World

Gulf War Echo?

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

September 1, 2000 / 8:34 AM EDT / CBS

Although he sees no reason for concern that Iraq might attack Israel with missiles during the coming months, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak says the government will monitor the situation.

CBS News Correspondent Robert Berger reports Barak was responding to a report that the U.S. military put a Patriot antimissile battery on alert for a possible deployment to Israel because of concerns that Iraq might decide to strike during the U.S. presidential campaign.

The Washington Post reports that the unit on alert is the 69th Air Defense Artillery Brigade, based near Frankfurt, Germany.

Barak says he does not believe Israel needed extra Patriot batteries.

"We are following everything that is going on. We are ready for any development," he said. "I am not sure that we need to be concerned now, and I am not sure that the Patriot missile battery needs to be bothered."

In Germany, Lt. Commander Dave Lee, a spokesman at the U.S. European Command, said that certain units "are in a heightened state of alert in response to potential future operations." He did not elaborate.

Israel has two Patriot batteries, originally posted here during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, when Iraq fired 39 Scud missiles at Israel. The Patriots, originally designed as antiaircraft missiles, had limited success in downing the incoming missiles.

Israeli Transport Minister Amnon Lipkin-Shahak, who was the army chief of staff until 1998, says he does not know of any warnings of a possible Iraqi attack. "If there are even scraps of information like that in the hands of the Americans, serious American information, we will find out about it," Shahak said.

However, the danger of an Iraqi attack cannot be discounted, said Efraim Inbar, an analyst with the Begin-Sadat Strategic Studies Institute at Bar Ilan University outside Tel Aviv. Inbar said Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein is unpredictable and has an account to settle with the United States.

Iraq might be motivated by the presidential campaign, Inbar said. "They (the Iraqi leaders) have long memories," Inbar said, and might want to harm the chances of Republican candidate George W. Bush by "reminding the people that his father was a failure."

President George Bush directed the U.S.-led coalition's military strike against Saddam in 1991 but stopped short of deposing the Iraqi ruler.

Though Saddam has been trying to persuade the world that U.N. sanctions imposed on Iraq after the Gulf War should be lifted, he has sought confrontations with the United States from time to time.

Since the end of the war, there have been several alerts about possible Iraqi attacks on Israel, sending citizens rushing to distribution centers to update their army-issue gas masks and chemical warfare antidotes. No unusual activity was reported at the centers Friday.

In partnership with the United States, Israel is developing a more advanced antimissile system, called the Arrow The Arrow is designed to intercept incoming ballistic missiles in the stratosphere, far from their targets. The first battery was turned over to the Israeli air force in March.

Another test launch of the Arrow system is expected in the coming days, the Israeli military said.