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Bushehr nuclear facility in Iran (file)
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| By Israel Insider staff and partners February 24, 2007 |
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Israel has reportedly requested permission from the United States to fly through Iraqi airspace in case Jerusalem should decide to attack Iran's nuclear facilities, the British Daily Telegraph reported Saturday.
A senior Israeli defense official said negotiations were underway for the US to provide an air corridor over Iraq.
However, Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh denied the report Saturday and said any talk of an Israeli offensive against Iran was speculative alone.
Sneh said the reports apparently came from sources that did not want to uphold responsibility for the diplomatic inaction regarding Iran?s possible nuclear armament.
"It is convenient for them to roll the ball into the Israeli court," Sneh said.
In the event that Israel should target Iran's nuclear facilities, Israeli war planes would have to fly across Iraq to reach their targets, for which they need authorization from the Pentagon.
The Israeli defense official who spoke to the Telegraph said Israel was "planning for every eventuality, and sorting out issues such as these are crucially important."
"The only way to do this is to fly through US-controlled air space. If we don't sort these issues out now we could have a situation where American and Israeli war planes start shooting at each other," he added.
The Telegraph noted that "the pace of military planning in Israel has accelerated markedly since the start of this year after Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service, provided a stark intelligence assessment that Iran, given the current rate of progress being made on its uranium enrichment programme, could have enough fissile material for a nuclear warhead by 2009."
Last week PM Ehud Olmert announced that he had persuaded Meir Dagan, the head of Mossad for the past six years and one of Israel's leading experts on Iran's nuclear programme, to defer his retirement until at least the end of next year.
Olmert also assigned overall control of the military aspects of the Iran issue to Eliezer Shkedi, the head of the Israeli Air Force and a former F-16 fighter pilot.
"Of course, attacking Iran is not going to be easy, but we cannot just sit here and let the ayatollahs develop a nuclear weapons arsenal," a senior Israeli defence official told the Telegraph. "Doing nothing is just not an option."
Although recent statements from Israeli officials have appeared to indicated some patience in letting sanctions work, or enlisting the U.S. to carry out a strike, the leadership in Israel wants to convey the message that the nation ready and able to act on its own if need be. "After the September 11 attacks, we now live in an age of pre-emption," said a senior Olmert adviser quoted by the Telegraph. "The Jewish people have not forgotten the last time the world watched and did nothing. We are determined that shall never happen again."
YnetNews contributed to this report.
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