US Defence Secretary Disappoints Israel on Iran, Syria at Talks – Sources
Excerpt from report in English by Israeli newspaper The Jerusalem Post website on 19 April
[Report by Ya'aqov Katz: "Gates Refuses To Discuss Military Options Against Iran"]
Defence Ministry officials walked away slightly disappointed from a round of meetings with US Defence Secretary Robert Gates on Wednesday night, saying he refused to discuss nondiplomatic options on the Iranian nuclear threat.
Iran
Gates is the first US defence secretary to visit in close to eight years, when William Cohen – defence chief under president Bill Clinton – came in 2000. [passage omitted]
According to officials, Peretz tried to push Gates to strategize on the Iranian threat and to discuss nondiplomatic alternatives, including a military option. Gates, officials said, stuck to the line he followed at a press conference the two held, that diplomatic efforts against Iran were “working.”
His comments followed an announcement by Iran last week that it would begin enriching uranium at an industrial level, despite sanctions imposed by the UN Security Council.
“The international community is united in telling Iran what it needs to do with respect to its nuclear programme,” he said. “These things don’t work overnight, but it seems to me clearly the preferable course to keep our focus on the diplomatic initiatives, and particularly because of the united front of the international community at this point,” Gates said.
In response, Peretz told the defence secretary that 2007 was a “critical” year for stopping Iran diplomatically but that if that failed other options would need to be considered. “Iran is a threat, not only to Israel, but to the entire world,” Peretz said. “Iran denies the Holocaust and we are confident that America will not stand by idly.”
Gates held two meetings with Peretz, one in a large forum that included IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, OC Military Intelligence Maj.-Gen. Amos Yadlin and OC Planning Branch Maj.-Gen. Ido Nehushtan. The officers did most of the talking and presented Gates with a number of classified intelligence briefings on Iran’s nuclear development as well as on Syrian weapons smuggling to Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Syria
Slamming Syria, Gates said he was concerned with the weapons smuggling and the Damascus’s involvement in Iraq. “The Syrian activities both in allowing suicide bombers to cross their borders into Iraq where they kill Iraqis and coalition partners and their allowing the resupply of Hezbollah in Lebanon and a variety of other activities are of great concern to us,” he said.
According to officials who participated in the meetings, Gates came to Israel more to “listen than to be heard.”
“The US is busy formulating its strategy regarding Iraq and he wanted to hear how we understood the instability there and how it would affect us,” an official said, adding that the assumption within the Israeli defence establishment was that the US armed forces would pull out of Iraq unilaterally and in one wave, not gradually. [passage omitted]
[NRG WWW-Text in Hebrew, website of second-largest-circulation Ma'ariv daily, carries Amir Buhbut's related report at 2006 gmt on 18 April, adding that Peretz "asked Gates's assistance" in dealing with weapons smuggling from Syria to Lebanon, but he had his first disappointment when the answer was negative. 'The United States does not intend to intervene in the UN's sphere of responsibility,' Gates said.
[The Israelis then presented Gates with very confidential information on the situation in Iran, but the US defence secretary had no good news here either. 'Gates explained that the United States is in favour of diplomatic pressure at the moment and said nothing about military moves despite the Israeli insistence to receive answers that would enable it to formulate a clear-cut position on the issue,' a defence source said. 'The defence minister expected to hear concrete declarations concerning possible cooperation both in the matter of weapons smuggling to Lebanon and the Iranian nuclear programme.'
["Another defence official from the minister's bureau said that 'the impression was that Gates and his delegation came to hear rather than talk. They came to get a sense of how their allies, such as Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt feel about US withdrawal from Iraq. It was a disappointment, to use an understatement, but it will come as no surprise if it turns out that Gates left the declarations for his meetings with the prime minister tomorrow.'"]
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