BY DOUGLAS FRANTZ Los Angeles Times Service October 13, 2003

TEL AVIV – Israel has modified U.S.-supplied cruise missiles to carry nuclear warheads on submarines, giving the Middle East’s only nuclear power the ability to launch atomic weapons from land, air and beneath the sea, according to senior Bush administration and Israeli officials.

The previously undisclosed submarine capability bolsters Israel’s deterrence in the event that Iran — an avowed enemy — develops nuclear weapons. It also complicates efforts by the United States and the United Nations to persuade Iran to abandon its suspected nuclear weapons program.

Two Bush administration officials described the missile modification and an Israeli official confirmed it. All three spoke on condition their names not be used.

The Americans said they were disclosing the information to caution Israel’s enemies at a time of heightened tensions in the region and concern over Iran’s alleged ambitions.

Iran denies developing nuclear weapons and says its nuclear program is solely for generating electricity. Iranian leaders are resisting more intrusive inspections by the United Nations, setting the stage for a showdown in coming weeks. The U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency has given Tehran an Oct. 31 deadline to accept full inspections and prove it has no nuclear arms program.

Arab diplomats and U.N. officials said Israel’s steady enhancement of its secret nuclear arsenal, and U.S. silence about it, has increased the desire of Arab states for similar weapons.

”The presence of a nuclear program in the region that is not under international safeguards gives other countries the spur to develop weapons of mass destruction,” said Nabil Fahmy, Egypt’s ambassador to the United States. “Any future conflict becomes more dangerous.”

Late last month, Egypt joined Saudi Arabia and Syria at the U.N. General Assembly in criticizing the United States and United Nations for ignoring Israel’s weapons of mass destruction while pressuring Iran.

`MASSIVE IMBALANCES’

A senior Iranian official raised the same issue at a nonproliferation conference in Moscow in September.

”Stability cannot be achieved in a region where massive imbalances in military capabilities are maintained, particularly through the possession of nuclear weapons that allow one party to threaten its neighbors and the region,” said the official, Ali Asghar Soltanieh.

Israel will not confirm or deny that it possesses nuclear arms. Intelligence analysts and independent experts have long known that the country has 100 to 200 sophisticated nuclear weapons.

Israel, India and Pakistan are the only countries with nuclear facilities that have not signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which was initiated in 1968 to stop the spread of nuclear weapons through inspections and sanctions. India and Pakistan also have nuclear bombs.

Iran and Arab states with civilian nuclear programs have signed the treaty. The Arab countries have refused to agree to tougher inspections because Israel will not sign it, U.N. officials said.

”A big source of contention is Israel,” said a senior official trying to win acceptance of the additional inspections. “This is a magnet for other countries to develop nuclear weapons.”

Israel and its U.S. backers regard its nuclear weapons as a centerpiece of the country’s security. The development of the arms over several decades, with tacit U.S. approval, has been rarely mentioned, but it is becoming an increasingly compelling component in discussions about lasting peace in the Middle East.

While not acknowledging the country’s nuclear capability, Israeli officials have promised they would not ”introduce” such weapons to the Middle East. Israeli and U.S. officials said that means Israel would not launch a first strike using the weapons. They argue that other countries have nothing to fear from Israel’s nuclear arms, whereas Israel has everything to fear from its neighbors. Even so, Israel’s nuclear stockpile confers military superiority that translates into a high degree of freedom of action, from bombing a suspected terrorist camp in Syria last week to the destruction of an Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981.

Israel is smaller in area than New Jersey — 7,886 square miles versus 8,215 — and its population of six million is within reach of missiles from Iran and other neighbors. As Iran and other countries in the region improved their long-range missiles in the 1990s, Israel’s land-based nuclear weapons became vulnerable to attack.

The strategic alternative was to develop nuclear-armed submarines, which would be almost invulnerable, said Robert S. Norris, a nuclear historian at the Natural Resources Defense Council in Washington.

SPECIAL ORDER

Israel ordered three specially designed submarines from Germany in the mid-1990s and they were delivered in 1999 and 2000. The diesel-powered vessels have a range of several thousand miles and can remain at sea for up to a month. The attempt to arm them with nuclear missiles was first disclosed in a book published in June 2002 by the Carnegie Endowment. The Washington Post published an article about the effort a few days later.

Recent interviews with officials in Washington and Tel Aviv provided the first confirmation that Israel can now deliver nuclear weapons from beneath the sea.

The Israeli official refused to provide details, but the U.S. officials said the warheads were designed for American-supplied Harpoon missiles, which can be launched from the subs and have sea-skimming cruise guidance systems. Harpoons usually have conventional warheads and are common in the arsenals of the United States and other countries.

Norris said Israeli engineers would have had to reduce the size of a nuclear weapon to fit the warhead of a Harpoon and alter the missile guidance system to hit land-based targets, both relatively simple tasks with a sophisticated weapons program.

”They have been at it for more than 30 years, so this is something within the realm of capability for Israel’s scientists and engineers,” said Norris, who added that the normal range of the missiles — 80 miles — might have been extended as well.

The submerged submarines send missiles to the surface in capsules fired from torpedo tubes. When a capsule reaches the surface, its top blows off and the missile is launched.

An Israeli government spokesman, Daniel Seaman, confirmed that the three new submarines carried Harpoon missiles, but he declined to specify the type of warhead.

Israel has about 150 miles of coast on the Mediterranean Sea, and its submarines are deployed so that at least one is in the water at all times, ensuring that Israel can retaliate if attacked.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 14th, 2003 and is filed under news.