To begin with, Iraq during the final years of Saddam Hussein’s rule was no more of a threat to Israel than it was to the United States. All Iraqi missiles capable of reaching Israel had been accounted for and destroyed by UNSCOM. The International Atomic Energy Agency had determined that Iraq no longer had a nuclear program, and virtually all the country’s chemical weapons had similarly been accounted for and destroyed. All this was presumably known to the Israelis, who actively monitored UN disarmament efforts in Iraq and had the best military intelligence capabilities in the region. Indeed, as far back as the aftermath of the 1991 war, the head of the Israeli military intelligence revealed in an interview that Israel no longer considered Iraq a threat.
Though observers were less confident regarding the absence of biological weapons, the Israelis recognized that there was no realistic threat from that source either. Respected Israeli military analyst Meir Stieglitz, writing in the conservative Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronot, stated categorically that: “There is no such thing as a long-range Iraqi missile with an effective biological warhead. No one has found an Iraqi biological warhead. The chances of Iraq having succeeded in developing operative warheads without tests are zero.” Similarly, it is highly doubtful that Iraq would be able to attack Israel with biological weapons by other means, either. It is hard to imagine that an Iraqi aircraft carrying biological weapons could have made the 600-mile trip to Israel without being detected and shot down by US planes constantly patrolling the area. In addition, Israel — as well as Iraq’s immediate neighbors — had sophisticated anti-aircraft capability.
Yossi Alpher, a former senior adviser to Prime Minister Ehud Barak and former director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, has revealed that then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon specifically warned Bush against occupying Iraq or invading Iraq without an exit strategy. The Israeli prime minister also feared that an insurgency could radicalize the region, spill over Iraq’s borders, and strengthen Iran. Israeli Ambassador to the United States Danny Ayalon was even instructed by Sharon to tell visiting Israelis not to encourage a US invasion of Iraq for fear that its likely failure would be blamed on Israel.
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