'New shit has come to light...'

Confidential Vol. 2, Issue 92, January 10, 2003
DEBKA-Net-Weekly
Intelligence – Terror – Mid East – Islam – International Conflicts – Security – Political Analysis

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Turkey backs off
Washington’s Iraq strategy stymied
US Candidate
for Iraqi PM
Kurdish Leader Talabani?
Iraq
Saddam’s Martyrs, Cardboard Soldiers and Tunnels
Phony soldiers
Underground fortresses
Saddam’s courier legion
Keeping casualties down
Kashmir
Pakistani Intelligence Zigzags on Kashmir

HOT POINTS
Arrow anti-missile test
Road to Baghdad through Tel Aviv
US war planners study Israeli counter-terror tactics
Muckraking won’t decide Israel’s election

Turkey backs off

Washington’s Iraq strategy stymied

The new Turkish government has performed a spectacular about-face with respect to US war plans for Iraq and its post-Saddam aftermath, thereby dropping a large monkey wrench in Washington’s Iraq strategy.

Ankara’s turnaround may have started out as huffing and puffing for better terms on the eve of the war. However, with dramatic suddenness, the ploy – if that’s what is was - appears to have gone too far. The Bush administration is confronted with the threatened collapse of the Turkish-Kurdish keystone of its war plan. This latest development, discovered by DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s military and intelligence sources in Washington, Ankara and Tehran, brings to crisis point almost two years of painstaking work on putting together the complicated political and military arrangements for the conduct of the war in North Iraq.

Before the war is even launched - and as Saddam Hussein looks on from Baghdad - America’s war allies are already at each other’s throats over the post-war spoils, i.e. the control of government in Baghdad and Iraq’s oil riches. The newly-elected Gul government in Ankara is displaying a combativeness unfamiliar to the American diplomats who negotiated the war pacts with former prime minister Bulent Ecevit.

Serious cracks have consequently formed in the past week in the wall of US-Turkish arrangements and understandings for defining Turkey’s role in the assault on the Saddam regime and in post-war power-sharing for Iraq’s northern oil fields and its two oil cities, Kirkuk and Mosul. Also in tatters are the understandings on the future of Kurdistan, laboriously hammered out in months of diplomatic wrangling among US, Turkey and Kurdish leaders – who first had to be pacified. These understandings, like the future of Iraq’s Turkomen minority, are now up in the air.

On the ground, the Turkish 2nd and 3rd Corps, deployed along and across the Iraqi border to fight Saddam’s troops, are instead exchanging hostile glares with the pro-American Kurdish armies of Massoud Barzani and Talal Jalabani.

At some points, the two armed camps have taken up combat positions.

Senior Turkish officials in Ankara - and at least one senior Western source in Kurdistan - described the situation in northern Iraq to DEBKA-Net-Weekly, shortly before we published, as an explosive charge waiting to flare into a Turkish-Kurdish military clash. Such an eruption would have the effect of disabling the vital northern flank of the American warfront.

According to a Turkish military source in the field, “In a few short days, the once firm northern front against Saddam has degenerated into a Turkish-Kurdish standoff. The confrontation with Saddam Hussein has dropped to second place.”

A Western source was calmer: “The Bush administration will have to spend the next few weeks in arduous diplomatic wrangling to arrest the slippage. The effect on the war’s timeline and outcome will be significant.”

An American source on the spot, in an attempt to play the crisis down, said: “It is very understandable that the closer we come to military action, the more demanding the various coalition partners will be. They are naturally posing fresh terms for their participation, whatever they may have signed with Washington, even in secret documents. Now, we’ll have to get down to renegotiating the last details with the Turks.”

But when we asked him how long re-negotiation would take, and whether it would necessitate another postponement of the offensive against Iraq, he admitted that, as things stood now, further delay was in the cards.

DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s military sources report that the eve-of-crisis situation on Iraq’s northern front is what brought General Tommy Franks, head of the US Central Command and designated war leader, rushing to Washington this week. His mission was officially described as briefing President George W. Bush and his top security advisers on military preparations for the war.

However, the news he brought the White House was grave enough to warrant urgent decisions on at least four fresh problems:

1. The military tension between Turkey and Kurdish is crippling and must be defused.
2. Turkish divisions in northern Iraq may have to be re-deployed in the light of the new setback.
3. Rethinking will be needed to establish who controls Iraq’s northern oil fields and the cities of Mosul and Kirkuk.
4. The fresh deals and arrangements Washington needs to renegotiate with the Turks and Kurds will have to be made compatible with understandings reached with Tehran.

Before approaching these decisions, US policy leaders will be updated on the following developments, as revealed by DEBKA-Net-Weekly:

1. At the beginning of this week, the two Kurdish chiefs, Talabani and Barzani, informed US and Turkish field commanders they were henceforth barring the passage of Turkish troops though the Kurdish areas that cover most of northern Iraq. They also demanded the evacuation without delay of all Turkish commando and tank forces already inside Iraq to behind the Turkish frontier.
2. The Turks countered by laying Kurdistan to siege, halting traffic from Turkey into the territory, as well as drastically cutting down on the food convoys from Turkey to Kurdistan. Kurdish products are no longer allowed into Turkey. Travelers wishing to enter Kurdistan must go round through Syria or Iran.
3. Barzani, who arrived in Ankara for talks with Turkish leaders on Wednesday, January 7, was greeted according to our sources with “stony faces and blunt military threats”, such as: “The Kurds had better beware of making enemies,” and “Any wrong move will prompt Turkish military reprisal.”
4. Turkey has been constantly pouring troop reinforcements into northern Iraq. A heavy concentration has been posted on the Turkish-Syrian frontier, to keep Syrian forces from coming to the aid of the Kurds and fend off possible Kurdish terrorist operations in southern Turkey.
5. High-ranking American officers, including General Franks, who went to Ankara on troubleshooting missions, asked Turkish army chiefs how deep their divisions meant to advance into northern Iraq. The same question was put to Turkish field commanders. They replied that their orders were to keep moving forward - even as far as Baghdad.
British defense minister Geoffrey Hoon received the same answer when he arrived in Ankara Wednesday, January 8 to try and mediate the dispute.
6. Turkish leaders informed Washington they were tearing up all the understandings concluded on the disposition and management of the northern oil fields and oil cities. A Turkish government team of experts, including lawyers and oilmen, had been instructed to rummage through Ottoman Empire archives for the deeds and certificates affirming property ownership in the two cities, the oil fields and other parts of the region. Turkish officials said they were certain they would find legally-binding documents proving Turkish ownership in the oilfields before World War One. If these properties are not restored, the Turkish army will fight to regain them.
7. Prime Minister Abdullah Gul, whose Islamist Justice and Development Party won a landslide victory in the November 3, 2002 election, made the rounds of Middle East capitals last week to drum up Arab support for Turkey’s new stance on the Iraq war.

Western diplomats, probing for the immediate trigger of the Turkish volte face, reported to Washington two reasons cited by their Turkish sources: One, they were dismayed when they saw the leadership role the Americans assigned Kurdish representatives at the conference of Iraqi opposition leaders that took place in London last December. They also took note of Kurdish tribes making advanced political and military preparations for the foundation of an autonomous Kurdish state. Ankara believes the Kurds are on course for much more than self-rule, independence, which no Turk will countenance.

Two, A secret American move which the Turks like even less than Kurdish independence. This move will be revealed in the next article in this issue.

Before the crisis is over, Ankara will most probably backtrack on its most extreme demands. But the process will be time-consuming.

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US Candidate for Iraqi PM

Kurdish Leader Talabani?

Officials in Washington insist that no suitable Iraqi candidate has yet been found for the post of Iraqi ruler after Saddam Hussein. They say they are still looking for a unifying figure of national stature on the Afghan Hamid Karzai model.

Drawing on the Afghan lesson, the Bush administration is reconciled to the US military commander being the dominant figure in the administration of occupied Baghdad alongside a provisional civilian governor. This interim post-war period could go on for as long as 18 months.

The US president’s adviser on Iraqi affairs, Zalmy, Khalil-Zad, would be a candidate to fill the latter position until Iraq’s democratic institutions are installed.

At the same time, DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s intelligence sources hear that members of the Bush team are promoting a revolutionary plan in Iraq, Ankara, Tehran and key Arab capitals, to name the veteran Kurdish leader, Jalal Talabani, 69, as the head of state or prime minister of a democratic Iraq.

Khalil-Zad, the man who installed Karzai in Kabul, has been the go-between for Washington and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan chief. According to our sources, Talabani’s chances of making it to the top in Baghdad are beginning to look good.

Secret messengers sent out by Khalil-Zad in the last few weeks to canvass opinion met surprisingly favorable responses in Iraq. The most important Iraqi Sunni tribal leaders understand that, after being loyal to Saddam Hussein and collaborating with his regime for three decades, they stand little chance of putting up an acceptable candidate of their own, even if they could agree on one. They also understand that, if a suitable Sunni leader is not found, they could well be saddled with a member of the Shiite community, which constitutes 60 percent of the Iraqi population.

Furthermore, if Saddam’s armed forces lose the war to the Americans, Baghdad will be left without a Sunni-commanded fighting force, excepting only for the Kurdish militias: Talabani’s and Barzani’s US-trained and equipped forces, 20,000-strong each. The two forces would combine as the backbone of a new Iraqi army capable, with American help, of defending Iraq’s Sunni community against the Shiites.

Khal-Zad’s emissaries are currently in intense dialogue with Barzani and his men for the purpose of joining the two foremost Kurdish leaders in a power-sharing pact that would form the bedrock of central government in Baghdad.

One proposal under discussion, according to DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s sources, is to replicate the Afghanistan formula whereby Talabani would be prime minister and Barzani defense minister. Another would place Barzani at the head of autonomous Kurdistan.

The Talabani formula is being taken seriously enough in Washington to bring before Iran. Talabani himself visited the Iranian capital this week to promote his prospects.

Our sources in Tehran report that Iran’s leaders are not averse to the notion, but have set a high price; they want Washington to promise them a strong Shiite representation in the new regime and provide them with a list in writing of government jobs reserved for Shiites. The American side does not object to tendering this list, but first demands the annulment of Barzani’s collaboration pact with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, as a matter of principle; no part of the central government in Baghdad may be allowed private military relations with an outside body.

Turkish leaders, when they first heard three weeks ago of a Kurd possibly becoming Iraqi prime minister, did not reject the idea out of hand. US envoys made a different presentation in Ankara to their pitch in Tehran. They argued that installing a Kurdish prime minister in Baghdad as ruler over a federated Iraq, that included a self-governing Kurdish province, would mute Kurdish independence claims. Their national pride and aspirations would find satisfying expression in this appointment.

However, Turkish resistance to the plan grew as the talks in Ankara went on, the American argument failing to convince. Turkish officials countered that promoting a Kurdish leader to the highest office in Baghdad would whet Kurdish nationalist appetites and they would fight on until they had carved Greater Kurdistan out of the Kurdish areas of Iraq, Iran and Turkey. These talks continue.

Jalal Talabani, leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, shares control of Iraqi Kurdistan with his long-time rival, Massoud Barzani, head of the Kurdistan Democratic Party. Based in Sulaymaniyah, the PUK’s lands lie in southeastern Kurdistan, while the KDP rules the west.

The two Kurdish leaders, who fought on and off for decades, made common cause in 1998 and threw in their lot with the American campaign to overthrow Saddam Hussein in Baghdad and commit their armies to the war effort.

In 1976, Talabani launched an armed revolt against the Baath government in Baghdad. His people suffered a tragic setback in 1988 when Saddam murdered an estimated 50,000 in a chemical attack against Halabjah on the Iranian border.

Talabani sought refuge in Iran, where he has friends. A law graduate of Baghdad University, he has displayed a flair for politics since the 1991 Gulf War, when the declaration of a no-fly zone by the Western alliance provided Kurdish tribes with a safe haven.

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Iraq

Saddam’s Martyrs, Cardboard Soldiers and Tunnels

Wednesday, January 9, while the Americans were deep in negotiation for the next Iraqi prime minister, Saddam Hussein called a war council at one of his palaces in Baghdad. For the first time, he seated his two sons, Uday and Qusay, at the same table as top Iraqi officials, announcing, according to DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s Gulf sources, that he had decided to place them in command of the two most important military forces in the land.

The younger son, Qusay, was to head the 6-8 special brigades of the Republican Guards, made up of 35,000 men, while Uday, the eldest, was given command of the 30-40,000-strong Fedayeen Saddam (Saddam’s Martyrs).

Saddam’s sons thus control the 60-70,000 fighting men with responsibility for defending the capital, Baghdad. According to our military sources, these men have converged on the city and each unit assigned a district to defend.

While the Republican Guards special brigades are an elite corps whose fighting skills should in theory match those of the American 101st Airborne Division, the capabilities of the Fedayeen are unknown, one of the deepest and darkest secrets of the Saddam regime.

However, DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s military sources have ferreted out some information on this mystery unit.

A motorized infantry force, it is made up of teenage recruits from Saddam’s own Tikrit clan, fielding an armored force, artillery and a small number of fixed wing and rotary craft. But most important, the Martyrs also have a special chemical platoon with a chemical reconnaissance section. Some of its personnel are scuba-, airborne- and air assault-trained. The unit’s secret training program prepares them for covert operations, assassinations, bombing, kidnapping and chemical and biological warfare. They are taught to hijack airlines, trains and buses. A select few learn the languages of their target destinations such as English, Persian and Hebrew.

It is drilled into these men that they must never fail in a mission.

The Fedayeen, reserved as the regime’s ultimate pre-emptive suicide force, is not the only card up Saddam’s sleeve.

Phony soldiers

The United States intends to throw state-of-the-art military technology into its war against Iraq, using sophisticated bombers, missiles, aircraft carriers, satellites, surveillance planes and spy ships to paralyze and destroy Iraq’s military command systems, communications, computers and supply networks.

Saddam Hussein is fielding a bogus army of metal and cardboard decoys, cellular and satellite telephone communication and a proxy force of about 300,000 “soldiers” – effectively secret agents of the military and special intelligence services under the direct control of the Iraqi leader and his family.

Iraq is also creating tank, missile, artillery and armored infantry divisions, comprised entirely of decoys. As part of the mock-up, numerous tank and tank carrier divisions have appeared over the past weeks in and around various Iraq cities. Their “armor” is tin or cardboard painted in Iraqi military colors, as are fearsome missiles on their launchers and thousands of uniformed Iraqi soldiers wearing fiberglass helmets seen in formation.

Iraq has planted heat and radiation-emitting instruments among the fake forces, including a large number of cellular telephones that can be remotely activated by simply dialing their numbers. The decoy army was not meant to fool the US airborne divisions that will land at the start of the attack on Baghdad (more about this in HOT POINTS at the end of this issue), but to attract the smart bombs and missiles US warplanes intend to drop.

Underground fortresses

But it is his system of well-protected and fully-stocked tunnels that has military planners concerned.

Intelligence data obtained by DEBKA-Net-Weekly sources shows that Saddam has built tunnel systems in and around 15 Iraqi cities, including the capital, Baghdad. Each tunnel is believed to be 20 to 25 meters (65 to 80 feet) deep, a record for underground tunnels in active military use. Similar tunnels dug in the West to withstand nuclear, chemical or biological are only 18 meters (60 feet) deep.

The southernmost tunnel complexes are located in Al Qurnah, north of the port city of Basra and span the meeting point of Iraq’s two biggest rivers, the Euphrates and Tigris. The northernmost system is in Tikrit, Saddam’s tribal hometown, midway between the northern oil city of Kirkuk and Baghdad.

The following is a list of 15 cities or towns where intelligence operatives now in Iraq report the military is using tunnel systems:

Southern and eastern Iraq: Al Qurnah, Al Nasiriyah, Al Kut, Ar-Rifai, Amarah.

Central Iraq: Baghad, Al Mahmudiyah, Al Hillah, Afak, As Samawah, Al Haditha, Hit, Fallujah.

Northern Iraq: Tikrit, Baqubah.

The tunnels were built by hundreds of North Korean and Chinese engineers, members of their respective countries’ engineering corps, and trained intelligence officers. Several dozen Bulgarians and Belarusians took part in the construction as well. According to reliable intelligence data, at least 15 to 20 Russian engineers and technicians – most of them military intelligence officers – were attached to the Bulgarian and Belarusian contingents. The special excavation equipment still in Iraq came mainly from China, South Korea and France.

Most of the entrances and exits of the tunnel systems fall within the defensive perimeter of the Iraqi army. They are wide enough to enable forces fighting in the area to seek shelter inside, where they can refuel and rearm before returning to the battlefield. Alternately, they can fight from the upper entrances to the tunnels, some five to six meters (15 to 20 feet) under ground. In the event of an overwhelming bombardment by aircraft, missiles, artillery or tanks, they can abandon their weapons, which will then become an integral part of the tunnel’s fortifications, and move to deeper levels to fight a guerrilla war.

Each tunnel system is self-contained and most have enough water, fuel and ammunition to sustain three weeks of fighting. The tunnel system around the Tigris River running through Baghdad includes purification facilities in the event of nuclear, chemical or biological attack and two fuel reservoirs. The larger reservoir holds 250,000 liters (58,000 gallons) of mainly diesel fuel. The smaller one contains 140,000 liters (33,000 gallons).

Intelligence officials believe that soldiers or other government forces using a given tunnel will require an average of 80,000 to 100,000 liters (19,000 to 25,000 gallons) of fuel per week. With frugal use, the supply could last up to two months.

Those inside will also be able to tap another source of supplies: the essential commodities – fuel, candles and first aid kits – which the government has been handing out to the civilian populations of the 15 cities over the past 10 days. Water should be no problem because underground sources were discovered during construction. Water can also be pumped in from aquifers scattered over vast areas of Iraq.

According to DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s intelligence sources, a total of 50,000 to 70,000 soldiers and government functionaries will be able to use the 45 tunnel systems. Tunnel entrances and exits have been found so far in heavily populated urban areas – mainly in narrow alleyways – and on open ground in or near cities. In a bid to confuse US reconnaissance planes and satellites, millions of reeds have been planted in open areas where the tunnels are located. It is an old Iranian trick, used by Tehran in its war with Iraq in the 1980s. The Iranians found that US reconnaissance satellites over the Shaat al-Arab area had a hard time picking up troop concentrations and military movements – mainly speed boats hidden during the day but moving at night – in the reed marshes.

Several Iraqi tunnel entrances are linked to nearby rivers by wide canals obscured by reeds. These channels will be used as escape routes or conduits for reinforcements.

Saddam’s courier legion

According to DEBKA-Net Weekly’s military and intelligence sources, Saddam will order troops inside and outside the tunnels to maintain complete radio and data transmission hush before the US attack, on the assumption that the invading force will try to shut down Iraqi communications lines and centers.

Therefore, the sophisticated US monitoring equipment will pick up only static and be unable to track Iraqi forces movements by their usual electronic trails.

Even the communications and public address systems in the tunnels will be silenced. With communications down, Saddam will use an army of as many as 50,000 couriers in small, fast vehicles, including motorcycles and motor scooters, or even on foot. Saddam got the idea from Chinese intelligence officers who operated until recently out of Baghdad and from al Qaeda operatives, who have arrived in the Iraqi capital over the past two months or maintained courier contact with the Iraqi leadership.

DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s intelligence sources report that the Chinese intelligence officers who helped the Iraqis set up the courier service, modeled it on a similar system run by the Chinese MSM intelligence agency. The MSM has no communications networks and uses couriers instead for delivering orders to its agents in the field.

Keeping casualties down - at first

According to DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s military sources, Saddam was busy last week holding meetings in his central bunker in Baghdad with small groups of senior political figures and military and intelligence officers. He personally assigned each group its mission, its tunnel or bunker and its area of responsibility, whether political or military.

Information reaching DEBKA-Net-Weekly indicates that Saddam told his officers and followers frankly that hard times lay ahead of them and their families. Some would be called upon to lay down their lives for “the noble cause of the Iraqi people”. Iraqis, he said proudly, were the only people prepared to fight for “Moslem, Arab and Iraqi honor”. But he gave each the chance to opt out. Those who felt unable to move into the tunnels or other assigned positions, were removed from duty and allowed to rejoin their families.

Saddam also shared some of his thinking on the tactics he planned for the opening phases of the American assault. His primary goal, he said, was to lead the first stage to a stalemate – no major US victory and no massive Iraqi defeat. By waging war from fortified tunnels inside Iraqi cities, including Baghdad, he would prevent the Americans from capturing those cities as quickly as they had planned – that is, if those defenses hold up. The Americans and their allies will have no option but to pour massive reinforcements into the campaign and revise their war plans.

According to DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s military and intelligence sources, Saddam left his audience impressed by his determination to spare no means to achieve this objective.

As soon as the US assault begins, he intends to order the use of chemical and biological weapons against what he described as “the attacking forces and their helpers”, and inflict as many casualties as possible. Saddam did not disclose the location of the non-conventional weapons systems or say who would operate them. He also gave no clue about any nuclear weapons in his arsenal. But in several conversations, he raised the following two points:

1. Iraq’s cities will not suffer alone. Key cities in the United States and in European countries taking part in the war will also come under attack. Saddam did not name them or say how they would be struck. But he did mention that “Iraqi-made weapons” would almost certainly be used. It was the first time Saddam has given any sort of clue that Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction would be used by Iraqi military intelligence’s secret terrorist cells or by other terrorist groups. He said he believed the number of casualties in Iraqi cities and in those Iraq punished would be “colossal in relation to any previous war”.
2. Saddam dwelt on the fighting spirit of the US army. He claimed that several of his most loyal officers had recently talked to CIA officers serving under cover in Iraq and found that US morale was not high. He said that there were deep differences of opinion within the Bush administration on the conduct of the war, its final goals and the ways in which Iraq would be remolded.

Saddam declared that the combination of Iraqi fighting prowess, high American casualties and strikes on US and allied cities would guarantee Iraq’s survival in the first stage of the offensive. After that, Saddam said, the world will have changed and countries and their armed forces will rally to Iraq’s side. He did not name his potential allies.

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Kashmir

Pakistani Intelligence Zigzags on Kashmir

Almost exactly one year ago, Pakistani president Pervez Musharref, acting under pressure from Washington, announced he was closing down the Kashmir division of the Inter-Services Intelligence agency that was running terror groups into Kashmir. He also announced that Pakistan would no longer support non-indigenous militants operating in the divided region. The Pakistani ruler said at the time that lowering the level of the insurgency plaguing Jammu and Kashmir since 1989 was not too big a price to pay to protect Pakistan against attack by India.

India never believed any of this, claiming the Pakistani ISI had faked its withdrawal from backing cross-border attacks across the Line of Control into Indian-controlled Kashmir, to make a show of meeting Washington’s demands.

This week, the Inter Services Intelligence was reported to have finally rolled up its sleeves to the Islamic terrorists. An estimated five militant training camps housing about 2,300 terrorists that were used for forays against India, were ordered to move out of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) into Pakistan proper. Furthermore, the United Jehad Council (UJC) was forced to begin restructuring to give the ISI tighter control over its 13 violent member-groups.

Attempts were made to encourage the groups to merge in order to reduce their number. Most of those attempts fell foul of squabbles between the groups meant to amalgamate over the choice of leaders and new names.

As to the training camps moved to Pakistan, the ISI has placed severe restrictions on their inmates.

According to some reports, some 500 militants from ten groups were shifted to a closed factory in the Punjab province, which the Pakistani government rented and handed to the intelligence service.

Another 2,300 Hizbul Mujahideen activists are held in the Taxila and Haripur camps near Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, and dozens more at smaller and more remote locations.

They are not allowed to leave those camps and visitors may arrive only at night and leave before sunrise.

According to the same report, the ISI was now confining itself to launching foreign terrorists into Kashmir as the local militants are liable to turn themselves in to Indian troops. Those foreigners now occupy the vacated training camps in Pakistani Kashmir. The local Kashmiri terrorists are so angry with Pakistan that for the first time since the insurgency began, Pakistani soldiers are posted to stop them stealing into India.

On Wednesday, January 8, India’s defense minister George Fernandez charged that al Qaeda and Taliban operatives who had lost their bases in Afghanistan had settled in Kashmir with the active support of the ISI and the Pakistani government.

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HOT POINTS
(that you may have missed in DEBKAfile Round-the-Clock)
A Digest of the Week’s Exclusives

5 January: The official announcement that Israel’s anti-ballistic missile Arrow 2 system is to be tested Sunday, January 5, in “difficult and unusual flying conditions, in a complex targeting environment”, raises questions – especially when US defense officials have come especially to observe the first nearly simultaneous launching of four Arrow missiles, one of them armed.

One of those questions is this: How come this multi-billion ballistic missile system, tested-fired 9 times, is only being test-launched in “difficult and unusual conditions” on the eve of war with Iraq?

Another is: What are those difficult conditions?

It is worth remembering, as DEBKAfile’s military sources stress, that the two Arrow batteries deployed in central and southern Israel are capable of shooting down 5 to 6 incoming missiles. The Arrow’s big asset lies in its radar. While Green Pine is capable of judging the path of an enemy missile and its target shortly after it takes off – from as far away as 500km - questions exist about its ability to simultaneously track a large number of incoming missiles and calculate the number of warheads needed to intercept them before they hit target. The difference between doubt and certainty is measured in seconds. While Israeli may be the first country with complete anti-missile capability, it has its limits.

To stop this gap in Israel’s anti-ballistic missile defenses, the IDF has deployed all the Patriot and Hawk batteries in its armory, while the Americans have rushed over improved Patriot batteries.

Sunday’s hurried test-launching is being staged to settle a difference of opinion between Israel and American air defense experts. The Israeli side is certain the batteries in place can be safely counted on to defend the country against enemy missile assault; the Americans are less certain and want to see Israel’s assertion stand up to field testing.

6 January: The US is expected to launch the coming war against Iraq with parachute drops on Baghdad, together with commando landings in the city from the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers.

A large-scale force will meanwhile encircle the Iraqi capital, while a mighty tank force dashes north from Kuwait and Qatar, bypassing the southern Iraqi Shiite cities of Najef and Karbala and circumventing the Iraqi army defending Baghdad. Those tanks will join the encircling force.

The object of this colossal movement of military strength is to lay Baghdad to siege.

This tactic and the consistency of the strength for its execution, DEBKAfile’s military sources report, have been taken from the Israeli doctrine of besieging Palestinian West Bank cities in order to lower the level of terror. The doctrine was initiated by defense minister Shaul Mofaz in his last job as IDF chief of staff and has been carried on by his successor, Lt. General Moshe Yaalon.

For over four months, American military officers have been observing Israeli units at first hand, as they operate against terrorists in Nablus, Jenin, Tulkarm, Bethlehem and Ramallah, watching also the IDF method of isolating Yasser Arafat in his Ramallah headquarters.

According to our sources, American military planners are transposing the anti-terror tactics they have witnessed on the West Bank as battle plans for the 101st Airborne Division fighters destined for Baghdad. Israeli tank maneuvers under helicopter cover have been studied in Jenin as a model for the 3rd US division’s M1 Abrams main battle tanks to follow, in the streets of the Iraqi capital. This strategy consists essentially of pouring with stunning speed into targeted urban districts large-scale tanks columns armed with heavy firepower, together with armored units under helicopter and drone air cover, as well as crack fighting units, such as paratroops.

According to DEBKAfile’s military sources, the American strategists were also interested in the second half of the Israeli doctrine, namely the way in which Arafat has been corralled in his Ramallah administration and terror headquarters for more than 10 months, together with 20 to 30 Palestinian terror chieftains who dare not come out from under his protection.

US war leaders are planning to use tanks, drones and crack troops in a similar fashion to beleaguer Saddam Hussein, his family and top staff in the palace or bunker in Baghdad or Tikrit in which they are holed up – for as long as it takes. They see no need to break in and capture him, only to wait patiently outside his gates until he surrenders or agrees to leave the country.

The road of departure is also open to Arafat.

With this tactic accepted in Washington – a source of no little pride in Sharon’s circle – the Israeli prime minister and his inner defense cabinet – Mofaz, foreign minister Binyamin Netanyahu and public security minister Uzzi Landau – agreed Sunday night, January 5, not to deport Arafat from Ramallah, despite the cruel provocation of the terror massacre perpetrated a few hours earlier in Tel Aviv.

Two suicide bombers from Nablus, activists of the military wing of Arafat’s Fatah, the al Aasa Martyrs’ Brigades, blew themselves up in a poor Tel Aviv district frequented by migrant workers from East Europe, Thailand, China and West Africa and bus commuters. The killers held their 15-kilo charges, packed with nuts, ball-bearings and shrapnel, high in the air to wreak maximal carnage – 23 dead, more than one hundred injured.

Israelis are being called upon to pay a terrible price. But Sharon remains convinced, as he told injured victims of the Tel Aviv attack whom he visited in hospital Monday, January 5, that though the struggle is protracted and savage, Israel is bound to vanquish the terrorists in the end.

Defense minister Mofaz, coming earlier out from briefing the Knesset foreign affairs and defense committee, predicted that Arafat would step down, an action that would make way for Israel and the Palestinians to go back to the negotiating table. The dictates of reality, he said, are bringing the moment for a new Palestinian leadership to take over ever closer.

8 January: Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s Likud is losing ground over this week’s revelations that a long-time friend, South African textile tycoon Cyril Kern, made a low-interest loan to son Gilad Sharon to pay back illegal foreign contributions to the Likud leader’s 1999 primaries campaign.

Even if Sharon was guilty of wrongdoing – which he is not -- the average Israeli knows that corruption is rampant in Israeli society and is more concerned with Palestinian suicide bombings that have turned life in the Jewish state into a Russian roulette.

Sharon’s main opponent in the January 28 ballot, Labor leader Amram Mitzna, has demanded the prime minister resign or make a full public accounting.

By focusing on so-called election scandals, Israeli media are missing the real picture: corruption and a real criminal underworld do exist in Israel but it is all being swept under the table while the dirt is being dished elsewhere.

In the 1990s, elements linked to mafia in Russia and other former states of the Soviet Union tried to penetrate the center of the Israeli political system. But their efforts were largely unsuccessful.

It is now the Palestinians’ turn. Since he and his henchmen returned to the West Bank and Gaza Strip after the 1993 Oslo accords, Yasser Arafat has been trying to establish links with Israeli businessmen, some of whom hold political office or influence, through his wide-ranging financial interests in Europe and South America and the casino project in Jericho.

A small number of courageous Israelis, such as defense minister Shaul Mofaz and army chief of staff Moshe Yaalon, have managed to block these attempts and keep the Jericho gambling den closed. And here is where there is a big light at the end of the tunnel.

Despite their attempts to buy their way to the top and eagerness on the part of Israeli banks to accept their money, mafia kingpins have failed to achieve political influence in Israel.

Most of the crooked millionaires who came here -- Americans, Argentines, Mexicans, Britons, Swiss, Russians, Poles and Palestinians – have left the country and taken their money elsewhere.

By focusing on corruption, Mitzna and Labor secretary general Ofer Pines are running a muckraking campaign of the basest kind. They won’t win; some of the mud they are slinging will end up sticking to them.

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