DEBKAfile Exclusive Report March 20, 2010,
Advanced BLU-100 recalled by President Obama
Shortly after Vice President Joe Biden’s Israel visit ended on March 11 in high dudgeon over the approval 1,600 new homes in East Jerusalem, US president Barack Obama ordered a consignment of Joint Direct Attack Munition- JDAM already on its way to Israel to be diverted to the US Air Force base on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia. This step, the pointer to a US arms embargo for preventing Israel attacking Iran’s nuclear sites, is first revealed here by debkafile’s military sources.
US military sources describe the consignment as consisting of 387 JDAM kits for attachment to the warheads of 2,000-pound BLU-109/MK-84 or the 1,000-pound BLU-110/MK-83 bunker-busters for their conversion into smart bombs.
On March 13, debkafile disclosed that the Obama administration was pondering withholding from Israel military hardware that could be used for an Israeli attack on Iran. In late February, we reported that defense minister Ehud Barak had submitted to defense secretary Robert Gates a list of the items Israel required urgently to stand up to a four-front assault by Iran and its allies - mainly air force ordnance, certain types of missile and advanced electronic devices. Barak made it clear that all these items must be present in Israel before the outbreak of hostilities. The requests were so urgent that the minister proposed that if Washington was reluctant to hand them directly to Israel, they could be stored for the interim in the big American emergency depots in Israel’s Negev.
The 387 DJAP kits were due for delivery at one of the Israeli Air Force’s Negev bases in March. Because of his concern over the US president’s step to divert the shipment, prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu decided to take the defense minister with him to Washington next Monday, March 22 and have him present at the meeting with Obama which the US media reports has been fixed for Tuesday (the day after his address to the AIPAC annual conference). Together they will ask for the delayed munitions to be released and handed over as part of any general understandings they may reach.
debkafile reports that the pair of Israeli Gulfstream Vs converted to spy planes sighted over Budapest on March 17 may have been an Israeli signal of its concern over White House measures for keeping the means of attacking Iran out of its hands.
The long-haul flights, demonstrating the Israel Air Force’s ability to cover the distance to Iran, took the aircraft over Turkey, Bulgaria and Romania as well as Hungary. The two planes carried out maneuvers over Budapest international airport with no attempt at concealment.
Because they fly in pairs, Western aviation experts say the electronic measures aboard are able to detect the functioning of electronic devices, radar stations, communications centers and cell phones on the ground, locate them and relay the data for warplanes to destroy them.
Two years ago, in June 2008, Israel deployed more that 100 Air Force F-16 and F-15 warplanes over Greece and the Aegean Sea in a big exercise designed to showcase its long-range capabilities.
I suppose that if Israel doesn’t have JDAMs, it can always use nukes.
Again, we (Americans) apologize to our allies (UK as well as Israel) for the sick joke in the White House. The sick joke will be gone on Inauguration Day in 2013; until then, please try to be patient.
Comment by Bill Levinson — March 21, 2010 @ 12:00 am
Nonesense. BlandOatmeal reported this days ago:
Comment by BlandOatmeal — March 21, 2010 @ 12:46 am
Speaking of Yamit, he’s right on another score: Israel’s leaders (including that Fred Astaire of diplomacy, Bibi Netanyahu) are craven cowards — along with the vast majority of Israelis. They will wait until the situation is nearly hopeless before they respond, and incur unthinkable civilian casualties.
Comment by BlandOatmeal — March 21, 2010 @ 12:53 am
That’s Bibi Netayahu, diplopat extraordinaire.
Comment by BlandOatmeal — March 21, 2010 @ 12:58 am
I meant “diplomat”. Nice dancing, huh? Then comes this.
Comment by BlandOatmeal — March 21, 2010 @ 1:06 am
and this.
Comment by BlandOatmeal — March 21, 2010 @ 1:07 am
I prefer the dancing diplomat. Everything will turn out fine. Can all Jews be wrong?
Comment by BlandOatmeal — March 21, 2010 @ 1:53 am
LOL!
And you were doing so well holstering your anti-Semitism.
If after reading this site you believe that all Jews have their heads in the sand, maybe the problem involves misfiring synapses within your brain.
Comment by ayn reagan — March 21, 2010 @ 2:21 am
Ayn, you’ve been surfing too much.
Comment by BlandOatmeal — March 21, 2010 @ 2:28 am
Ayn, this character Oat is out in left field. I wouldn’t pay too much attention to him. I think he inhaled some paint thinner.
Comment by rongrand — March 21, 2010 @ 2:28 am
inhaling paint thinner in left field
Comment by BlandOatmeal — March 21, 2010 @ 2:43 am
Oat is conflicted by his consuming desire to associate with Jews and his overpowering disdain for them.
I never understood the appeal of drugs, but these characters who inhale paint thinner or airplane glue or aerosol spray or horse tranquilizer really leave me cold.
All people have is their health, and not only do they destroy it, but they do so in such unpleasant ways.
For example, take yamit.
What pleasure does he derive from drinking Chevron Motor Oil en Flambé?
That is one crazy Hebrew.
Comment by ayn reagan — March 21, 2010 @ 3:15 am
I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue
Comment by BlandOatmeal — March 21, 2010 @ 4:11 am
Getting back to the matter of the US abandoning Israel (which actually happened completely over a year ago), I have been looking into the matter of Israel’s potential strategic partners. India is such a natural partner, with so many converging interests, it almost looks like a union made in heaven. Even when India tries to reach out to Israel’s enemies, out of genuine self-interest on India’s part, the obvious keeps surfacing:
Comment by BlandOatmeal — March 21, 2010 @ 7:17 am