DAVID S. CLOUD e HELENE COOPER
Da dichiarazioni di funzionari USA, due dei quali
appartenenti ad agenzie governative:
Con uno scarso
dibattito interno l’Amministrazione Bush ha deciso di accelerare la fornitura
di bombe guidate di precisione a Israele che l’ha richiesto la scorsa settimana
dopo l’inizio della campagna di bombardamenti aerei contro il Libano. Si
tratterebbe solo di una delle tante serie di armamenti che gli USA hanno
fornito ad Israele.
La
richiesta rivela l’intenzione di Israele di colpire ancora molti obiettivi in Libano,
e al contempo l’appoggio attivo
americano ai bombardamenti israeliani comparabile agli sforzi iraniani di
armare e rifornire hezbollah.
L’invio urgente di armamenti non è comparabile alle provviste
d’emergenza fornite durante la guerra arabo-israeliana del 1973, quando gli
americani aiutarono Israele a riprendersi dalle iniziali vittorie arabe.
Le munizioni di precisione servono a Israele anche per
distruggere bunker sotterranei, siti missilistici ed altri obiettivi difficili
da colpire senza bombe laser a guida satellitare.
Le munizioni americane in viaggio verso Israele fanno parte
di un pacchetto di vendita di armi del valore di parecchi milioni di $,
approvato lo scorso anno, che comprendeva 100 GBU-28, bombe di 5000 libbre a guida
laser, che saranno usate sugli F-15.
Annuncio del segretario di Stato americano Rice di un viaggio
in MO, senza soste nei paesi arabi, diversamente da piano originale.
Incontro in Italia, anziché al Cairo, dei rappresentanti arabi
ed europei; a causa della crescente opposizione nei propri paesi per le vittime civili in Libano, i governi dei paesi arabi non vogliono ospitare
la Rice, passerebbero come partner principale degli USA. Discussione su eventuale
missione internazionale, e su quali paesi vi parteciperanno; Germania e Russia
hanno già dichiarato la loro disponibilità; improbabile la partecipazione USA.
Issale ha comunicato di aver sganciato 23 tonnellate di esplosivi
mercoledì notte sulla sola Beirut; sarebbe stata dimezzata la capacità militare
di hezbollah, ma la campagna dovrebbe continuare per altre 2 o più settimane.
Nyt 06-07-22
Weapons
– U.S.
Speeds Up Bomb Delivery for the Israelis
By DAVID S.
CLOUD and HELENE COOPER
WASHINGTON, July
21 —
–
The Bush administration is rushing a delivery of precision-guided
bombs to Israel, which
requested the expedited shipment last week after beginning its air campaign
against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon,
American officials said Friday.
–
The decision to quickly ship the weapons to Israel
was made with relatively little debate within the Bush administration, the officials said. Its disclosure threatens to anger Arab governments and others because of the
appearance that the United States
is actively aiding the Israeli bombing campaign in a way that could be compared
to Iran’s
efforts to arm and resupply Hezbollah.
–
The munitions that the United States is sending to Israel are part of a multimillion-dollar arms
sale package approved last year that Israel is able to draw on as
needed, the officials said. But
Israel’s request for
expedited delivery of the satellite and laser-guided bombs was described as
unusual by some military officers, and as an indication that Israel still had a long list of targets in Lebanon
to strike.
–
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
said Friday that she would head to Israel on Sunday at the beginning
of a round of Middle Eastern diplomacy. The original plan was to include a stop
to Cairo in her
travels, but she did not announce any stops in Arab capitals.
–
Instead, the meeting of Arab
and European envoys planned for Cairo will take
place in Italy,
Western diplomats said. While
Arab governments initially criticized Hezbollah for starting the fight with Israel in Lebanon,
discontent is rising in Arab countries over the number of civilian casualties
in Lebanon,
and the governments have become wary of playing host to Ms. Rice until a
cease-fire package is put together.
To hold the meetings in an Arab capital
before a diplomatic solution is reached, said Martin S. Indyk, a former
American ambassador to Israel,
“would have identified the
Arabs as the primary partner of the United States
in this project at a time where Hezbollah is accusing the Arab leaders
of providing cover for the continuation of Israel’s military operation.”
The decision to stay away from Arab
countries for now is a markedly different strategy from the shuttle diplomacy
that previous administrations used to mediate in the Middle
East. “I have no interest in diplomacy for the sake of returning Lebanon and Israel to the status quo ante,” Ms.
Rice said Friday. “I could have gotten on a plane and rushed over and started
shuttling around, and it wouldn’t have been clear what I was shuttling to do.”
Before Ms. Rice heads to Israel on Sunday, she will join President Bush
at the White House for discussions on the Middle East
crisis with two Saudi envoys, Saud al-Faisal, the foreign minister, and Prince
Bandar bin Sultan, the secretary general of the National Security Council.
–
The new American arms shipment to Israel has not been announced publicly, and the officials who described the administration’s decision to
rush the munitions to Israel
would discuss it only after being promised anonymity. The officials included employees of two government
agencies, and one described the shipment as just one example of a broad
array of armaments that the United States
has long provided Israel.
–
One American official said the
shipment should not be compared to the kind of an “emergency re-supply” of
dwindling Israeli stockpiles that was provided during the 1973 Arab-Israeli
war, when an American military airlift helped Israel recover from early Arab
victories.
David Siegel, a spokesman for the
Israeli Embassy in Washington,
said: “We have been using
precision-guided munitions in order to neutralize the military capabilities of
Hezbollah and to minimize harm to civilians. As a rule, however, we do
not comment on Israel’s
defense acquisitions.”
–
Israel’s need for precision munitions is driven in part by its strategy in
Lebanon,
which includes destroying hardened underground bunkers where Hezbollah leaders
are said to have taken refuge, as well as missile sites and other targets that
would be hard to hit without laser and satellite-guided bombs.
Pentagon and military officials declined
to describe in detail the size and contents of the shipment to Israel,
and they would not say whether the munitions were being shipped by cargo
aircraft or some other means.
–
But an arms-sale package approved last year provides
authority for Israel to purchase from the United States as many as 100
GBU-28’s, which are 5,000-pound laser-guided bombs
intended to destroy concrete bunkers.
–
The package also provides for
selling satellite-guided munitions.
An announcement in 2005 that Israel
was eligible to buy the “bunker buster” weapons described the GBU-28 as “a special weapon that was
developed for penetrating hardened command centers located deep underground.”
The document added, “The Israeli Air Force will use these GBU-28’s on their
F-15 aircraft.”
American officials said that once a
weapons purchase is approved, it is up to the buyer nation to set up a
timetable. But one American
official said normal procedures usually do not include rushing deliveries
within days of a request. That was done because Israel is a close ally in the midst
of hostilities, the official said.
Although Israel
had some precision guided bombs in its stockpile when the campaign in Lebanon
began, the Israelis may not have taken delivery of all the weapons they were
entitled to under the 2005 sale.
–
Israel said its air force had dropped 23 tons of explosives Wednesday
night alone in Beirut,
in an effort to penetrate what was believed to be a bunker used by senior
Hezbollah officials.
A senior Israeli official said Friday
that the attacks to date had
degraded Hezbollah’s military strength by roughly half, but that the
campaign could go on for two
more weeks or longer. “We will stay heavily with the air campaign,” he
said. “There’s no time limit. We will end when we achieve our goals.”
The Bush administration announced
Thursday a military equipment
sale to Saudi Arabia, worth
more than $6 billion, a move that may in part have been aimed at
deflecting inevitable Arab government anger at the decision to supply Israel
with munitions in the event that effort became public.
On Friday, Bush administration officials
laid out their plans for the diplomatic strategy that Ms. Rice will pursue. In Rome,
the United States will try
to hammer out a diplomatic package that will offer Lebanon incentives under the
condition that a United Nations resolution, which calls for the disarming of
Hezbollah, is implemented.
Diplomats will also try to figure out
the details around an eventual international peacekeeping force, and which
countries will contribute to it. Germany and Russia
have both indicated that they would be willing to contribute forces; Ms. Rice
said the United States
was unlikely to.
Implicit in the eventual diplomatic
package is a cease-fire. But a senior American official said it remained
unclear whether, under such a plan, Hezbollah would be asked to retreat from
southern Lebanon and commit
to a cease-fire, or whether American diplomats might depend on Israel’s
continued bombardment to make Hezbollah’s acquiescence irrelevant.
Daniel Ayalon, Israel’s ambassador to Washington,
said that Israel would not
rule out an international force to police the borders of Lebanon and Syria
and to patrol southern Lebanon,
where Hezbollah has had a stronghold. But he said that Israel was first determined to take
out Hezbollah’s command and control centers and weapons stockpiles.
Thom Shanker contributed reporting for
this article.
New York Times