Levitt Letter Extra News

By Aaron Klein
www.WorldNetDaily

Syria, aided by Russia and Iran, in recent months has been furiously acquiring rockets and missiles, including projectiles capable of hitting the entire state of Israel, according to Jordanian and Israeli security officials speaking to WND.

A Jordanian security official said one of the main reasons Damascus did not retaliate after Israel carried out its Sept. 6 airstrike inside Syria allegedly targeting a nascent nuclear facility was because Syria’s rocket infrastructure was not yet complete.

The official said after the Israeli airstrike, Syria picked up the pace of acquiring rockets and missiles, largely from Russia with Iranian backing, with the goal of completing its missile and rocket arsenal by the end of the year. The Jordanian official said Syria is aiming to possess enough projectiles to fire over 100 rockets into Israel per hour for a sustained period of time

The Syrians have three main goals,” explained the Jordanian official. “To maximize their antitank, antiaircraft and ballistic missile and rocket capabilities.”

According to Israeli and Jordanian officials, Syria recently quietly struck a deal with Russia that allows Moscow to station submarines and warboats off Syrian ports. In exchange, Russia is supplying Syria with weaponry at lower costs, with some of the missiles and rockets being financed by Iran.

“The Iranians opened an extended credit line with Russia for Syria with the purpose of arming Syria,” said one Jordanian security official.

“Russia’s involvement and strategic positioning is almost like a return to its Cold War stance,” the official said.

Both the Israeli and Jordanian officials told WND large quantities of Syrian rockets and missiles are being stockpiled at Latakia, Syria’s main port on the Mediterranean Sea, as well as at Syria’s Tartus port, another major port area south of Latakia and north of Damascus.

Syria’s new acquisitions include Russia’s S-300 surface-to-air missile defense shield, which is similar to the U.S.-funded, Israeli engineered Arrow antimissile system currently deployed in Israel. The S-300 system is being run not by Syria but by Russian naval technicians who work from Syria’s ports, security officials said.

New ballistic missiles and rockets include Alexander rockets and a massive quantity of various Scud surface-to-surface missiles, including Scud B and D Scud missiles.

Israeli security officials noted Syria recently test-fired two Scud-D surface-to-surface missiles, which have a range of about 250 miles, covering most Israeli territory. The officials said the Syrian missile test was coordinated with Iran and is believed to have been successful. It is not known what type of warhead the missiles had.

In addition to longer range Scuds, Syria is in possession of shorter range missiles such as 220 millimeter and 305 millimeter rockets, some of which have been passed on to Hezbollah.

Israel has information Syria recently acquired and deployed Chinese-made C-802 missiles, which were successfully used against the Israeli navy during Israel’s war against the Lebanese Hezbollah militia this past July and August. The missiles were passed to Syria by Iran, Israeli security officials told WND.

Russia recently sold to Syria advanced anti-tank missiles similar to the projectiles that devastated Israeli tanks during the last Lebanon war, causing the highest number of Israeli troop casualties during the 34 days of military confrontations. Syria and Russia are negotiating the sale of advanced anti-aircraft missiles.

Seemingly confirming the information, Mossad Chief Meir Dagan told the Knesset Syria’s military recently has accelerated its acquisition of arms. He did not list specific new weapons or disclose information about Russia’s involvement.

“The military alliance between Damascus and Teheran has accelerated the arms race in the region,” said Dagan at a meeting of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.

Dagan stated Syria’s moves do not necessarily indicate the country is likely to strike at Israel.

Jerusalem Post

“The questions come to Israel, whether it will use military force to stop Iran,” former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton said recently.

Speaking at the eighth Herzliya Conference, in a special session devoted to the Iranian nuclear race, Bolton said: “The United States used to have a policy on Iran and recently there was a push to create a new policy, but sadly, due to the direction American policy is going, it seems that for the next few years the United States will be a bystander to the process.”

“It’s close to zero percent chance that the Bush administration will authorize military action against Iran before leaving office. At the same time in Teheran, they took careful notice of how Israel got into Syria and began preparing for such an action against Iran. Without American policy backing anti-Iran action, Israel should be willing to see itself as a possible last resort.”

“No one should be under any illusions about the US’s part [in] the Iranian situation in the coming year,” he added.

In related news, Bolton spoke at length about the Israeli strike in Syria on September 6, 2007, which was reported in detail only in the foreign media. He criticized sharply the Israeli government’s decision to censor information regarding the strike.

“Why wouldn’t the government of Israel want to take the credit for a stunningly successful military strike?” he asked.

“Our governments … know the details and I wonder if that censorship and classification of information is necessary.

“I don’t understand the reason for strong Israeli censorship in the news. The Syrian and North Korea governments know the whole truth and the USA and Israeli Governments know part of the truth. It’s the citizens of all four countries who don’t.

“Due to its government censorship the people of Israel can know what it feels like to be a citizen of North Korea,” Bolton remarked.

Bolton continued to describe how North Korea, once it succeeded in being removed from the US list of terror-sponsoring countries, would become a major player in the Middle East arms race.

“The proliferation of nuclear weapons in the middle east will start with North Korea. It counterfeits money, sells narcotics, and it will do anything for hard money,” he said.

He added that Iranian-North Korean cooperation was “getting more intensive.”

Also speaking at the session, former chairman of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee and Likud MK Yuval Steinitz blasted the American National Intelligence Estimate, calling it “the most bizarre report I have ever read.”

Steinitz said the report, issued jointly at the end of 2007 by several American intelligence agencies, “seriously harmed the struggle to contain Iran. The report gave Russia and China a pretext to soften their stand towards Iran and therefore created great damage, despite being essentially unfounded.”

“The report was given to the White House and relevant agencies unannounced, so there is a certain problem regarding [the American] democracy,” he added.

The report stated that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003, but by neglecting to explain why Iran halted its program, the report failed to advise of the right course of action, Steinitz asserted.

The NIE, he said, reasoned that the fact Iran halted its program in 2003 proved that sanctions and other diplomatic efforts were working, “but one must remember that in 2003 the US began its campaign in Iraq, and it’s most natural to think that military pressure, that is, the fact that the US went to war in Iraq, is what caused, [Iranian] policy makers to change their mind. But the report doesn’t say this, because this would hint that the US needs to impose a military ultimatum [on Iran.]”