This is not good. Not good at all. From IMRA:
Foreign experts: Syria secretly built 30 underground bunkers to enable rocket attack before IAF can destroy them
Dr. Aaron Lerner Date: 30 April, 2007Yediot Ahronot correspondent Arieh Egozi reports in today’s edition [page 9] that foreign experts say Syria has built a huge underground compound that
includes 30 steel reinforced concrete bunkers, production facilities, development labs and command posts. This new “rocket city” has missiles that can cover the entire area of Israel. In contrast to mobile deployment systems that are easy prey to air attacks, the bunker system is designed to enable Syria to launch many missiles against Israel before the IAF can take them out.Syria has some 200 Scud B, 60 Scud C and an unknown quantity of North Korean made 700 kilometer range Scud D’s. According to Egozi last February Israeli surveillance noted a Syrian launching of an improved Scud that is more accurate, can cause greater damage and is more difficult to intercept, terming it “a reason for great concern.”
According to foreign experts, the chemical weapons heads for the rockets are stored in another location.
In the next Syrian war, there will be missiles in downtown Tel Aviv.
And somehow, the world will find a way to blame Israel for it.
Reinforced steel concrete bunkers, eh?
Sounds like the perfect testing ground for one of these.
Unless they’re covered in more than 60′ of reinforced concrete, we can still blow them up. Now all we need is a government that has the stones to actually give the order.
Hopefully there would be missiles raining down on Damascus while Israel is protected by Arrow and Patriot anti missile missiles.
You know what’s wrong with that way of thinking?
It’s the thinking that went on last summer.
Stop and realize that even if the anti-missile missiles work–which there is no assurance will happen–they won’t knock out all of the missiles. The Syrians have far better missiles than the katyushas that rained down on northern Israel last year, and those katyushas were deadly. Imagine a barrage of Scud D missiles raining down on Tel Aviv, or Haifa.
Bomb shelters only go so far.
The next war is going to be bad. Yes, the IAF can send bombs into Damascus. But the costs to Israel will be high if Bashar Assad thinks he can get away with starting a war.
It will be a three-front war: From Lebanon, Gaza, and Syria, as well as terrorist attacks from the West Bank.
Any way you look at it, Israelis will die if there is another war. So will Syrians, Gazans, and Lebanese. But many, many more people will die in the next one.
Also consider the reports that appeared that there is evidence that the WMD’s that were “not found” in Iraq were evacuated to Syria.
http://www.2la.org/syria/iraq-wmd.php
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1671897/posts
July 25 2006
Forgot to mention
this post
Weapons of Mass Destruction in the Middle East
Syria
Weapons of Mass Destruction Capabilities and Programs1
Updated: April 2006
Sources:
1. This chart summarizes data available from public sources. Precise assessment of a state’s capabilities is difficult because most weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs remain secret and cannot be verified independently.
2. Michael Eisenstadt, “Syria’s Strategic Weapons,” Jane’s Intelligence Review 5/93, p. 169. “Syria: Objectives, Strategies and Resources,” Proliferation: Threat and Response, Office of the Secretary of Defense, (Washington, DC: US Department of Defense, 1997), p. 18. [Online] http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/. Anthony H. Cordesman, “Weapons of Mass Destruction in the Middle East: National Efforts, War Fighting Capabilities, Weapons Lethality, Terrorism and Arms Control Implications” (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2/98), p. 22. Anthony H. Cordesman, “Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction in the Middle East: The Impact on the Regional Military Balance,” CSIS (Working Draft), 3/25/05, p. 58, [Online] http://www.csis.org/media/csis/pubs/050325_proliferation%5B1%5D.pdf. “Syria Reiterated Demand for Nuclear-Free Middle East,” Agence France Presse, 1/27/04. “Unclassified Report to Congress on the Acquisition of Technology Relating to Weapons of Mass Destruction and Advanced Conventional Munitions 1 July Through 31 December 2003,” (Washington, D.C., Office of the Director of Central Intelligence, 2004), p. 6, [Online] http://www.cia.gov/cia/reports/721_reports/pdfs/721report_july_dec2003.pdf.
3. Eisenstadt, p. 170. Office of the Secretary of Defense, pp. 18-19. Cordesman, 1998 p. 21. Cordesman, 2005, p. 56. “Devil’s Brews Briefings: Syria,” Centre for Defence and International Security Studies (CDISS), 1996 [Online] http:://www.cdiss.org/cbwnb5.htm. Ahmed S. Hashim, Chemical and Biological Weapons and Deterrence Case Study 1: Syria (Alexandria, VA: Chemical and Biological Arms Control Institute, 1998), p. 5. Uzi Mahnaimi, “Syria Builds Nerve Gas Arsenal,” Sunday Times, 11/17/96, [Online] http://personal.the-times.co.uk:80. Paul Beaver, “Syria To Make Chemical Bomblets For ‘Scud Cs,” Jane’s Defence Weekly, 9/3/97, p. 3. “Chemical Overview,” Nuclear Threat Initiative, 2006, [Online] http://www.nti.org/e_research/profiles/syria/chemical/2973.html. “Chemical Weapons,” GlobalSecurity.org, 2006, [Online] http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/syria/cw.htm. “The Country Next Door,” Newshour with Jim Lehrer – transcript, 4/14/03, [Online] http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middle_east/jan_june03/syria_04-14.html.
4. Eisenstadt, p. 170. Office of the Secretary of Defense, pp. 19-20. Cordesman, 1998, p. 22. Hashim, p. 10.
5. “Missile and Space Launch Capabilties of Selected Countries,” The Nonproliferation Review, forthcoming 1998. Duncan Lennox, ed., “Country Inventory – In Service,” and “Scud B/C Variants,” Jane’s Strategic Weapons Systems Issue 24, 5/97. Eisenstadt, pp. 170-171. Office of the Secretary of Defense, p. 20. Cordesman, 1998 p. 21. Cordesman, 2005, pp. 53-56. “Syria,” Federation of American Scientists, 3/17/97, [Online] http://www.fas.org/irp/threat/missile/syria.htm. Andrew Feickert, “Missile Survey: Ballistic and Cruise Missiles of Foreign Countries,” CRS, 3/5/05, p. 27, [Online] http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/report/crs/31999.pdf. Joshua Williams, “World Missile Chart,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 3/1/05, [Online] http://www.carnegieendowment.org/npp/ballisticmissilechart.cfm. Ed Blanche, “Syria ‘Boosts Accuracy’ of Scud D,” Jane’s Missiles and Rockets, 1/1/06. “Worldwide Ballistic Missile Inventories,” Arms Control Association, 5/02, [Online] http://www.armscontrol.org/pdf/missiles.pdf. “Unclassified Report to Congress on the Acquisition of Technology Relating to Weapons of Mass Destruction and Advanced Conventional Munitions 1 July Through 31 December 2003,” (Washington, D.C., Office of the Director of Central Intelligence, 2004), p. 6.
6. Eisenstadt, p. 172. Office of the Secretary of Defense, p. 20. Cordesman, 1998, p. 21.
7. Office of the Secretary of Defense, p. 20. Cordesman, 1998, p. 21. Cordesman, 2005, p. 53. Cordesman, “The Arab-Israeli Balance,” in The Military Balance in the Middle East: Assessing the Balance, Total Forces, Military Expenditures and Arms Transfers, CSIS, 2/19/04, p. 43, [Online] http://www.csis.org/media/csis/pubs/me_mb_ai.pdf. CDISS. The Military Balance 1997/98 (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1997), p. 147. “Syria,” Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, 3/05, pp. 10-12, [Online] http://www.tau.ac.il/jcss/balance/syria.pdf.
8. IDR Dispatches, “Russian UAV Available for Export,” 9/95, p. 3. Charles Bickers, “Russia Renews its UAV Developments,” Jane’s Defence Weekly 7/23/94, p. 24.
Originally prepared by Michael Barletta and Erik Jorgensen, May 1998;
Updated by Sammy Salama and Alexis Zeiger, April 2006.
© Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Monterey Institute of International Studies. April 2006
I did not say that that was all Israel would do – send missiles into Damascus and wait for the Arrow missiles to work in defense. I said that at the minimum, Israel would be better prepared and ready to inflict massive casualties on the Arabs (I could not care less that Arabs are killed in Gaza or Syria or the West Bank).