Global Security Newswire

Senior U.S. and Israeli officials have said that Israel has modified U.S. submarine-launched cruise missiles to carry nuclear weapons, the Los Angeles Times reported Saturday. A former senior Israeli Defense Ministry official, however, denied the report yesterday.

Two senior Bush administration officials described the cruise missile modification effort and an Israeli official confirmed it, according to the Times. The U.S. officials said they were disclosing the modification to warn Israel’s enemies — a warning that comes as tensions increase in the Middle East over Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program (see related GSN story, today).

Israel has designed nuclear warheads for U.S.-provided Harpoon cruise missiles, which are conventionally armed antiship weapons, U.S. officials said. The Harpoon can be launched from a submarine and is equipped with a guidance system that allows it to fly just above sea level, the Times reported.

To fit a nuclear weapon on a Harpoon, Israeli engineers would have had to reduce the warhead’s size and alter the missile’s guidance system to attack land targets, said Robert Norris, a nuclear historian at the Natural Resources Defense Council. He added that both modifications would be relatively simple to accomplish for a country with a sophisticated nuclear weapons program, such as Israel is believed to have developed. Israel has never formally acknowledged possessing nuclear weapons.

“They have been at it for more than 30 years, so this is something within the realm of capability for Israel’s scientists and engineers,” Norris said, adding that Israel may also have been able to extend the Harpoon’s 80-mile range (Douglas Franz, Los Angeles Times, Oct. 12).

Former Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Efraim Sneh yesterday, however, dismissed the Times report, saying such Harpoon modifications were impossible.

“Anyone with even the slightest understanding of missiles knows that the Harpoon can never be used to carry nuclear warheads,” Sneh said (Associated Press/Chicago Tribune, Oct. 13).

The Washington Times reported yesterday that the Harpoon modification report, along with separate reports of Israel developing plans to pre-emptively attack Iranian nuclear facilities, may have been the work of the Israeli Mossad intelligence service.

Israeli newspapers reported that the stories were initiated by the Mossad as part of an effort to maintain international pressure on Iran’s nuclear program, according to the Times.

“Heading off Iran’s attempt to attain nuclear capability is one of the Mossad’s main missions,” analyst Aluf Benn wrote in Ha’aretz yesterday, “And the foreign media is one of the most important instruments utilized in this effort” (Abrahm Rabinovich, Washington Times, Oct. 13).