The military and Home Front Command have stepped up training, including nationwide civil defense exercises, to prepare the country for up to a dozen attacks on Iranian nuclear sites, according to the Times of London.
Media reports last December stated that the government ordered the IDF to map out plans for an attack, but Defense Ministry officials at the time told the Times that an attack was unlikely without relative certainty of its success and without American backing.
Since then, President Barack Obama has taken office and has backed a policy aimed at halting the Iranian nuclear threat through diplomatic channels. Saturday’s Times report stated that Israel has stepped up its plans but that lack of American support would all but preclude an attack.
Israel would need American approval to use Iraqi air space to stage an aerial strike on Iran's reactors, which are buried under concrete deep underground. Several analysts have said another option for Israel would be to attack by way of Jordan and Saudi Arabia, which also are fearful of Iran's becoming a nuclear power.
Without knowing that Israel will indeed carry out the attack, the military is preparing for the eventuality. The Times quoted a Defense Ministry official who said, “Israel wants to know that if its forces were given the green light, they could strike at Iran in a matter of days, even hours. They are making preparations on every level for this eventuality. The message to Iran is that the threat is not just words.”
The successful Israel strike on Sudan last January, targeting convoys carrying Iranian weapons destined for Gaza, was a clear signal to Iran that Israel will attack whenever necessary. “Sudan was practice for the Israeli forces on a long-range attack,” Ronen Bergman, the author of The Secret War with Iran, told the Times.
Israel's largest-ever nationwide drill next month also is designed to prepare the country for an attack while letting Iran know that the Jewish State cannot tolerate Iran as a nuclear power.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad responded to the report in the Times in a speech at a ceremony on Iran’s Army Day on Saturday, where he said, “No country in the region threatens Iran. The gall to threaten the Iranian nation was quashed forever."