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The Iran Attack Plan (article from Wall Street Journal online)

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...DDLESecondNews

SEPTEMBER 26, 2009.

The Iran Attack Plan

Iran's acknowledgment that it is developing a second uranium-
enrichment facility does little to dispel the view that the regime is
developing a weapons program. Israel must consider not just whether to
proceed with a strike against Iran—but how.

By Anthony H. Cordesman

When the Israeli army’sthen-Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Halutz was asked
in 2004 how far Israel would go to stop Iran's nuclear program, he
replied: "2,000 kilometers," roughly the distance been the two
countries.

Israel's political and military leaders have long made it clear that
they are considering taking decisive military action if Iran continues
to develop its nuclear program. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
warned at the United Nations this week that "the most urgent challenge
facing this body is to prevent the tyrants of Tehran from acquiring
nuclear weapons."

Reporting by the International Atomic Energy Agency and other sources
has made it clear that whether or not Iran ties all of its efforts
into a formal nuclear weapons program, it has acquired all of the
elements necessary to make and deliver such weapons. Just Friday, Iran
confirmed that it has been developing a second uranium-enrichment
facility on a military base near Qom, doing little to dispel the long-
standing concerns of Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia, and the
U.S. that Iran is developing nuclear weapons.

Iran has acquired North Korean and other nuclear weapons design data
through sources like the sales network once led by the former head of
Pakistan's nuclear program, A. Q. Khan. Iran has all of the technology
and production and manufacturing capabilities needed for fission
weapons. It has acquired the technology to make the explosives needed
for a gun or implosion device, the triggering components, and the
neutron initiator and reflectors. It has experimented with machine
uranium and plutonium processing. It has put massive resources into a
medium-range missile program that has the range payload to carry
nuclear weapons and that makes no sense with conventional warheads. It
has also worked on nuclear weapons designs for missile warheads. These
capabilities are dispersed in many facilities in many cities and
remote areas, and often into many buildings in each facility—each of
which would have to be a target in an Israeli military strike.

It is far from certain that such action would be met with success. An
Israeli strike on Iran would be far more challenging than the Israeli
strike that destroyed Iraq's Osirak reactor in 1981. An effective
Israeli nuclear strike may not be possible, yet a regional nuclear
arms race is a game that Iran can start, but cannot possibly win.
Anyone who meets regularly with senior Israeli officials, officers and
experts knows that Israel is considering military options, but
considering them carefully and with an understanding that they pose
serious problems and risks.

One of the fundamental problems dogging Israel, especially concerning
short-ranged fighters and fighter-bombers, is distance. Iran's
potential targets are between 950 and 1,400 miles from Israel, the far
margin of the ranges Israeli fighters can reach, even with aerial
refueling. Israel would be hard-pressed to destroy all of Iran's best-
known targets. What's more, Iran has had years in which to build up
covert facilities, disperse elements of its nuclear and missile
programs, and develop options for recovering from such an attack.

At best, such action would delay Iran's nuclear buildup. It is more
likely to provoke the country into accelerating its plans. Either way,
Israel would have to contend with the fact that it has consistently
had a "red light" from both the Bush and Obama administrations
opposing such strikes. Any strike that overflew Arab territory or
attacked a fellow Islamic state would stir the ire of neighboring Arab
states, as well as Russia, China and several European states.

This might not stop Israel. Hardly a week goes by without another
warning from senior Israeli officials that a military strike is
possible, and that Israel cannot tolerate a nuclear-armed Iran, even
though no nation has indicated it would support such action. President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad continues to threaten Israel and to deny its right
to exist. At the same time, President Barack Obama is clearly
committed to pursuing diplomatic options, his new initiatives and a
U.N. resolution on nuclear arms control and counterproliferation, and
working with our European allies, China and Russia to impose sanctions
as a substitute for the use of force.

Mr. Ahmadinejad keeps denying that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons,
and tries to defend Iran from both support for sanctions and any form
of attack by saying that Iran will negotiate over its peaceful use of
nuclear power. He offered some form of dialogue with the U.S. during
his visit to the U.N. this week. While French President Nicolas
Sarkozy denounced Iran's continued lack of response to the Security
Council this week, and said its statements would "wipe a U.N. member
state off the map," no nation has yet indicated it would support
Israeli military action.

Most analyses of a possible Israeli attack focus on only three of
Iran's most visible facilities: its centrifuge facilities at Natanz,
its light water nuclear power reactor near Bushehr, and a heavy water
reactor at Arak it could use to produce plutonium. They are all some
950 to 1,000 miles from Israel. Each of these three targets differs
sharply in terms of the near-term risk it poses to Israel and its
vulnerability.

The Arak facility is partially sheltered, but it does not yet have a
reactor vessel and evidently will not have one until 2011. Arak will
not pose a tangible threat for at least several years. The key problem
Israel would face is that it would virtually have to strike it as part
of any strike on the other targets, because it cannot risk waiting and
being unable to carry out another set of strikes for political
reasons. It also could then face an Iran with much better air
defenses, much better long-range missile forces, and at least some
uranium weapons.

Bushehr is a nuclear power reactor along Iran's southwestern coast in
the Gulf. It is not yet operational, although it may be fueled late
this year. It would take some time before it could be used to produce
plutonium, and any Iranian effort to use its fuel rods for such a
purpose would be easy to detect and lead Iran into an immediate
political confrontation with the United Nations and other states.
Bushehr also is being built and fueled by Russia—which so far has been
anything but supportive of an Israeli strike and which might react to
any attack by making major new arms shipments to Iran.

The centrifuge facility at Natanz is a different story. It is
underground and deeply sheltered, and is defended by modern short-
range Russian TOR-M surface-to-air missiles. It also, however, is the
most important target Israel can fully characterize. Both Israeli and
outside experts estimate that it will produce enough low enriched
uranium for Iran to be able to be used in building two fission nuclear
weapons by some point in 2010—although such material would have to be
enriched far more to provide weapons-grade U-235.

Israel has fighters, refueling tankers and precision-guided air-to-
ground weapons to strike at all of these targets—even if it flies the
long-distance routes needed to avoid the most critical air defenses in
neighboring Arab states. It is also far from clear that any Arab air
force would risk engaging Israeli fighters. Syria, after all, did not
attempt to engage Israeli fighters when they attacked the reactor
being built in Syria.

In August 2003, the Israeli Air Force demonstrated the strategic
capability to strike far-off targets such as Iran by flying three F-15
jets to Poland, 1,600 nautical miles away. Israel can launch and
refuel two to three full squadrons of combat aircraft for a single set
of strikes against Iran, and provide suitable refueling. Israel could
also provide fighter escorts and has considerable electronic-warfare
capability to suppress Iran's aging air defenses. It might take losses
to Iran's fighters and surface-to-air missiles, but such losses would
probably be limited.

Israel would, however, still face two critical problems. The first
would be whether it can destroy a hardened underground facility like
Natanz. The second is that a truly successful strike might have to hit
far more targets over a much larger area than the three best-known
sites. Iran has had years to build up covert and dispersed facilities,
and is known to have dozens of other facilities associated with some
aspect of its nuclear programs. Moreover, Israel would have to
successfully strike at dozens of additional targets to do substantial
damage to another key Iranian threat: its long-range missiles.

Experts sharply disagree as to whether the Israeli air force could do
more than limited damage to the key Iranian facility at Natanz. Some
feel it is too deeply underground and too hardened for Israel to have
much impact. Others believe that it is more vulnerable than
conventional wisdom has it, and Israel could use weapons like the
GBU-28 earth-penetrating bombs it has received from the U.S. or its
own penetrators, which may include a nuclear-armed variant, to
permanently collapse the underground chambers.

No one knows what specialized weapons Israel may have developed on its
own, but Israeli intelligence has probably given Israel good access to
U.S., European, and Russian designs for more advanced weapons than the
GBU-28. Therefore, the odds are that Israel can have a serious impact
on Iran's three most visible nuclear targets and possibly delay Iran's
efforts for several years.

The story is very different, however, when it comes to destroying the
full range of Iranian capabilities. There are no meaningful
unclassified estimates of Iran's total mix of nuclear facilities, but
known unclassified research, reactor, and centrifuge facilities number
in the dozens. It became clear just this week that Iran managed to
conceal the fact it was building a second underground facility for
uranium enrichment near Qom, 100 miles southwest of Tehran, and that
was designed to hold 3,000 centrifuges. Iran is developing at least
four variants of its centrifuges, and the more recent designs have far
more capacity than most of the ones installed at Natanz.

This makes it easier to conceal chains of centrifuges in a number of
small, dispersed facilities and move material from one facility to
another. Iran's known centrifuge production facilities are scattered
over large areas of Iran, and at least some are in Mashad in the far
northeast of the country—far harder to reach than Arak, Bushehr and
Natanz.

Many of Iran's known facilities present the added problem that they
are located among civilian facilities and peaceful nuclear-research
activities—although Israel's precision-strike capabilities may well be
good enough to allow it to limit damage to nearby civilian facilities.

It is not clear that Israel can win this kind of "shell game." It is
doubtful that even the U.S. knows all the potential targets, and even
more doubtful that any outside power can know what each detected
Iranian facility currently does—and the extent to which each can hold
dispersed centrifuge facilities that Iran could use instead of Natanz
to produce weapons-grade uranium. As for the other elements of Iran's
nuclear programs, it has scattered throughout the country the
technical and industrial facilities it could use to make the rest of
fission nuclear weapons. The facilities can now be in too many places
for an Israeli strike to destroy Iran's capabilities.

Israel also faces limits on its military capabilities. Strong as
Israeli forces are, they lack the scale, range and other capabilities
to carry out the kind of massive strike the U.S. could launch. Israel
does not have the density and quality of intelligence assets necessary
to reliably assess the damage done to a wide range of small and
disperse targets and to detect new Iranian efforts.

Israel has enough strike-attack aircraft and fighters in inventory to
carry out a series of restrikes if Iran persisted in rebuilding, but
it could not refuel a large-enough force, or provide enough
intelligence and electronic warfare capabilities, to keep striking
Iran at anything like the necessary scale. Moreover, Israel does not
have enough forces to carry out a series of restrikes if Iran
persisted in creating and rebuilding new facilities, and Arab states
could not repeatedly standby and let Israel penetrate their air space.
Israel might also have to deal with a Russia that would be far more
willing to sell Iran advanced fighters and surface-to-air missiles if
Israel attacked the Russian-built reactor at Bushehr.

These problems are why a number of senior Israeli intelligence experts
and military officers feel that Israel should not strike Iran,
although few would recommend that Israel avoid using the threat of
such strikes to help U.S. and other diplomatic efforts to persuade
Iran to halt. For example, retired Brigadier General Shlomo Brom
advocates, like a number of other Israeli experts, reliance on
deterrence and Israel's steadily improving missile defenses.

Any Israeli attack on an Iranian nuclear target would be a very
complex operation in which a relatively large number of attack
aircraft and support aircraft would participate. The conclusion is
that Israel could attack only a few Iranian targets—not as part of a
sustainable operation over time, but as a one-time surprise
operation.

The alternatives, however, are not good for Israel, the U.S., Iran's
neighbors or Arab neighbors. Of course being attacked is not good for
Iran. Israel could still strike, if only to try to buy a few added
years of time. Iranian persistence in developing nuclear weapons could
push the U.S. into launching its own strike on Iran—although either an
Israeli or U.S. strike might be used by Iran's hardliners to justify
an all-out nuclear arms race. Further, it is far from clear that
friendly Arab Gulf states would allow the U.S. to use bases on their
soil for the kind of massive strike and follow-on restrikes that the
U.S. would need to suppress Iran's efforts on a lasting basis.

The broader problem for Iran, however, is that Israel will not wait
passively as Iran develops a nuclear capability. Like several Arab
states, Israel already is developing better missile and air defenses,
and more-advanced forms of its Arrow ballistic missile defenses. There
are reports that Israel is increasing the range-payload of its nuclear-
armed missiles and is developing sea-based nuclear-armed cruise
missiles for its submarines.

While Iran is larger than Israel, its population centers are so
vulnerable to Israeli thermonuclear weapons that Israel already is a
major "existential" threat to Iran. Moreover, provoking its Arab
neighbors and Turkey into developing their nuclear capabilities, or
the U.S. into offering them a nuclear umbrella targeted on Iran, could
create additional threats, as well as make Iran's neighbors even more
dependent on the U.S. for their security. Iran's search for nuclear-
armed missiles may well unite its neighbors against it as well as
create a major new nuclear threat to its survival.

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