JERUSALEM, 22 September 2004 — The United States plans to sell Israel $319 million worth of air-launched bombs, including 500 “bunker busters” that could be effective against Iran’s underground nuclear facilities, Israeli security sources said yesterday.
The Pentagon said in June it was considering the sale to Israel of 500 BLU-109 warheads, which can penetrate five meters of fortifications, in a package meant to “contribute significantly to US strategic and tactical objectives.” US and Israeli officials had no immediate comment.
Israeli security sources said the procurement would go through. “This is not the sort of ordnance needed for the Palestinian front. Bunker busters could serve Israel against Iran, or possibly Syria,” an Israeli source said.
Haaretz daily, citing Israeli government sources, said the sale would take place after the US elections in November.
Earlier this month, Haaretz said Israel wanted bunker buster bombs for a possible future strike against Iran’s atomic program, which the Jewish state considers a strategic threat.
“Our response to any invasive measure will be massive,” said Massoud Jazaeri, spokesman for Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.
An Iranian Defense Ministry spokesman said the disclosure of a US-Israeli deal could be “psychological warfare to test us”.
Mounted on satellite-guided missiles, BLU-109s can be fired from F-15 or F-16 jets, US-made aircraft in Israel’s arsenal. This year Israel received the first of a fleet of 102 long-range F-16s from Washington, its main ally. “Israel very likely manufactures its own bunker busters, but they are not as robust as the 2,000-pound (910 kg) BLUs,” Robert Hewson, editor of Jane’s Air-Launched Weapons, told Reuters.
Among the nuclear facilities that Iran has declared are uranium mines near the city of Yazd and a uranium-enrichment plant in Natanz incorporating large underground buildings that could accommodate thousands of gas centrifuges.
Western diplomats accuse Iran of having several undeclared facilities close to Tehran thought to be related to uranium enrichment, which can produce fissile material for weapons.
Widely assumed to be the Middle East’s only nuclear-armed nation, Israel wants to stop Iran going atomic, but its officials say diplomatic pressure on Tehran is the best method.
“I think (military action) should be a last, last, last resort. Unlike Iraq and North Korea, there is at least some chance of bringing the Iranian ambition under control,” former CIA director R. James Woolsey told Reuters this month.
Convinced Saddam Hussein was developing nuclear weapons, Israel bombed Iraq’s Osiraq reactor in 1981. While the move drew international censure, eventually many Western experts saw it as an important blow to Saddam’s strategic weapons capabilities.
The Osiraq strike did not stop Saddam’s quest for the bomb. Instead, Iraq went underground and worked in secret until the program was uncovered by the UN nuclear watchdog in 1991.
