Edward Luttwak: In a Single Night (Pre-emptive take-out of Iran's nuclear capability)

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

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Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Edward Luttwak: In a Single Night (Pre-emptive
take-out of Iran's nuclear capability)
Date: Thu, 09 Feb 2006 11:27:50 -0800
From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
Reply-To: dewayne () warpspeed com
To: Dewayne-Net Technology List <dewayne-net () warpspeed com>
References: <Pine.GSO.4.64.0602081537120.7494 () westnet com>

[Note:  This item comes from friend John McMullen.  DLH]

> From: "John F. McMullen" <observer () westnet com>
> Date: February 8, 2006 12:46:07 PM PST
> To: "johnmac's living room" <johnmacsgroup () yahoogroups com>
> Cc: USA Talk List <USAtalk () yahoogroups com>, Dewayne Hendricks  
> <dewayne () warpspeed com>, Commonweal Mailing List  
> <commonweal () yahoogroups com>
> Subject: Edward Luttwak: In a Single Night (Pre-emptive take-out of  
> Iran's nuclear capability)
>
> (johnmac -- Do I hear the war drums beginning to beat?)
>
> From the Wall Street Journal -- <http://online.wsj.com/article/ 
> SB113937026599968085.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries>
>
> COMMENTARY
> In a Single Night
> By EDWARD N. LUTTWAK
>
> Many commentators argue that a pre-emptive air attack against  
> Iran's nuclear installations is unfeasible. It would not be swift  
> or surgical, they say, because it would require thousands of strike  
> and defense-suppression sorties. And it is likely to fail even then  
> because some facilities might be too well hidden or too strongly  
> protected. There may well be other, perfectly valid reasons to  
> oppose an attack on Iran's nuclear sites. But let's not pretend  
> that such an attack has no chance of success. In fact, the odds are  
> rather good.
>
> The skeptics begin sensibly enough by rejecting any direct  
> comparison with Israel's 1981 air attack that incapacitated the  
> Osirak reactor, stopping Saddam Hussein's first try at producing  
> plutonium bombs. Iran is evidently following a different and much  
> larger-scale path to nuclear weapons, by the centrifuge  
> "enrichment" of uranium hexafluoride gas to increase the proportion  
> of fissile uranium 235. It requires a number of different plants  
> operating in series to go from natural uranium to highly enriched  
> uranium formed in the specific shapes needed to obtain an explosive  
> chain reaction. Some of these plants, notably the Natanz centrifuge  
> plant, are both very large and built below ground with thick  
> overhead protection.
>
> It is at this point that the argument breaks down. Yes, Iraq's  
> weapon program of 1981 was stopped by a single air strike carried  
> out by less than a squadron of fighter-bombers because it was  
> centered in a single large reactor building. Once it was destroyed,  
> the mission was accomplished. To do the same to Iran's 100-odd  
> facilities would require almost a hundred times as many sorties as  
> the Israelis flew in 1981, which would strain even the U.S. Air  
> Force. Some would even add many more sorties to carry out a  
> preliminary suppression campaign against Iran's air defenses (a  
> collection of inoperable anti-aircraft weapons and obsolete  
> fighters with outdated missiles). But the claim that to stop Iran's  
> program all of its nuclear sites must be destroyed is simply wrong.
>
> An air attack is not a Las Vegas demolitions contract, where  
> nothing must be left but well-flattened ground for the new casino  
> to be built. Iran might need 100 buildings in good working order to  
> make its bomb, but it is enough to demolish a few critical  
> installations to delay its program for years -- and perhaps longer  
> because it would become harder or impossible for Iran to buy the  
> materials it bought when its efforts were still secret. Some of  
> these installations may be thickly protected against air attack,  
> but it seems that their architecture has not kept up with the  
> performance of the latest penetration bombs.
>
> Nor could destroyed items be easily replaced by domestic  
> production. In spite of all the claims of technological self- 
> sufficiency by its engineer-president, not even metal parts of any  
> complexity can be successfully machined in Iran. More than 35% of  
> Iran's gasoline must now be imported because the capacity of its  
> foreign-built refineries cannot be expanded without components  
> currently under U.S. embargo, and which the locals cannot copy.  
> Aircraft regularly fall out of the sky because Iranians are unable  
> to reverse-engineer spare parts.
>
> The bombing of Iran's nuclear installations may still be a bad idea  
> for other reasons, but not because it would require a huge air  
> offensive. On the contrary, it could all be done in a single night.  
> One may hope that Iran's rulers will therefore accept a diplomatic  
> solution rather than gamble all on wildly exaggerated calculations.
>
> Mr. Luttwak is a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic &  
> International Studies.

Weblog at: <http://weblog.warpspeed.com>


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