-Caveat Lector- The Israeli Arms Connection http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/ny- woisra283195457mar28,0,3664369.story?coll=ny-worldnews-print By Andrew Metz STAFF CORRESPONDENT
March 28, 2003 Jerusalem - Early in the American invasion of Iraq, amid one of the air assaults, an unmanned aircraft meant to confuse enemy radar fell to the ground in Baghdad. In the wreckage, Iraqis discovered a fragment marked with the manufacturer's signature and origin - "Taas Jerusalem" - a taunting declaration, as if fired from the Jewish state itself. "We found a missile that had fallen in southern Baghdad," Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri announced. "The missile did not explode and God be praised, it exposed Zionism's part in the aggression." Despite vigorous U.S. attempts to keep Israel on the sidelines of the war, at turn after turn, it seems the country is cropping up in the unfolding campaign. >From the renewed peace process supposed to arrive after the war to U.S. protection from Scud attacks to battlefield technology it supplies to America, Israel is in fact much closer to the action than the official Western line suggests. As one of the world's top arms exporters, the country has sold the United States an array of equipment that is either being used or could be employed in Iraq. It has supplied the American military with sophisticated decoys, such as the one found Saturday, as well as precision air-to-surface missiles on B-52 bombers, high-tech targeting systems, and onboard computers and armor for the Bradley fighting vehicles rolling across the Iraqi desert, according to military experts and analyses of Israeli arms sales. It also has designed and manufactured a host of other components that permeate the U.S. arsenal. And while Israel is not at the spearhead, its military contribution provides yet more fuel for Arab convictions that the Jewish state is behind the aggression. "The perception is that there is no difference between the U.S. and Israel," said Mustafa Al- Sayyid, a political scientist at American University in Cairo. He said that while most people in the region don't believe the United States depends on Israel for its military machinery, they regard the two countries as in lockstep. "And the more this war continues, hostility to the U.S. and Israel will increase," he said. Israeli arms specialists point out that, overall, the U.S. use of the country's technology is minimal, mostly confined to niche items. They say the relationship is being manipulated and exaggerated, but acknowledge that any use of Israeli equipment against an Arab adversary is incendiary. "There are probably as many components from Singapore and Taiwan or even France in U.S. weapons, but the Iraqi regime wants to manipulate this as an excuse for linking Israel," said Gerald Steinberg, an arms expert and political scientist at Bar Ilan University near Tel Aviv. Indeed, the decoy incident, though microscopic against the sprawling war theater, is inspiring just the kind of headlines U.S. and Israeli officials hoped to avoid. "Built in Israel, Launched in Iraq," read the Sunday headline in Maariv, one of the main Israeli dailies. The United States tried to head off such exposure in the 1991 Gulf War by not using Israeli- developed, precision Popeye missiles it had on hand, said Zeev Bonen, the former head of Rafael, one of Israel's leading arms firms. It is unclear whether the missiles, known as AGM-142s by the Air Force, have been used this time, but Bonen said the conflict is drawing heavily on a variety of precision weaponry. "We have contributed a lot to precision weapons, be that air-to-air missiles, air-to-ground and anti-tank missiles," he said. Asaf Eisin, a spokesman for Israeli Military Industries, confirmed that the fragment found in Baghdad was produced by his company, whose name in Hebrew is Taasia Tzvait and abbreviated as Taas. He said such decoys are launched from fighter planes and have a radar signature akin to a small aircraft. Israel's prominence in the arms trade far exceeds the country's size, with its weaponry and military technology being built up over more than half a century of warfare and now exported around the world. Some of the hardware is made in Israel, while some is made by subsidiaries or joint ventures in the United States. "It is a double-edged sword," Steinberg said. "In order to promote sales and greater appreciation for the Israeli contributions, there are Israelis that actively promote these contributions. "Politically, however, as Israel is trying to keep a low profile and tries to stay out of the war with Iraq, highlighting the Israeli military contribution is counterproductive." Copyright © 2003, Newsday, Inc. Forwarded for your information. 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