Olmert's stray comment fuels the nuclear debate (admits arsenal!)

[WhiteTara]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1970178,00.html

he Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, stumbled into controversy last night after apparently admitting that his country possesses a nuclear arsenal. Although widely believed to be the only nuclear power in the Middle East, Israel has for decades refused to confirm or deny the existence of a nuclear weapons programme.

But arriving in Berlin for talks with the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, Mr Olmert seemed yesterday to undercut the longstanding policy of "strategic ambiguity". He is on a three-day trip to Germany and Italy, to lobby for stronger action to stop Iran developing nuclear weapons.

Asked by a television interviewer if Israel's alleged nuclear activities weakened his argument against Iran's atomic plans, Mr Olmert said: "Iran, openly, explicitly and publicly threatens to wipe Israel off the map. Can you say that this is the same level - when they are aspiring to have nuclear weapons - as America, France, Israel, Russia?".

Israeli officials were quick to deny that the comments marked any policy change. Mr Olmert's spokeswoman, Miri Eisin, said he did not mean to say that Israel had or aspired to acquire nuclear weapons.

The CIA first concluded that Israel had begun to produce nuclear weapons in 1968, but few details emerged until 1986 when Mordechai Vanunu, a former technician at Israel's nuclear weapons facility, gave the Sunday Times detailed descriptions that led defence analysts to rank the country as the sixth largest nuclear power.
more

Another pink elephant sitting in the living room is noticed finally.

[nashville_brook]

1. "Israel nuclear capability" wiki

Nuclear weapons capability

According to The Nuclear Threat Initiative, based on Vanunu's information, Israel has approximately 100–200 nuclear explosive devices and a Jericho missile delivery system. A United States Defense Intelligence Agency report (leaked and published in the book Rumsfeld's War: The Untold Story of America's Anti-Terrorist Commander by journalist Rowan Scarborough in 2004) puts the number of weapons at 82. U.S. intelligence sources in the late 1990s estimated 75–130 <14>. The difference might lie in the amount of material Israel has on store versus assembled weapons.
Israel has operated three modern German-built Dolphin-class submarines <15> since 1999. Various reports indicate that these submarines are equipped with American-made Harpoon missiles modified to carry small nuclear warheads <16> and/or the larger Israeli-made "Popeye Turbo" cruise missiles, originally developed for air-to-ground strike capability <17>.

No known nuclear weapons test has been conducted within Israel, although the boosted weapons shown in Vanunu's photographs may well have required testing. It is also possible that the Israelis received results from French nuclear testing in the 1960s. In June 1976, the West Germany Army magazine, Wehrtechnik, claimed that a 1963 underground test took place in the Negev, and other reports indicate that some type of non-nuclear test, perhaps a zero yield or implosion test, may have occurred on 2 November 1966. <18> In September 1979, a Vela satellite may have detected a 3 kiloton oceanic nuclear explosion near to South Africa, accompanied by underwater acoustic and ionospheric effects which may have been a joint nuclear test between Israel and South Africa (see Vela Incident and Israel-South Africa relations).

[pa28]

2. Here's an item posted recently and worth re-posting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yf39qkvwOhU

Keeping up the pretense of ambiguity seems unnecessary.

[DoYouEverWonder]

3. Now that the Israelis are admitting they have nukes

can the UN send in inspectors to monitor them at least?

[greccogirl]

4. Everyone has always known that

Israel has nukes.

[DoYouEverWonder]

5. Of course

but no one has ever been able to inspect them, since Israel has always publicly denied their existance.

[0007]

13. 'Tis also a big shame the way Israel has treated Mordechai Vanunu - The Israel Nuclear Scientist

Mordechai Vanunu spent 18 years in prison, including more than 11 years served in solitary confinement. Vanunu was released from prison in 2004, subject to a broad array of restrictions on his speech and movement. Since then he has been briefly arrested several times for multiple violations of those restrictions, including giving various interviews to foreign journalists and attempting to leave Israel. The court proceedings are ongoing, as well as Vanunu's appeal to the Supreme Court of the restrictions on his speech and movement.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mordechai_Vanunu

[greccogirl]

16. Why would they need to be "inspected?"

[Poll_Blind]

17. All nations with nuclear programs, especially weapons programs...

...are pressured to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Part of the treaty includes inspections by the IAEA. Signatories of the NPT are bound by the treaty not to provide military assistance (and certainly nuclear technology) to nuclear nations which have not signed the treaty.

  However the United States has decided to break the NPT in Israel's case (secretly) and in India's case (publicly). This would seem to be de facto rejection of the NPT. But why is that important? Well, the NPT is the most useful tool in isolating non-signatory nuclear countries like Korea (famously) and Pakistan. India and Israel are the other two who have not signed but who have received nuclear technology from the United States, anyway.

  It weakens greatly the United States' ability to put pressure on Iran for its yet-to-be nuclear program and opens the door for a whole host of wanna-be nuclear nations for having their nuclear programs but not actually being bound by anything.

  No IAEA inspections means the world has a poor idea of the conditions of various nuclear power plants and that causes big problems if a country creates a nuclear power plant, for instance, which malfunctions and spews radioactivity into the rest of the world.

  For instance the Dimona nuclear power plant is getting pretty old as far as nuclear power plants go and questions of safety have been brought up in the Israeli press especially after a dozen or so Israeli workers, including at least one Shoah survivor, developed cancer after working at Dimona. There have also been radioactive "hot spots" found in the desert around Dimona, which has caused a great deal of concern in Israel about the safety of an unregulated, secret nuclear power plant/weapon processing facility.

  You can learn a bit more from this BBC program on Israel and the Dimona reactor. It covers alot of subtopics, including the health issues and the admission by an Israeli Dimona worker that a coverup was used to remove a large chunk of radioactive soil after it was discovered by Israelis in the desert.

PB

[leesa]

6. So isn't this what everyone gets so hysterical about? LYING about WMDs?

Yet Israel can lie about them since 1968 and it's A-OK.

[Nihil]

7. Nah ... it's not a problem if Israel lies about WMDs ...

... because it will only be a matter of days before this admission
is firmly deposited in the memory hole, never to be mentioned again.

It all depends on who's doing the lying.

[Scurrilous]

8. Olmert: We won’t be first to introduce nukes to Middle East

<snip>

"Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Tuesday afternoon during a joint press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin that "Israel will not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons to the Middle East."

Olmert referred to his slip of the tongue in an interview with German television broadcast Monday, in which he indirectly admitted that Israel possesses nuclear weapons.

"I reiterate that Israel has not change its policy on the nuclear issue and will not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons to the Middle East. I stressed it twice in the interview I gave and I don’t think we should elaborate or hold a public discussion on this," Olmert added."

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3339192,00.html

[PCIntern]

9. You would have preferred perhaps that he would have said

that Israel was going to wipe Iran off the map?

You're just so predictible. Israel should disarm and await the good-natured Pan-Arab folk to come in and establish order, right?

[Scurrilous]

10. I would have preferred Mr. Olmert drop the charade...

...and admit what everyone already knows.

Israel was the first to introduce nuclear weapons to the mid-East.

To state otherwise is a lie.

[PCIntern]

11. Yeah they do nothing but lie lie lie...

unlike your preferred groups who ae always so open and above-board. Maybe, just maybe, the cognitive dissonance is what assists in keeping the relative peace over there. See, it's all sort of a mystery, and this type of psychological warfare against the enemy is most effective. The mistake Americans make is that they telegraph everything to the enemy. "Shock and awe" is neither when you know it's coming.

[burythehatchet]

12. Excellent strategy

I think Iran might use it as well, you know, to keep the "relative peace".

[PCIntern]

14. "Iran Conference Denying Holocaust in Second Day" MSNBC Headline

Maybe your buddy wants to be the first one on the block to cause a REAL Jewish Holocaust. Perhpas he doesn't want to be an 'also-ran' latecomer to the 'party'.

I know, he's much 'misunderstood'.

[Name removed]

15. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[nicoll]

18. There should be no nuclear weapons in the Middle East at all

Iran should not have nuclear weapons, but then no country in the Middle East should be allowed to have that capability. If there is a possibility that Israel does have nuclear weapons then they should be inspected to check the facts. If they do then in my opinion they should be removed. If Israel was inspected and found to process nuclear weapons capability then it does weaken the argument for stooping Iran from possessing the same capability as Israel. That is why it is important that Israel's nuclear weapons capability is checked. Otherwise it just looks like the international community is biased to-wards Israel and against Iran.

NO NUCLEAR WEAPONS FOR ANY COUNTRIES IN THE MIDDLE EAST - NO EXCEPTIONS.

[Scurrilous]

19. EU Demands Answers on Israeli Nukes

It's difficult to put the the nuclear genie back in the bottle once it's been let out. But that's just what Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is trying to do after appearing to list Israel as one of the nuclear states. Europe, though, wants to know what he actually meant.

<snip>

"Even as Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert does his best to convince the world that he didn't actually admit his country's possession of nuclear weapons in remarks this week, scepticism is widespread. Indeed, Finnish Defense Minister Seppo Kääriäinen is now demanding that the Israeli leader clarify what, exactly, he was getting at.

"I think that Mr. Olmert has to provide a more detailed explanation of what this information in fact means," Kääriäinen told the German daily Berliner Zeitung. He said the EU will closely observe what effect Olmert's comments have on the Middle East and hopes that "the international crisis management, which began in the summer in Lebanon, can carry on without limitations."

Olmert's comments largely overshadowed his two-day visit to Berlin, which ended Tuesday. His primary goal was to consult with German Chancellor Angela Merkel about how best to confront Iran's intractability in the ongoing dispute over its nuclear program. A number of other issues in the Middle East, including Syria's ongoing role in Lebanon and the long-stalled Arab-Israeli peace process, were likewise on the agenda.

But it was an interview he granted to a German television station before he even left Jerusalem which proved the defining issue of his visit. In a reference to remarks made by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad earlier this year, he said, "Iran openly, explicitly and publicly threatens to wipe Israel off the map. Can you say that this is the same level, when they are aspiring to have nuclear weapons as America, France, Israel, Russia?"

http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,454255,00.html