We could lose the next war

From Haaretz 21/4/06, by Ari Shavit (exerpts only - follow the link for the full article)...

...Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee ... chairman, MK Yuval Steinitz (Likud) ...

... "I learned that we have a very high quality defense establishment. It has extraordinarily high quality and intelligent people in it. The various systems possess dedication, professionalism and internal review. There are frequent exceptional achievements, sometimes even achievements that leave one dumbfounded. But at the same time, the defense establishment is arrogant and overweening. It does not subject its conceptions and its basic assumptions to in-depth examinations. It operates in large measure by inertia. As a result, the defense establishment is moving in incorrect and even dangerous directions. Just as in the period before the Yom Kippur War, the defense establishment is liable to lead us into a situation that endangers the existence of the state and the nation."

..."I'll illustrate from the intelligence sphere. Before the Iraq War there was much pride, bordering on boasting, in the Israeli intelligence services concerning all sorts of achievements in connection with Saddam Hussein's Iraq. There was great amazement at the ability to know in real time what was happening at various points in Iraq. .... But when the war ended it turned out that we did not have true intelligence about Iraq. .... We didn't know the central things. We did not have penetration of the circle close to Saddam Hussein. We did not know if he had ballistic missiles that could endanger Israel. We did not know if he had operative chemical weapons. We entered the war with assessments that proved to be utterly unfounded. So, overall, even though there really were very fine point-specific achievements in Iraq, there was a colossal intelligence failure.

"Even more serious was the intelligence failure in Libya. Muammar Gadhafi was very close to a nuclear bomb and we didn't know. We knew that something was going on there. We knew there was some sort of preliminary research. But when the full picture was revealed by the Americans and the British, it turned out that Israel lacked elementary information on a subject of critical importance. The intelligence failure in Libya was almost existential in character. It is a far graver failure than the failure of the Yom Kippur War."

... "What I am saying is that with all the admiration for the technological achievements of the Israel Defense Forces and Military Intelligence and Unit 8200 and the Mossad espionage agency - in the final analysis we did not have an intelligence picture. And if you don't know, you don't know....

... "Yes. The IDF is a good army: trained, high quality and possessing a human and technological advantage against any adversary. But it has two flaws. One is that the level of the senior officer corps - from the rank of colonel and up - is lower than it was in the '50s, '60s and '70s. The second is that the IDF is making a gross and dramatic mistake in its conception of security and force building. That mistake is liable to result in a surprise such as occurred in 1973. I don't see in the IDF readiness to examine itself historically and challenge its military doctrine. ...

.... "Take, for example, the war on terrorism as it is pursued by us and by the Americans. At the techno-tactical level, it's hats off to the IDF and the Shin Bet security service. They have arrived at intelligence and tactical achievements against Hamas, which far exceed the Americans' achievements against Al-Qaida. .... But in the end, after five years, Al-Qaida is in great retreat, whereas Hamas is on the rise. Today it is clear: we are losing in the war against Palestinian terrorism. Today no one will say that we are 'searing the Palestinians' consciousness.' No one will say we have won. Despite the impressive techno-tactical achievements, we lost the war against Hamas."

... "If Israel does not change its security policy from the foundations up, it is liable to lose the next war." What you are saying is outside any reasonable context. It contradicts the whole discourse on army and security affairs. The accepted assumption is that the era of conventional wars has passed and also that Israel is wildly powerful militarily. "I don't understand the argument that says there will be no more large-scale conventional wars. Just three years ago we went through the Iraq war, which in its first stage was not a war on terror and not a nuclear war but a war of planes and helicopters and tanks and artillery and antiaircraft batteries. I do not accept the argument that Israel is wildly strong. In my capacity as chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, I was exposed to Israel's deepest secrets. I was exposed to information that most cabinet ministers and IDF generals are not exposed to. I peeked into the abysses of national security, and I can tell you that in relation to the size of a country of seven million people our strength is indeed astonishing. But in relation to the threats that surround us, that strength is reasonable, and sometimes even low."

... Our air force, for example, is not only superior to all our neighbors but in certain senses is also superior to the British or American air forces. But Israel's strength is compressed into a very small area. Israel's dimensions are tiny and its borders are impossible. And size does make a difference. In questions of modern national security, size counts. In the era of precision weapons the importance of territory does not decrease but increase. And Israel has almost no territory. Israel has no strategic depth. That is an Achilles heel that is liable to put its very existence at risk."

... "In the Second World War it was possible to operate an airfield 10 kilometers from the front. In the Yom Kippur War it was possible to operate an airfield 30 kilometers from the front. Today you need a distance of 50 kilometers to operate an airfield. Israel does not have any airfield like that. All our airfields and our air control units and the power stations and the sensitive strategic sites are within a few dozen kilometers of the border. As such, they are vulnerable to surface-to-surface missiles and to long-range rockets, which are liable to knock them out of action and paralyze the Israel Air Force. The concern is about a scenario that is the opposite of the Six-Day War. There could be an attack on all our airfields that would be similar in its effectiveness to the attack that resulted in the destruction of the Arab air forces on June 5 and 6, 1967. The result will be the Six-Day War in reverse. Accordingly, I see danger of a conventional victory against Israel. If we do not change our security concept and our force-building principles, we are liable to lose in a war."

... "It is important for me to emphasize that I am not a doomsayer. I see a gloomy picture, but I believe in Israel's ability to overcome and find solutions. But for that to happen, it is essential to look at reality soberly. .... What worked in the past in Israel's favor is now liable to work to its detriment. It is therefore imperative to adjust the force structure immediately to the new conditions and to the new strategic environment. We must not dismiss the enemy's surface-to-surface missiles and antiaircraft missiles as we did the Sagger missiles and the SAM 2 and SAM 3 [surface-to-air] missiles before the Yom Kippur War.

..."I have two main proposals: to accord Israel maritime strategic depth by its transformation into a sea power and to accord Israel firepower that is not dependent on airfields and planes but is based on tactical missiles that are cheap and precise. "If we do this, if we turn the whole eastern basin of the Mediterranean into an area under Israeli military control, and if we maintain in it vessels that will become Israel's maritime fire bases, we will thus replace the old and fragile pillar of the Air Force with a new and alternative and strong pillar that is capable of creating firepower of thousands of missiles that are fired from the sea and are not dependent on vulnerable, exposed airfields."

... "I see an existential conventional threat based on the formation of two military alliances directed against us: an Egyptian-Saudi alliance in the south and a Syrian-Iranian alliance in the north. I am especially concerned about Egypt. I think that there is a concrete danger that Israel fell asleep and that when it wakes up it will find itself facing a very tough Egyptian military challenge."


..."I suggest that we not take at face value the Egyptian declarations of peace but that we look at the facts. The facts show that a vast army is being built in Egypt. Egypt faces no threats and has no active border disputes and no resources but is investing billions in creating an army that has absolute dominance in the Arab world and in Africa. Why is Egypt doing this? The numbers are simply astounding. The size of the Egyptian Air Force is about the same as that of the Israel Air Force, but the number of tanks, artillery pieces, boats and missile batteries is exponentially greater than ours. The Egyptian army is far larger than the IDF. But beyond the fact that during 25 years Egypt forged a tremendous force, an additional process has developed in the past 10 years. "Since the mid-1990s, Egyptian doctrine, Egyptian indoctrination and Egyptian training exercises have been directed against Israel. Since the start of this century Egypt has also invested billions in relocating its military infrastructures so they are opposite Israel. Initially its surface-to-surface missiles were scattered across Egypt, whereas now they are massed against us in the Suez Canal region. The same holds for the logistics facilities and ammunition dumps. Everything is concentrated on the two sides of the Suez Canal. There are also worrisome signs in the Sinai desert itself - perhaps very worrisome, but I cannot elaborate on them. The lenient interpretation says that this gigantic enterprise is being created because the Egyptians are afraid of us. But there is also an alternative interpretation: Egypt is preparing for war. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then maybe it really is a duck. If it looks like preparations for a military confrontation and sounds like preparations for a military confrontation, then maybe it really is preparations for a military confrontation against Israel."

..."I have no doubt that if Egypt could make Israel disappear from the map, it would not object to that. A future military confrontation with Israel exists in the Egyptian national consciousness and in the consciousness of the Egyptian security forces, and that is what Egyptian strategic planning is leading toward. I am in favor of peace with Egypt. I welcome the partial improvement that has occurred in relations in the past year. But I think that we must not delude ourselves. A definite possibility exists that a military confrontation between us and Egypt will take place in the future. We have to deploy for that."

... "Israel faces two existential threats. The Iranian existential threat is the only we are permitted to talk about and even like talking about. The Egyptian existential threat is the one we are prohibited from talking about. Quite a few people are aware of it, but only a few dare to utter its name explicitly and refer to its scale. For the same reason we ignore the fact it was Egypt that caused the Camp David conference to fail. Ignore the fact that it is Egypt that built up Hamas and is continuing to do so. Ignore the fact that Egypt allows smuggling into the Gaza Strip and is effectively arming the Palestinian people against Israel. Egypt is interested in seeing Israel and the Palestinians bleed. Contrary to its rhetoric, it had no interest in ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - on the contrary."

.. "... You have to understand that Iran is not North Korea. It does not intend to maintain three or four bombs in the basement. Iran intends to manufacture 54,000 centrifuges to enrich uranium and place them in a vast facility at Kashan. Those 54,000 centrifuges can produce 20 to 25 nuclear bombs a year. The Iranians do not aspire to be a regional power. They aspire to be a world power. If Iran crosses the threshold, it will become a power on the scale of China or of Britain and France."

... "Ahmadinejad's Iran is not behaving rationally. This is a regime that says that a few million Iranians can be sacrificed for the sake of a worthy Islamic goal. This is a regime whose missiles say Israel's destruction and whose open declarations by its leaders talk about Israel's destruction. There is a clear analogy here to Hitler's Germany. Therefore I think that there is a danger of an Iranian bomb falling on Tel Aviv or Haifa. But even if that act is not carried out, for fear of a fierce retaliation, a nuclear Iran will achieve hegemony in the gulf, in the Arab world and in the Muslim world. A nuclear Iran will bring about sweeping nuclearization in the entire region. A nuclear Iran means a different strategic environment and a different world.

"Already today Iran has Shihab-4 missiles with a range of 2,000 kilometers, which encompasses the Balkans, Greece, Romania and the outskirts of Moscow. They are working on Shihab-5, which will have a range of 4,000 to 6,000 kilometers. That will take in Berlin, Paris and London. They could reach the eastern shores of the United States. And I'm not talking about Saddam Hussein's Iraq here. I'm talking about a serious power that is doing serious work. When I read the reports about the developments in Iran, I see a world power in its infancy. I see a monster under construction. If Iran is not curbed, it will have dozens of nuclear warheads within a decade. Maybe even a hundred. It will have the ability to launch them at every relevant point in the world."

... "It's still possible to prevent Iran from going nuclear. There are two ways to do this: either the Iranians disarm or the Iranians are disarmed by force. The Americans are still capable of using air power to strike at Iran's nuclear network in a way that will set it back by at least 10 years."

.... "Nuclear industry is not high-tech industry. It is heavy industry. There is no heavy industry on the face of the earth that is immune to air attack. A massive and precise air attack can destroy any nuclear industry, including Iran's."..."We must not send the message to the world that Israel can be relied on to solve the problem. This is a terrible threat, not only to Israel but to the countries of Europe and to the United States. I don't want anyone in those countries to delude himself into thinking that he is exempt because Israel will repeat what it did in Iraq."

... "In my assessment, the Iranians are two years away from a nuclear weapon. It could be a bit more and it could be a bit less. After the success in enriching uranium at an initial 164-centrifuge cascade, the technology is largely in their hands. To create a first bomb they have to reach 10 cascades on 1,600 centrifuges. Now that they have the technology, the question is one of investment. If no one interferes with them and if they scoff at the world and invest resources and run ahead fast to accelerate the process, we're talking about two years, maybe a year and a half. Maybe even a year."

... "We're in the home stretch. If a massive military operation against Iran is mounted, it will be between this point of time, of April 2006, and the end of 2007." .... "Only one thing will prevent an American military operation in Iran. Only if the United States shows the Iranians a very big stick and waves it wildly in front of them will it perhaps be able to prevent the use of that stick." ... "There will be implications. If its nuclear facilities are attacked, Iran will try to strike not only at the American forces in Iraq, Kuwait and Qatar, but at Israel as well. The Iranian attempt to attack Israel will be carried out by planes or by missiles or by terror." .....