To: lorne who wrote (123150 ) 2/2/2012 6:45:16 PM From: FJB 2 Recommendations Read Replies (1) | Respond to Panetta: “Strong likelihood” that Israel will attack Iran this spring hotair.com I’m skeptical , but the degree of saber-rattling at the Herzliya Conference today was off the charts. First the IDF’s intel chief estimated that Iran has enough uranium to make four bombs , the first of which could be ready in a year. Later Ehud Barak claimed that Iran’s underground enrichment facility at Fordow would soon be too heavily fortified to destroy from the air using conventional weapons, which means the window to attack is closing. Then Israel’s vice prime minister warned that the Iranian missile base that was hit by that oh-so-mysterious explosion in November was working on solid-fuel ICBMs with a range of 6,000 miles , which would expand Iran’s target list from Israel and Europe to the U.S. Take it all together and you’ve got the Israeli brass warning America publicly that soon we’ll face the same nuclear threat as Israel unless someone acts imminently.Panetta believes there is strong likelihood that Israel will strike Iran in April, May or June — before Iran enters what Israelis described as a “zone of immunity” to commence building a nuclear bomb. “You stay to the side, and let us do it,” one Israel official is said to have advised the United States. A “short-war” scenario assumes five days or so of limited Israeli strikes, followed by a U.N.-brokered cease-fire. Israelis are said to recognize that damage to the nuclear program might be modest, requiring another strike in a few years .
