if there is another suicide bombing attack, several former Agency and other U.S. intelligence officials said.

Some intelligence sources said they expected the Israeli attack probably within a matter of days.

"There's no question that he's going in," said a former CIA official, referring to Sharon.

The question for these sources was when. They think the Israelis would wait until after the summit of the Group of Eight industrialized nations in Genoa, Italy. The summit ends Sunday.

According to these sources, Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat was already engaged in talks with Syria about relocating Palestinian leaders to that country.

One former CIA official, still active in the region, said he believed that Sharon would wait for the next in the recent wave of car-bomb attacks before launching "a full-scale assault" designed to drive Arafat into exile and destroy the PA.

"You'll have public outrage, you'll have high morale among the Israeli military -- it's the perfect time," the official said.

However, senior Israeli officials, including Sharon himself, have insisted that troop movements this week were intended to strengthen Israel's defensive position. Israel's Deputy Foreign Minister Michael Melchior made this point in Washington Thursday.

Reports of an impending all-out Israeli attack have come as relations have worsened between the Israeli government and the CIA.

CIA Director George Tenet negotiated the cease-fire aimed at halting the seemingly endless violence in the West Bank and Gaza.

The CIA has been at the center of the Bush administration's efforts to stop the fighting between Palestinians and the Israeli Defense Forces that has claimed more than 600 lives, most of them Palestinians. But the cease-fire has all but collapsed, and observers point out that its collapse could be seen as a CIA failure.

A State Department official said, "The situation does not look good," and "We are all watching it," but he would not go so far as to confirm the impending attack. He also added that the Hadassah chain of hospitals in Israel "has been ratcheting up" its medical preparations.

Asked to comment, a State Department official said only: "You're getting into the area of sensitive foreign intelligence. We have no comment on intelligence operations."

As United Press International reported exclusively on June 12, Israel's military was poised to carry out a huge, full-force invasion that would involve two infantry and paratroop divisions, an armored force, plus large numbers of U.S.-supplied F-16 and F-15 jet fighters and Apache helicopter gunships that would attack the West Bank and Gaza including the major Palestinian cities of Ramallah, Qualqilya, Jericho, Tul karm, Nablus, Jenin, and Bethlehem. Portions of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip would be captured and held for an indeterminate length of time.

Under that plan, the Israeli forces would also capture and kill any members of Hamas, Hezbollah, the Islamic Jihad or other organizations defined by Israel as "terrorist." A "wanted list" has already been drawn up by Israeli intelligence services and approved by Sharon, according to a U.S. administration official.

At the time the plan was halted, thanks to strong warnings from senior Bush administration officials, U.S. government sources said. There was no official confirmation of this incident.

Foreign ministers of the industrialized nations, meeting in Rome this week in advance of the G8 summit, repeated earlier calls for a force of international observers to be sent to the West Bank and Gaza to reduce the Palestinian-Israeli tension. Secretary of State Colin Powell said the United States would support international observers if Israel accepted them.

But Sharon has rejected the proposal. Antony Cordesman, the Arleigh Burke Chair for Strategic Assessment at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said: "Sharon didn't like having monitors because it ended the `My word against your word' game when it came seeing who was escalating the violence."

What worries some U.S. intelligence analysts is that, as one put it, "all the logistic and other preparations" for such an assault have been completed, including beefing up Israeli medical treatment facilities. Others argue that the Israeli contingency plan has been in place for some time as an option if the situation worsened.

"The plan is in place," a U.S. intelligence official said.

According to one intelligence source: "The administration is talking to Sharon every day counseling patience."

But as David Schenker, Middle East analyst for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy told UPI recently, "If the cease-fire with Arafat doesn't hold, then the reprisal really could happen."

There has been a build-up of Israeli armor at strategic points, and the Sharon government has ploughed up road links to the West Bank, splitting the territory into eight blockaded zones, isolating Palestinian towns, and fuel supplies in the Gaza Strip have been cut off to reduce Palestinian mobility.

The huge numbers of Palestinians expected to be arrested would be kept in large detention centers, U.S. intelligence officials said.

An administration official pointed out that Sharon has been "churning out a lot of diversionary smoke," including false reports of Iranian soldiers moving into the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon, fear of Iranian missiles, questionable reports of increasing Iraqi activity. But one analyst said Iraqi forces are "concentrated ... mainly on the east-west road that leads to Syria and to the Golan Heights."

"Sharon is a fine strategist. He knows how to mislead and distract," said an administration official.

But a major concern in U.S. government circles is that a major Israeli offensive against the Palestinians might trigger a wider Middle East conflict involving Iraq and Syria.

A former Defense Intelligence Agency official, on the ground in the Gaza Strip, told UPI on June 27 that Israeli Merkava tanks and M113 armored personnel carriers were active around Netsarim and Khan Yunis, and that "roads around settlements have been completely cut off from Palestinian use while buildings, trees, and people have been moved (bulldozed) as the Israelis clear fields of fire."

One military expert in Washington pointed out, however, that armor movements could also be a way to deter Palestinian attacks.

Writing from Hebron, the largest city in the West Bank, on Tuesday, this same source told UPI: "the situation is extremely tense "

He added, "Israeli assassinations/abductions in Area A (the West Bank and Gaza) have taken the rug out from under PA efforts, limited as they may be in real capability, to keep the violence down or limited to 1967 borders."

This source added in the same report that Hebron, which contains 500,000 people, is ringed by Israeli settlements and IDF outposts and spoke of OH58 Scout helicopters overhead.

As for an Israeli reprisal, he predicted: "If more Palestinian (shootings) occur -- particularly across the Green Line (which separates Israel and the Palestinian territories) -- the Israelis may choose a 'rolling' response, upping the response each time."

This has already happened, U.S. officials said.

"After a while, the eye for an eye policy involves and endless exchange of eyes," a former CIA official said, speaking of Sharon. "You have to act." -- Copyright 2001 by United Press International. All rights reserved. --

-- Anonymous, July 20, 2001

Answers

Just found out this afternoon that one of my bosses' (a devout reform Jew) 15 y.o. son is in Israel at some kind of camp, probably for another week or so. She was only slightly concerned.

She was in my office when she told me, just part of some family news. It gave me a chance to bring up the Wallcam on my screen and ask her a few questions about it. Like what are those large dark splotches all about (she didn't know). She also didn't know about the Wallcam, and it took a while to convince her it was a live feed.

Just very strange that I probably have a much better idea than she has in what is happening over there. And just one more reason to hope it doesn't blow, at least in this case until Peter is safely back home again.

-- Anonymous, July 20, 2001

This is the second such strong report I've read and, actually, it surprises me that the Israelis haven't acted before now. Perhaps their support is not as strong as it once was, hence the Israelis have to wait for clear and unavoidable provocation before they go in so that they aren't heavily criticized by the international community.

That seems to be the pattern for pretty much anything re international conflicts these days.

-- Anonymous, July 20, 2001

They may not get clear and unavoidable provocation. The PA may continue just to nibble around the edges.

-- Anonymous, July 20, 2001

Most of the time, the suicide bombers blow themselves up and "only" injure Israelis, although they sometimes get one or two. It's a bit of a cost-benefit failure, despite the psychological effect. Occasionally, they get lucky and there are massive casualties. With that kind of record, though, I wouldn't be at all surprised if they do for the moment have a strategy of "nibbling" (as you so aptly describe) but will make a mistake and blow up a bunch of people.

-- Anonymous, July 20, 2001

What is it about this place? peter - wall - blown - splotches. And his mother is unconcerned?

Guess I've been reading too many of Carl's posts...

-- Anonymous, July 21, 2001

Me, well I'm wondering in the back of my head if this has any play into when hubby had to go on an unexpected mission last weekend.

Alas, he is deployed again.

Let's hope his powder keg cools off a bit for a long time.

-- Anonymous, July 21, 2001

Barefoot... my posts are usually simple reports of "news"... that some of you with over-active libidos choose to digress, that's not my fault...

-- Anonymous, July 21, 2001

Yesterday Peter's mother brought in an Israeli travel guide that had a closeup photo of a splotch on the wall. I thought I had heard that the wall was vandalized. From the Wallcam the splotches look like paintball to me. Turns out they're plants! Looked sort of like stringy seaweed, although probably very different from that.

-- Anonymous, July 24, 2001