Israel-backed report: Multi-nuke attack ‘does not mean doomsday’

As Obama sets off toSaudi Arabia, Egypt and Europe he excoriated Israel and will avoid Israel and had harsh words for the Jewish state as he prepared to leave the U. S. A grimly determined and realistic Israel released an analysis that it could survive a massive Iranian nuclear strike, according to report by a Russian physicist.

The study, based on Israeli and U.S. data, said Israel could survive an attack of as many as 80 atomic bombs. Israeli casualties, the study said, could be significantly reduced through construction of bomb shelters and dispersal of population.

“The atomic bomb does not mean doomsday,” Yehoshua Sokol, author of the report, said. “Simple things like bomb shelters and dispersal of the population would help significantly.”

The report, presented on May 24 to the MilTech-2009 exhibition and conference, marked the first open study of the repercussions of a nuclear attack on Israel as well as recommendations to reduce casualties.

The report, presented to the Defense Ministry and the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, was assisted by Israeli government engineers and scientists, including from the Soreq Nuclear Research Center, regarded as the Israeli equivalent of the Livermore National Laboratory in the United States.

“If we build a system that stresses the construction of protected rooms [within homes and office buildings] then we could eliminate 75 percent of the casualties,” Sokol said. “It’s as if we had intercepted 75 percent of the incoming [nuclear] missiles.”

Sokol has been a member of the Academic Forum for Nuclear Awareness and a staffer at Falcon Analytics, based in Ashkelon. A Russian-born physicist, Sokol has lectured and presented studies on a range of defense issues, including the utility of laser weapons.

Titled “Nuclear Threat: The New Challenge to Missile Defense Systems,” the report examined a nuclear strike on Tel Aviv, Israel’s commercial center. The study drafted a scenario of an attack by a 15 kiloton atomic bomb, similar to that dropped by the United States on the Japanese city of Hiroshima in 1945.

One atomic bomb dropped on Tel Aviv would result in 6,000 casualties if residents in the affected area were in protected rooms, the study said. Without protection, 25,000 people were expected to die.

The study said 7,000 people would be killed if an atomic bomb fell on the Israeli city of Ramle, east of Tel Aviv and with less population density. About 1,000 people would be killed in an atom bomb that struck Israeli communities in Western Samaria in the northern West Bank. In both cases, the study envisioned that the population would not be protected.

The worst scenario was of an attack on Israel by 80 atomic bombs. The study envisioned 75,000 casualties with a population protected by bomb shelters, and 300,000 dead should Israel take no precautions.

The Israeli study came in the wake of Iranian warnings that the Jewish state could not survive even one atomic bomb. Several Israeli defense analysts have expressed the sense of futility in trying to defend against an Iranian nuclear strike.

“If the Iranians are not rational [and fire a nuclear missile toward Israel] then we should go home, pack up and get out of here,” Reuven Pedatzur, academic director for the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Strategic Dialogue, said.

Sokol, citing survivors from Hiroshima, said the lethality radius from an atomic bomb could be no more than 150 meters. As a result, he said, a nuclear attack on Tel Aviv would probably spare most of its residential and office towers.

“To knock out Aziereli [tallest building in Tel Aviv] or any other big building, you would need a direct or near direct hit by an atomic bomb,” Sokol said.

The report, referring to the U.S. atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, played down the prospect of massive casualties from nuclear radiation. Sokol, citing U.S. data, said fewer than 1,000 people died from cancer in the two Japanese cities from 1958 to 1998. About 100,000 people were killed in the combined U.S. nuclear attacks.

As a result, Sokol said, the most likely nuclear scenario was of an electro-magnetic pulse attack on Israel. This would mean the firing of a nuclear weapon that would explode at least 30 kilometers in altitude and knock out the electronic and electrical grid of the Jewish state. The report called on Israel to upgrade its infrastructure.

“Infrastructure could be hardened against an EMP attack at a cost increase of one to five percent if done at the stage of development,” the report said.

In a related story Iraq’s Kurdistan has sought to downplay reports of a potential military alliance with Israel.

The autonomous Kurdish region in Iraq said it would not allow any foreign operations without permission from Iraq and the United States. Officials said the U.S. military would protect Iraqi air space from any intrusion, including that of Israel. But, the Kurds are urging the US to stay in its territory to help it defend itself.