A Digest of DEBKAfile Round-the-Clock Exclusives in the Week Ending April 15, 2010

Glaring intelligence lapse exposed in Anat Kam espionage case

08 April: The Anat Kam affair on which a gag order was partially lifted on Thursday, April 8 is above all a striking intelligence and field security failure. More importantly, this soldier's ability to photocopy and filch 2,000 top-secret documents over a two-year period ranging from 2005 to 2007 demonstrates the vulnerability of the highest command levels in the IDF to infiltration by hostile elements and the free availability of their most secret documents.
Shin Beit director Yuval Diskin told the media Thursday that documents Anat Kam stole during her service in the OC Central Command Maj. Gen. Yair Navey's office and leaked to an Israeli journalist Uri Blau "posed a direct and real threat to the lives of soldiers and civilians."

April 9, 2010 Briefs
• Iran unveils "third generation" centrifuges claimed to enrich uranium ten times faster than machines in current use. It was announced in speech marking National Nuclear Day Friday.
• New report finds Iran successfully evades two-year old US shipping sanctions. Iranian shippers changed names and ownership to evade detection.
• Kyrgyz Jewish community in panic after their shops sacked, anti-Semitic slogans appeared since opposition seized power in Bishkek.
• Netanyahu withdraws from Washington summit on nuclear terror. Intelligence minister Dan Meridor will represent Israel instead.

Jones denies US ME plan after Netanyahu shuns nuclear summit

09 April: US National Security Adviser James Jones denied the US had a new Middle East plan ready though not the intention to impose a future plan. He was replying to reporters' questions aboard Air Force One on their way back from Prague, Friday, April 9.
His denial followed Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's withdrawal from the US-sponsored summit on nuclear terror opening in Washington April 11. Washington saw this as a message that Israel would not cooperate with the US on security matters as long as the administration pursued a Middle East policy detrimental to its interests, such as ignoring its need for secure borders and trying to impose peace.
The Israeli prime minister is also withholding answers to 11 questions/issues presented by Obama, after he was convinced that they were clever formulations to trick him into endorsing US plans for the Middle East.
He is also deeply disillusioned with Obama's failure to deal effectively with Iran's nuclear drive. In fact, in a recently interview, the US president admitted for the first time that his Iran policy was at least as likely to fail as to succeed.

Iran close to bomb-making plutonium capacity

10 April: In addition to developing a "third generation" centrifuge for speeding up uranium enrichment, Iran is close to activating its Bushehr nuclear reactor and completing its Arak heavy water plant – both providing easy access to weapons-grade plutonium for smaller, lighter and more easily deliverable nuclear warheads. Plentiful new uranium deposits have also been discovered in central Iran.
Tehran has made good use of every second allowed by the US-led world powers' lame efforts to dissuade it from its nuclear goals by means of partly-effective sanctions, attractive incentives and diplomatic engagement, a policy which gained momentum after Barack Obama became US president.

April 12, 2010 Briefs
• Medvedev: An Israeli strike against Iran could include the use of nuclear weapons and nuclear strikes in the Middle East mean global catastrophe. The Russian president in ABC interview warned of a "gigantic human disaster" – and not only for the Middle East.
• US Air Force resumes in full supply missions to Afghanistan via Kyrgyzstan military transit base. Troop flights were rerouted through Kuwait after violent uprising in Bishkek.

Five injured in dirty bomb scare in Delhi market

12 April: The material was identified as Cobalt-60 in a special security briefing to Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh as he flew off to Washington to attend the nuclear security summit opening Monday, April 12. Indian police have cordoned off the market and its 200 shops and sealed a one-kilometer around it for an investigation into the source of the material which may be used for making a dirty bomb. Sunday, April 11, Prime Minister Singh exhorted president Obama to jointly combat terror emanating from Pakistan.
Scrap dealer Deepak Jain and his helpers lost consciousness when they cut a piece of scrap metal. A white fluid oozed out causing the burns, Jain's hair fell out and within minutes his skin turned black. His workers suffered and nausea. All five are fighting for their lives in hospital.

A most misleading Middle East peace plan

12 April: Ex-President Jimmy Carter's National Security advisers Zbigniew Brzezinski and former Democratic congressman Stephen Solarz have come up with yet another Middle East peace plan – this one relies heavily on a dramatic Barack Obama peace odyssey to the region with a party of Arab leaders and Quartet members climaxing (of course) in a dramatic speech from the Old City of Jerusalem.
While the duo denounces Israel's policies as the obstacle to US interests, Iran does not rate a mention. Neither do they refer to Palestinian rejections of four Israel offers to withdraw from most of the West Bank for peace.
If the US offer is rejected by either side or both, the two writers advise the United States "to seek the UN Security Council's endorsement of its framework for peace, thus generating worldwide pressure on the recalcitrant party."
debkafile's analysts: The airy proposal to send Arab rulers to Jerusalem is enough to discredit the plan in advance. Not only is it inconceivable that the Saudi king, the Syrian president, the Iraqi prime minister – or any other Arab rulers – would consent to set foot in the Jewish state, but even Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and Jordan's King Abdullah, both of whom enjoy the fruits of peace accords with Israel, have never accepted invitations to visit Israel.
Can Carter's former adviser Brzezinski or former congressman Solarz produce a single Arab ruler prepared to accept the current Likud prime minister's peace messengers and hear what they have to offer – much less meet him in Jerusalem or anywhere else in the world as he has proposed?

April 13, 2010 Briefs
• Nuclear summit declares all countries responsible for keeping nuclear materials away from terrorists. They agree to lock up vulnerable nuclear materials within four years. Israel warns its citizens to leave Egyptian Sinai immediately over specific hostage-taking threat.
• Obama opened the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington Tuesday warning the threat of nuclear terror had increased. Terrorist organizations on constantly trying to buy or steal nuclear materials.
• Israeli forces kill or injure four Palestinian terrorists planting explosives on Gaza-Israel border fence to enable infiltration.

Tehran threatens US cities with nuclear terror – if attacked

13 April: This warning, along with an announcement that Iran would join the world's nuclear club within a month, struck at the heart of President Barack Obama's Nuclear Security Summit which opened Tuesday, April 13. The Iranian publication Kayhan said: "If the US strikes Iran with nuclear weapons, there are elements which will respond with nuclear blasts in the centers of America's main cities."
debkafile's military sources report this was the first time Tehran had threatened American cities with nuclear terror. Our Iranians source say Tehran is playing brinkmanship to demonstrate that the Washington summit, from which Iran and North Korea were excluded, failed before it began, because terrorist elements capable of striking inside the US had already acquired nuclear devices for that purpose.
Although Iran has yet to attain operational nuclear arms, our military sources believe it does possess the makings of primitive nuclear devices or "dirty bombs."
In an interview ahead of the summit, President Obama warned: "If there was ever a detonation in New York City, or London, or Johannesburg, the ramifications… would be devastating."

April 14, 2010 Briefs
• Iran has produced five kilos of 20 pc enriched uranium since it began process Feb. 9.
• Israeli Supreme court further restricts house arrest conditions of Anat Kam, soldier accused of stealing secret documents. She is now subject to round-the-clock detention monitored by a family member.
• Obama: I'm not going to comment on their program but think it's's important for Israel and all countries to be part of the NPT. He was answering questions at a news conference after the Nuclear Security Summit.
On Israel-Palestinian talks, Obama said: American leadership will be important but "we can't want it more than they do". He predicted progress would be halting.

Scud missiles? Not yet across Syrian-Lebanese border

Syria has not actually delivered Scud missiles, A or SS-1B, to the Hizballah in Lebanon – only positioned them on the border ready for transit at a moment's notice – and taught two Hizballah brigades how to use them, debkafile's military sources report. Israel has warned Damascus via Washington that their crossover into Lebanon would bring forth Israeli military action to destroy the missiles and their bases on both sides of the border because their range of 700 km would enable Hizballah for the first time to hit the big Israeli air bases in the southern Negev, twice as far from the Lebanese border as Tel Aviv; and because this missile is self-propelled, and therefore highly mobile and maneuverable, operable by small teams and few vehicles.
When US Senator John Kerry was dispatched to Damascus on April to intercede with Assad about the shipment of Scuds to Hizballah, Assad denied the transfer. But he kept to himself the information that they were poised on the border for transfer and that two Hizballah brigades had been trained to fire them.
Israel's defense minister Ehud Barak said the Scuds, if they were delivered, "would alter the balance of strength in the region and threaten its stability and calm." He said the military build-up in Lebanon "is a clear violation of Security Council resolutions."

Two leading American Jews accuse Obama of abandoning Israeli secuity

14 April: Ronald Lauder, President of the World Jewish Congress, voices the concern of Jews around the world not only about the nuclear ambitions of an Iranian regime with genocidal intentions toward Israel, but the deterioration of US-Israeli relations and the Jewish state's deliberate isolation.
The WJC president asks why this administration seems to blame Israel for the lack of movement on peace talks when it is the Palestinians, not Israel, who refuse to negotiate. Settlements were not the key issue when peace talks broke down before (he can ask Bill Clinton) and they are not the key issue now.
Lauder then asks if it is true that America is no longer committed to a final status agreement that provides Israel with defensible borders. He goes on to ask if friction with Israel is part of the Administration's desire to improve relations with the Muslim world and warns that appeasement does not work.
Former New York Mayor Ed Koch condemned the Obama administration's attitude toward Israel in the strongest terms: "I weep today because my president, Barack Obama, in a few weeks has changed the relationship between the US and Israel from that of closest of allies to one in which there is an absence of trust." He goes on to say: "…our closest ally… has been demeaned and slandered, held responsible …for our problems in Afghanistan and Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East."
Ed Koch says he suspects the plan is "to so weaken the resolve of the of the Jewish state and its leaders so that it will be much easier to impose on Israel an American plan to resolve the Israel-Palestinian conflict, leaving Israel's needs for security and defensible borders in the lurch."
He is most bothered by what he calls "the shameful silence and lack of action by community leaders – Jew and Christian" and asks: Where are the Jews who marched in defense of fellow American citizens in 1963 and heard Martin Luther King's memorable speech. "We have stood up for everyone else. When will we stand up for our brothers and sisters in the Jewish state of Israel?" Ed Koch asks.

April 15, 2010 Briefs
• Police name Ex-PM Ehud Olmert primary suspect in the Holyland bribery scandal. After returning home from an overseas Wednesday, he is to be questioned under caution. Second suspect turned state witness supports massive bribery charges against Olmert after he tried to discredit the first. Another former Jerusalem mayor Uri Lupolianski arrested in connection with Holyland case Wednesday.
• Israel conducts nationwide Operations Archangels civil defense exercise Thursday. Roads and highways snarled by unusually heavy emergency and security traffic.
• Malaysia stops selling gasoline to Iran following US pressure. China plans to ship 30,000 metric tons of gasoline to Iran after European traders halt sales.
• Hamas executes by firing squad two Palestinians accused of collaborating with Israel. Gaza Strip trials are stigmatized as a mockery of international standards.
• British authorities ban as "untruthful" Israeli tourist ad depicting Western Wall as part of country.

Obama: Mid East conflict costs US "blood and treasure"

15 April: President Barack Obama confirmed the radical shift in his US Middle East policies Tuesday, April 14, by commenting that conflicts like the one in the Middle East ended up "costing significantly in terms of both blood and treasure" – an echo of the words of Gen. David Petraeus. This shift is marked by tough demands of Israel. His comment fueled his public feud with Jerusalem in which prominent American Jewish leaders have just weighed in, alarmed at President Obama's repudiation of defensible borders for Israel and pro-Muslim polices that jeopardize its security.
AIPAC, the pro-Israeli lobbying group publicized a letter to US secretary of State Hillary Clinton signed by 76 senators and 33 House members urging the administration to defuse tensions with Israel and voicing support for its security.