Esther's Sling (25 page)

“All that is good,” said Cohen. His voice had a different tone. He was ready to move on. “We will see what happens. But right now I want to look at our options. Zvi and Natan, you guys are talking to your counterparts regularly. What is the sense that we would be denied what we need?”

“I have had nothing but support from my counterparts,” said General Fish
el. “They would love to join us. At least they are assisting our plans to take action. But as for this key issue, there is only one way to know. We will have to ask directly.”

Cohen looked directly at Natan Fishel. “This week, Natan. I want you to meet with your counterpart this week and directly ask about each item that we need.”

General Fishel nodded his agreement.

Cohen turned back to General Schechter. “I think we have gotten too far off track. Please continue. I see some more points on your screen there.”

Schechter continued. “The next issue to discuss involves the Saudis. We need their early warning radar systems to be down when we go. General Aitan, I think you are leading this effort.”

Yavi Aitan leaned into the table. “Well, I am certainly more confident about that than we seem to be about the president and his intentions.” He cleared his throat. “Yes, the Saudis have no ambiguities. They will support us every way possible that is not overt. We have already had one test run.”

“Out of curiosity,” asked Cohen, “did you have IFF codes from the Americans?”

“Yes, absolutely. We have never been denied the codes upon request. But when we go for real, the Americans will know we are going and why we want the codes.”

General Schechter added an important point. “On the test run, our EC-707 was contacted by an American AWACS orbiting over Saudi Arabia almost immediately after entering Saudi airspace. I point this out as just another data point as we think about attempting to launch Block G without the IFF codes. Of course, the Americans have an X-band radar in the Negev as well.”

Avner decided this was the time to make the counter-point. “Which means that there is no way the Americans could claim that they accidently attacked our aircraft. They will be tracking our aircraft from the moment they
take off. So if that man doesn’t want to give us the codes, the hell with him. We will attack Persia regardless. We will do it on our timetable, not his.” The defense minister was an infantry man by experience and training.

The prime minister started to respond as he usually was forced to do when Avner’s emotions were driving his talking points, but Schechter spoke first. “You make a good point, General Avner. No doubt that the Americans will track us all the way from take-off to our targets over Iran and back. I completely agree that the reality is that they would not have an excuse to claim mistaken identity. However, I will simply point out two facts that I must consider as the air force commander responsible for this operation. First, just because they know who we are doesn’t leave me sleeping any better. A political decision to interrupt the attack could be made in Washington.

“Second, I worry less about an attack by American fighters, which, in my opinion, would only come about as a result of intentional orders from Washington, than I do about being attacked by surface to air missiles. These systems are often on a hair trigger, and when a mass of targets comes onto a radar screen that has the profile of a large coordinated attack, and none of the planes in that mass are squawking a friendly code, bad things can happen. Either one of these is a risk that I will not accept without direct orders, given the political implications to Israel.”

Minister of Defense Avner weighed in. “There is just no way that the U.S. will intentionally attack us.”

“I have to agree with that,” added Mort Yaguda.

“Gentlemen, I am responsible for this operation,” responded Schechter. “The impact of this issue, if you are – with all due respect – wrong, is catastrophic. The lack of IFF codes opens the door to a political decision to attack us and claim it was a mistake after the fact. I will remind everyone in this room that it was Israel that intentionally attacked the USS Liberty for political reasons in 1967 and then claimed afterward that it was mistaken identity.”

Avner erupted. “How can you say that, David? That is bullshit. That was absolutely not an intentional attack.” Avner’s volume was uncontrolled, as was his temper.

Prime Minister Cohen raised his left hand in a signal for his minister of defense to calm down, but he was looking at General Schechter, his eyes furious. When he spoke, however, his tone was that of a statesman. “General, I am not quite sure how you came to this assumption, but
I can assure you that you are wrong. The attack on that American ship was a case of mistaken identity. The evidence behind this conclusion is comprehensive.”

At the other end of the table, Natan Fishel sat quietly. A smirk appeared on his face. He guessed at the tactics being used by the younger air force officer stan
ding across the table from him.

David Schechter smiled broadly. He had engineered the response he was seeking. “Forgive me General Avner.” He looked at Cohen. “Mister Prime Minister.” He bowed his head slightly to his commander-in-chief. “I was making a point. Even forty-five years later, after thorough review by commissions in both Israel and the United States, it is still a source of contention as to whether or not we attacked the Liberty accidentally or intentionally. Israelis are, of course, completely accepting of the fact that the attack was an accident. But many Americans to this day, including many of the survivors of the crew, believe that the attack was intentional.” Schechter paused. Both Avner and Cohen slowly
sank back into their chairs, their thoughts racing. The fact that Schechter actually believed the attack on the Liberty had been deliberate was an opinion that every Israeli officer who shared it had learned to keep buried. Any public airing of such a thought was career ending.

“My point,” Schechter
continued, “is that without the IFF codes, much can happen, be it accidental or otherwise. The Liberty incident is a footnote in history. Block G will be the front page of history. If the worst occurs, the conspiracy theorists in both countries will spend the next century debating what happened and why, and the damage done between us and our most important ally will be irreparable and lasting. That is not to mention that any attack by the Americans on our strike force, regardless of the reason or cause, could destroy our chances of success.”

Prime Minister Cohen clapped slowly three times. “You are damn good, General. Damn good.” Cohen looked to Avner, who was rapidly calming.

Chief of Staff Fishel’s smirk turned into a smile. He was proud of the man who was under his command. “I think you have made your point, David. Now let’s move on.”

“Yes, sir.” Sche
chter turned to look at the TV.

Rueben Herzog interrupted. “Before we leave the topic of radar, I don’t recall Jordan being discussed. You reviewed the plans for Syria and I
raq, but did you mention Jordan? Don’t they have long-range radar?”

Yavi Aitan beat Schechter to the response. “Allow me to address that, General.” Aitan glanced at Schechter who nodded his head in consent. “You are correct, Mister Herzog, there was no mention of Jordan. They do have a handful of early warning radar sets, including an American L-band radar and a refurbished Russian VHF Spoon Rest radar. Both units are located around Amman. We are not concerned about these units.”

“Why not?” asked Herzog.

Aitan remained silent and offered only a forced smile in return. “I think it is enough to tell you that neither General Schechter nor General Fishel are concerned.”

“Okay, okay.” Herzog was annoyed that, despite being elevated to the Kitchen Cabinet, he was still not to be privy to the most sensitive secrets. But he knew that pushing his desire to gain knowledge too far would result in his demotion back to the Security Cabinet, a position he held as a matter of Israeli law.

In this case, Aitan was not willing to discuss the back door access that Israel maintained into the central command and control computers that received the data picked up by these two radar sets. This gave them the ability, if used wisely and very rarely, to make their planes
invisible on the Jordanian radar, or to make a large flight of planes look like a single aircraft on a routine mission. It was a state of affairs that the Jordanians knew existed and had long decided – a decision made by the king himself – to ignore. It made their life much easier.

Schechter decided to move on. He had finished up the last slide
, but was not yet finished with the issues to be discussed. He spoke to all the members of the Kitchen Cabinet. “The last issue for the Olympus team is simple. We need to finalize the strike targets. The ones in question require the approval of this body.” Schechter paused and looked at Margolis, who handed over a folder with a number of handouts. The general took the folder and handed out a single page print out to each man.

“The target package I am handing out is almost complete. We have planned for and are prepared to attack every target on the list. However, we need the final decision from this group regarding the targets highlighted in blue. There is a political element to each of these targets.”

Schechter waited for everyone to look at the handout they had just received. The next few minutes were spent discussing the issue of striking the political leaders of Iran. The debate was lively and the opinions divergent. Finally, the prime minister turned to Amit Margolis. “Mister Margolis, I am interested in your analysis.”

Amit Margolis straightened his back, immediately conscious of his tendency to slouch. “Thank you, Mister Prime Minister. In my humble opinion, I would strongly argue against striking their political leadership. Their military leadership is, of course, fair game and they are on the target list as everyone can see. But with regards to Khamenei and Ahmadinejad and any political leader, I think we guarantee a reaction from the resulting leadership that is vengeful in nature against us. They will launch everything they can against Israel and seek revenge for years to come against you
, sir” – Margolis was looking at the prime minister – “or your successor. If we leave them in power, then they have to live with and explain to their people how they allowed the Great Satan to come into Iran and destroy their supposedly impregnable nuclear program that they have spent so much time and money building. Plus I think they will have to consider long and hard just how many countries other than Israel they will want to bring into this conflict. And, yes, I am particularly referring to America.”

Cohen nodded his head slowly and turned his gaze to Yavi Aitan. “Yavi?”

“I think Mister Margolis just expressed my views perfectly – probably better than I could.”

“Okay then,
the political leadership is off the list,” commanded Cohen. “Okay. What’s the next category on your list?”

General Schechter looked down at the sheet of paper on the table. “Ah … the next issue is China. We have identified two targets. The first is the cyber warfare center at Tehran University that is now staffed with over twenty-five Chinese nationals and growing.”

“Yavi, what are they doing at this location?” asked Cohen.

“In a concise answer, everything. The center grew up to help the Iranians defend their networks but has expanded over the last year. They are now launching attacks on Israel from this center ranging from denial of service attacks to attempts to hack into the defense network and most of our largest corporations and financial institutions. It seems the Chinese feel emboldened operating out of Tehran versus the already aggressive activities they conduct from
Shanghai. I honestly think that they don’t realize that we know they are there.”

“Thank you, Yavi.” Cohen looked back at Schechter. “I see you have the Chinese embassy listed on here. You actually mean the real Chinese embassy?”

“Yes sir.”

“Why?”

Schechter turned to Amit Margolis. “Amit, this is Mossad intelligence.”

Margolis looked at Yavi Aitan. Aitan lifted his left hand with the palm up and nodded toward Margolis, indicating to him to respond. Margolis went ahead. “The Chinese are playing a dangerous game. Much of the support for the Iranian program is coming from North Korea. The Chinese, who publicly profess an anti-proliferation stance, are privately aiding and abetting this trade with the Koreans. This is coordinated inside the embassy, including running front companies in countries around the world.”

“Don’t the North Koreans have an embassy in Tehran?” asked Zvi Avner.

“Yes, but the nuclear program activity is being run through the Chinese embassy.”

“Are you sure?” Cohen asked.

“I asked that question to Director Levy. His answer to me was that he was absolutely positive.”

“Why? I don’t understand.”

Margolis thought for a moment. “I’m not sure I’m qualified to answer. I think you should talk to Director Levy on this. But my understanding is that the Chinese wanted to control this activity between a historic client state, North Korea, and a state that they increasingly view as a client state, Iran.”

Cohen looked at Danny Stein. “Danny, your thoughts on this?”

“I fully support striking the cyber center. It is easy to claim ignorance if the Chinese protest about killing their people, although I expect that they will keep quiet about it and, in fact, deny that they had any personnel there. But the embassy? I can’t support that. If it was the North Korean embassy, I might think differently.”