-Caveat Lector-
US intelligence: Israel will attack
By RICHARD SALE, UPI Terrorism Correspondent
Friday, 20 July 2001 18:21 (ET)
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."
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