[media-dakwah] The untold story of U.S.-Israel secret nuclear deal

Thu, 04 May 2006 00:53:52 -0700


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bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem
In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful


=== News Update ===

The untold story of U.S.-Israel secret nuclear deal
5/2/2006 8:30:00 PM GMT

Emacs!



The Nixon administration decided not to curb
<http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=10421>Israel's nuclear program
as long as it maintains a policy of nuclear ambiguity, according to an
article published this weekend on the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.


The article, co-authored by Israeli historian Avner Cohen, who wrote
"Israel and the Bomb" (1998), and William Burr, an expert on U.S. nuclear
weapons policy, reveals internal documents from the Nixon administration
about one of Washington's most secretive foreign policy issues:
<http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=10421>Israel's nuclear program.

Unlike Iran and North Korea, Israel has never signed the
<http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=10317>Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty, designed to prevent the global spread of nuclear weapons. As a
result, it is not subject to inspections and the threat of sanctions by the
United Nations nuclear watchdog,
<http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=10536>the International Atomic
Energy Agency.

The recently declassified documents offer unprecedented insight into the
tense deliberations in the White House in 1969, a critical time when
international ratification of the
<http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=10317>NPT<http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=10317>
was uncertain. Nearly four decades later, as the U.S. tries to stop
<http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=10023>Iran's nuclear program,
the details of these deliberations are revealed.

The declassified documents show that former U.S. President Richard Nixon
and Israel's ex-prime minister Golda Meir reached a secret understanding in
1969 that ended a decade of U.S. pressure on the Jewish state to end its
<http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=10421>nuclear program.

In 1958, Israel secretly began work at what became known as the Dimona
nuclear reactor. The
<http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=10508>CIA<http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=10508>
estimated in 1961 that Israel could produce
<http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=10421>nuclear
weapons<http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=10421> within the
decade. Based on that assessment, the Kennedy and Johnson administrations
designed a complex scheme of annual visits to Dimona to ensure that Israel
would not build atomic arms. Officials in the Johnson administration even
tried to pressure the Israeli government to sign the
<http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=10317>NPT<http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=10317>
by threatening to reconsider the supply of F-4 Phantom fighter planes to
Israel. But the Israelis, who were very good at hiding their
<http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=10421>nuclear<http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=10421>
activities, refused to sign the
<http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=10317>NPT<http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=10317>
and insisted on their vague pledge "not to be the first country to
introduce <http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=10421>nuclear
weapons<http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=10421> into the Middle
East."

According to Cohen and Burr's article, Nixon's election in 1969 heralded a
change in the U.S. policy. They said that the Nixon administration prepared
classified documents that reflect a great sense of urgency among senior
U.S. officials about
<http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=10421>Israel's nuclear
ambitions. Defense Secretary Melvin R. Laird wrote in March 1969 that these
"developments were not in the United States' interests and should, if at
all possible, be stopped." The Nixon administration was also concerned that
Israel would publicly display its
<http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=10421>nuclear<http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=10421>
capabilities.

Before Meir's first visit to Washington in September 1969, the Nixon
administration was convinced that Israel already possessed
<http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=10421>nuclear
weapons<http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=10421> and was capable
of launching Jericho ballistic missiles. Based on this opinion, the U.S.
State Department recommended that Nixon press Meir to pledge that "Israel
would not possess nuclear weapons, would sign the
<http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=10317>NPT, and would not deploy
missiles." Cohen and Burr say it is not known whether Nixon tried to do
this, but that "subsequent actions indicate that he did not."

    * "Nuclear ambiguity"

[]


Nixon and Meir met in private at the White House on September 26, 1969. The
details of their meetings remain classified, but it is known that it led to
an understanding between the two states.

According to internal memoranda by Nixon's national security adviser, Henry
Kissinger, Nixon made clear to Meir that it was in the U.S.'s interest that
"Israel make no visible introduction of nuclear weapons or undertake a
nuclear test program." In other words, the U.S. would allow Israel to carry
out its nuclear activities as long as they remain uncertain and unannounced.

After Meir's visit, according to a Kissinger memo from October 7, 1969,
Israel's former ambassador to Washington, Yitzhak Rabin, told Kissinger to
tell President Nixon that "Israel has no intention to sign the
<http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=10317>NPT," but at the same
time assured him that "Israel will not become a nuclear power."

Nixon accepted Kissinger's recommendation that Rabin's assurance, vague as
it was, should be considered an Israeli commitment to wording connoted by
the <http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=10317>NPT, which states
that non-nuclear states agree not to "manufacture or otherwise acquire
<http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=10421>nuclear weapons."

The tentative Nixon-Meir understanding governed Israel's nuclear conduct
and the U.S. stance towards it ever since. Over time, this secret agreement
became the foundation for a U.S.-Israeli deal, accompanied by a strict code
of behavior that both countries closely followed. But this deal undermined
the credibility of the United States, which is accused of applying double
standards in its nuclear nonproliferation policy.

Unlike today's case with Iran, which is a signatory to the
<http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=10317>NPT<http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=10317>
and insists that its
<http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=10421>nuclear
program<http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=10421> is peaceful, the
White House in 1969 dealt with the Israeli
<http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=10421>weapons program in a
highly secretive manner. This kind of deal-making is impossible now with
Tehran.

Israel's nuclear capability became the most secretive
<http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=10421>weapons of mass
destruction program<http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=10421> in
the world, thanks to the Nixon-Meir deal. The Jewish state is widely
believed to possess around 200
<http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=10421>nuclear<http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=10421>
warheads and a Jericho missile delivery system. Without open acknowledgment
of Israel's nuclear status, such ideas as
curbing<http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=10023> Iran's nuclear
program, establishing a nuclear-free Middle East, or even the inclusion of
Israel in an updated
<http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=10317>NPT<http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=10317>
regime, cannot be discussed properly. It is time for a new agreement to
replace the Nixon-Meir understanding, with Israel telling the truth and
officially declaring its nuclear status.

source:
http://www.aljazeera.com/cgi-bin/review/article_full_story.asp?service_ID=11028

===


-muslim voice-
______________________________________
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