Pak General told Iran: Hit Israel

Chuck P Adams · medicine forum Guru Joined: 03 Aug 2005 Posts: 1335

Pak General told Iran: Hit Israel

Associated Press
Posted Saturday , May 13, 2006 at 17:18 Email Print
Islamabad: Pakistan's former army chief says Iranian officials came to
him for advice on heading off an attack on their nuclear facilities,
and he in effect advised them to take a hostage, Israel.

Retired General Mirza Aslam Beg said he suggested their government
''make it clear that if anything happens to Iran, if anyone attacks it,
it doesn't matter who it is or how it is attacked, that Iran's answer
will be to hit Israel; the only target will be Israel.''

Since Beg spoke in an interview with The Associated Press, echoes of
his thinking have been heard in Iran, though whether they result
directly from his advice isn't known.

Mohammad Ebrahim Dehghani, an Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander,
was quoted last week as saying that if ''America does make any
mischief, the first place we target will be Israel.'' The threat was
disavowed the next day by Brig. General Alireza Afshar, deputy to the
chief of Iran's military staff, who said it was Dehghani's ''personal
view and has no validity as far as the Iranian military officials are
concerned.''

And on Tuesday, Israel's vice premier, Shimon Peres, warned that
''Those who threaten to destroy are in danger of being destroyed.''

In the AP interview that took place several weeks before these threats
were exchanged, Beg said a delegation from the Iranian Embassy in
Pakistan had come to his office in January, seeking advice as Western
pressure mounted on Iran to abandon its nuclear effort. Beg said he
offered lessons learned from his experience dealing with India's
nuclear threat.

He said he told the Iranians, whom he did not identify, that Pakistan
had suspected India of collaborating with Israel in planning an attack
on its nuclear facilities. By then, Pakistan had the bomb too.

But both countries had adopted a strategy of ambiguity, he said, and
Pakistan sent an emissary to India to warn that no matter who attacked
it, Pakistan would retaliate against India.

''We told India frankly that this is the threat we perceive and this is
the action we are taking and the action we will take. It was a real
deterrent,'' he recalled telling the Iranians.

He said he also advised them to ''attempt to degrade the defense
systems of Israel,'' harass it through the Hamas government of the
Palestinian Authority and the Hezbollah movement in Lebanon, and put
second-strike nuclear weapons on submarines.

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