Webcast News Service, March 7, 2003

With an American attack on Iraq appearing inevitable, the Bush administration has signaled that it would accept an Israeli retaliation against a devastating Iraqi missile attack, the Los Angeles Times reported today.

In the 1991 Gulf War, the U.S. pressured Israel to not retaliate against Iraqi missile strikes, fearing that such a move would cause Arab countries to withdraw from the international coalition against Saddam Hussein. But if war comes again, the Los Angeles Times reports that U.S. officials say they would not stand in the way of a counterstrike if an Iraqi attack inflicted many casualties.

President Bush has said that the U.S. recognizes Israel's right to defend itself. And Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has said that although his nation would retaliate against strikes that inflicted mass casualties or involved chemical or biological weapons, there would be no need to retaliate if missiles fell harmlessly.

The U.S. shift on the issue is the latest sign of how much more closely the U.S. and Israel are coordinating than they did last time around.

In 1991, then-President George Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir were barely speaking and the Pentagon tried to shut the Israelis out of war planning. This time, the countries are carefully collaborating on defenses against Iraq and together are preparing a special package of U.S. emergency aid to Israel that may reach $12 billion in grants and loan guarantees.

Although U.S. ties to Israel are long-standing, the relationship has been enhanced, experts here and in Israel agree, by the personal and ideological bond between the current U.S. president and Sharon.

The change in strategy is also likely tied to the fact that this time around, the U.S. has far fewer Arab allies than in 1991. In the first Gulf War, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Egypt all supported the U.S. action. This time, the larger Arab countries refuse to back U.S. action, and only Kuwait and the small Persian Gulf emirates are lending their support. With few Arab allies to offend, Israeli retaliation becomes more of a question of feasibility than strategy.

According to the Los Angeles Times, officials in both the U.S. and Israel downplay the chances of a successful Iraqi strike against Israel. Although Hussein's forces hit Israel with 39 Scud missiles in 1991, only conventional warheads were used, and the only deaths reported were from heart attacks. Now, the Times reports that Israel is believed to have no more than a few dozen of the missiles left. The U.S. and Israel also have better antimissile systems and ways of finding the Iraqi mobile missile launchers that were so elusive in 1991.

But officials fear that Hussein might lash out in a desperate attack as his regime is collapsing, and Israel might be his target of choice.

Sharon has said that he would retaliate if the Iraqis used a chemical or biological warhead. But would Israel retaliate if such a warhead broke up in flight, or struck an uninhabited part of the desert and hurt no one?

And how could Israel carry out a strike if it were hit at a moment when U.S. forces had already swarmed into Iraq and were battling on the outskirts of Baghdad? asked Eitan Barak, a disarmament specialist at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

"What will Israel do? Bomb the desert, although it's already occupied by American forces?" Barak said. "In certain circumstances, what can you do?"

U.S. and Israeli forces have been doing all they can together since the Gulf War to improve defenses in hopes that these issues never come up.

Israel has developed a $2-billion Arrow-2 missile defense system, half of which was funded by the U.S. And the U.S. has poured billions into developing a more effective version of the Patriot antimissile system that largely failed to stop Scuds in 1991.

Israel is now dotted with Patriot batteries: four of its own, three sent in January by the Pentagon, along with 600 U.S. troops, and two more lent by the Germans, according to Mark Heller of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University.

U.S. Special Forces troops have been scouting the deserts of western Iraq, from which any Scuds aimed at Israel would be fired, U.S. defense officials acknowledged this month. Israeli forces also have been active there, according to news reports from the region.

The Pentagon has promised that it will notify Israel before it starts a war and, with constant satellite coverage of western Iraq, it would be able to warn Israel of a missile launch in the first two minutes of the seven-minute flight, Heller said.

The close collaboration reflects in part the strength of the relationship between Bush and Sharon. Bush and Sharon "have similar worldviews, which say basically that if somebody's trying to kick you, don't spend too much time trying to figure out why," Heller said.

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