Epstein Secrets

reports in the weeks after the training accident made secrecy impossible. We were planning to infiltrate a Sayeret Matkal unit into Iraq, and to kill Saddam Hussein. The Gulf War had blunted any immediate threat from Iraq. But Saddam had proven he could launch missiles into the heart of Israel. We knew from our

urate at long range. But they could reach Israeli towns and cities, and could carry not just conventional explosives but chemical warheads. Moreover, Saddam had used chemical weapons: during the Iran-Iraq war, and to kill thousands of his own restive Kurdish population in the town of Halabja in the spring

t reminded me of how my father had spoken to me when I was growing up — minus the “well-off family” part. 232 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_011703 When we got to Hussein’s country home, we were greeted by an impressively self-assured man in his late 20s who, like Hussein, had studied at Britain’s military academy in S

e war and its aftermath. He waved his hand weakly in response, as if to say none of it mattered. His successor, in October 1983, was Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir. Ideologically, he was cut from the same cloth: an advocate from the 1940s of securing a Jewish state in all of Palestine, by whatever force necessar

, as Muhammad Sahimi wrote in Tehran Bureau, the reason that the Qods Force was established in the 1980s: to train Iraq's Kurds (and Shia) against Saddam. Interestingly, noted the same author, Soleimani and his generation of fellow IRGC commanders never got over the fact that the West (and indeed the

l, soft on China." Regarding Israel, Baker said that the first Bush administration admittedly had a rocky relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, though it had a better relationship with his successor Yitzhak Rabin. But good progress was made during that period, he said, even though the Bush

n, always preferring a ministerial appointment, once even designing a grotesque system of HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_029707 --- PAGE BREAK --- "rotation" with Yitzhak Shamir, so that he could be in the government. He proposed the ideal of "national unity," and greatly devalued the democratic concept of parliamentary oppos

990. When faced with a build-up of Iraqi forces along its border, Kuwait decided not to mobilize its military out of fear that the move would provoke Saddam Hussein. The incentives for Gulf states to make similar strategic calculations in the future will be greater when Iran has an inventory of nuclear we

en faced with a build-up of Iraqi forces along its border, Kuwait decided not to mobilize its military out of fear that the move would provoke Saddam Hussein. The incentives for Gulf states to make similar strategic calculations in the future will be greater when Iran has an inventory of nuclear weapons to

. One of the great strategic lessons drawn from the long history of conflict in the Middle East is this: Do not go to war without nuclear weapons, as Saddam Hussein did when he invaded Kuwait. The corollary is: Do not allow the United States to methodically build-up forces in the Gulf prior to invading, as Saddam

n, always preferring a ministerial appointment, once even designing a grotesque system of HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_029794 --- PAGE BREAK --- "rotation" with Yitzhak Shamir, so that he could be in the government. He proposed the ideal of "national unity," and greatly devalued the democratic concept of parliamentary oppos

990. When faced with a build-up of Iraqi forces along its border, Kuwait decided not to mobilize its military out of fear that the move would provoke Saddam Hussein. The incentives for Gulf states to make similar strategic calculations in the future will be greater when Iran has an inventory of nuclear we

en faced with a build-up of Iraqi forces along its border, Kuwait decided not to mobilize its military out of fear that the move would provoke Saddam Hussein. The incentives for Gulf states to make similar strategic calculations in the future will be greater when Iran has an inventory of nuclear weapons to

. One of the great strategic lessons drawn from the long history of conflict in the Middle East is this: Do not go to war without nuclear weapons, as Saddam Hussein did when he invaded Kuwait. The corollary is: Do not allow the United States to methodically build-up forces in the Gulf prior to invading, as Saddam