Israel No Nuclear Threat To Neighbors, Says Gates

[Purveyor]

Source: Reuters

MANAMA (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates defended Israel's nuclear program on Saturday, saying the Jewish state did not seek to destroy its neighbors or support terrorism, unlike Iran.

Asked at the Manama Dialogue conference whether he thought Israel's nuclear program posed a threat to the region, Gates replied: "No, I do not."

The statement was greeted by laughter from a room filled with government officials from Middle Eastern countries.

--
He dismissed the allegation that the United States applied a double standard on the nuclear issue by supporting Israel while calling for Iran to abandon its enrichment activities, which Tehran says are for peaceful purposes.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSL0866169420071208

[acmavm]

1. The statement was greeted by laughter...

As it should be.

[ClayZ]

2. Any NUCLEAR is a threat to the neighbors!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3094816

[Warren Stupidity]

3. The False Noise On Planet Stupid

The belligerent and bellicose country with lots of nukes is no threat to use them, while the bellicose but historically non-belligerent country without any nukes is a big threat.

Only on Planet Stupid. My kind of planet.

[whistle]

4. But Israel has 60 to 80 known nuclear weapons and BushCo had

...has given an additional unknown number of nuclear warhead tipped missiles which Israel could launch at any time against their neighbors

<snip>
DIA Estimate For Israeli Nuclear Weapons

Israel has not confirmed that it has nuclear weapons and officially maintains that it will not be the first country to introduce nuclear weapons into the Middle East. Yet the existence of Israeli nuclear weapons is a "public secret" by now due to the declassification of large numbers of formerly highly classified US government documents which show that the United States by 1975 was convinced that Israel had nuclear weapons.

<cut to middle - see Table in article>

CIA estimates of the Israeli arsenal's size did not improve with time. In 1974, Duckett estimated that Israel had between ten and twenty nuclear weapons. The upper bound was derived from CIA speculation regarding the number of possible Israeli targets, and not from any specific intelligence. Because this target list was presumed to be relatively static, this remained the official American estimate until the early 1980s.

The actual size and composition of Israel's nuclear stockpile is uncertain and the subject of many - often conflicting - estimates and reports. It is widely reported that Israel had two bombs in 1967, and that Prime Minister Eshkol ordered them armed in Israel's first nuclear alert during the Six-Day War. It is also reported that, fearing defeat in the October 1973 Yom Kippur War, the Israelis assembled 13 twenty-kiloton atomic bombs.

Israel could potentially have produced a few dozen nuclear warheads in the period 1970-1980, and is thought to have produced sufficient fissile material to build 100 to 200 warheads by the mid-1990s. In 1986 descriptions and photographs of Israeli nuclear warheads were published in the London Sunday Times of a purported underground bomb factory at the Dimona nuclear reactor. The photographs were taken by Mordechai Vanunu, a dismissed Israeli nuclear technician. His information led some experts to conclude that Israel had a stockpile of 100 to 200 nuclear devices at that time.

By the late 1990s the U.S. Intelligence Community estimated that Israel possessed between 75-130 weapons, based on production estimates. The stockpile would certainly include warheads for mobile Jericho-1 and Jericho-2 missiles, as well as bombs for Israeli aircraft, and may include other tactical nuclear weapons of various types. Some published estimates even claimed that Israel might have as many as 400 nuclear weapons by the late 1990s. We believe these numbers are exaggerated, and that Israel's nuclear weapons inventory may include less than 100 nuclear weapons. Stockpiled plutonium could be used to build additional weapons if so decided.

Excerpt from 160-page secret DIA report, first disclosed and reproduced in Rowan Scarborough, Rumsfeld's War (Regnery, 2004), pp. 194-223.

<MORE>

http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/israel/nuke/index.html

[PATRICK]

5. Very likely a MAD standoff

that by our standards is very dangerous and hairtrigger. That is, ANY large event against Israel could be presumed to be known and/supported ahead of time by the various Arab nations and their intel sources. therefore they very likely have a standing ultimatum that would involve ALL the ME getting hit bad in defensive retaliation- or in this case as a preventive assurety. That is not the status of the Cold War MAD. This is small enough to happen for multiple reasons with a devastating effect everywhere- which also blackmails the oil consuming world.

Stop our consumption of oil and the threat to Israel when fewer people are forced to stop them gets worse. The choice of nukes and other policies has gotten them deeper and deeper into an unsustainable MAD with peace quite possibly actually making things more dangerous for them. The other path they must take is equally fraught with risk to national survival, but more supportive of human survival. That path is disarmament and world peace to defeat the truly MAD forces of RW violence. This current path, paved by Nazi heritage and old familial allies, guarantees that everyone "out there" is locked in a predictable final destruction that will inevitably benefit others. Cheney even supplies nukes to Muslims to stoke the engine.

[Laughing Mirror]

6. But Iran IS!

Yeah right.

[fascisthunter]

7. Because Israel has such Sane Leadership

:sarcasm:

[Jackpine Radical]

8. Wolf no risk to lambs, says lion.

Lion invites wolf to lamb dinner.

[pegleg]

9. I think Israel has a lingering memory of who was allied with the Nazis

during the war.

[daleo]

17. You mean Japan and Italy? n/t

[Hydra]

10. Pardon me while I scoff openly n/t

[whosinpower]

11. What?

Israel has NEVER admitted to having a nuclear program....NOR HAVE THEY AGREED TO THE NON PROLIFERATION TREATY.....NOR HAVE THEY ALLOWED ANY INSPECTIONS BECAUSE THEY NEVER ADMITTED THERE WAS A PROGRAM.

So........on the other hand we have Iran - which DID sign the non-proliferation treaty....and has allowed inspections.....and they are the threat?

No double standard........

[number6]

12. double standard

He dismissed the allegation that the United States applied a
double standard....

double standard what double standard :sarcasm:

[LeftishBrit]

13. I actually doubt that any government is a real nuclear threat to its NEIGHBOURS

Nuke your neighbour, and watch your own country perish quickly or slowly from nuclear fallout that knows no borders.

The real danger could arise if a country wished to nuke a faraway country; or if terrorists, who are prepared to die for their beliefs, got access to nukes.

However, I still think the world would be much safer if no one got any new nukes; and if those who do have them, would enter negotiations for disarmament.

[whosinpower]

14. Your right, however

Israel has never admitted to having a nuclear program. No admission - no negotiations - no disarmament.

One of the big issues with the middle eastern states is that Israel has never signed the non-proliferation treaty and has not allowed inspections and has never admitted to having nuclear weapons.....even though we all knew they had them.

[aquart]

15. Well, I wish he'd shut his big, fat mouth.

Talk about things the big bullies don't need to know about the short geek.

[Canuckistanian]

16. As long as Israel officially "has no nukes", that statement is true

In the reality-based world, of course, they're one of the biggest threats in the Middle East.

[Name removed]

18. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Tom Joad]

19. Gates is lying. Besides, the law is the law, and must be applied

US domestic law prohibits military aid to states that have nuclear weapons that are not part of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

[goforit]

20. What happenned in Lebanon?

[Jim Sagle]

21. Gates told the truth, and everybody goddamn well knows it.

[LynnTheDem]

22. Gates is very, very good!

At comedy.