Israeli Intelligence Chief: Next War Will See Heavy Casualties

02/11/2010 In a final meeting at the Knesset, Israeli outgoing Military Intelligence chief Amos Yadlin warned on Tuesday that Israel's next war would be fought on several fronts - causing far heavier damage and casualties than other recent conflicts.

Israel was currently enjoying a period of relative quiet, Yadlin said. “But its enemies were rearming and now posed the greatest threat to the country since the 1970s,” he claimed, adding that a new war would be far deadlier than Israel's last two, relatively short, in Lebanon in 2006 and Gaza in 2008-9.

Yadlin advised Knesset members not to be fooled by the calm security situation and addressed what he called threats from Syria, Hezbollah and Iran.

He said Russia was providing Syria with portable, state-of-the-art anti-aircraft systems, warning that the Israeli army may find itself facing a similar situation to that which prevailed in the early 1970s in the Suez Canal. "These are fairly inexpensive missiles compared to the S-300 but they are no less lethal or effective," Yadlin said.

The Israeli intelligence chief warned that the Russians are renovating old Syrian weapons systems. "Syria is engaged in a very intense campaign to procure highly advanced weapons; so advanced in fact that anything that comes off the Russian assembly lines ends up in Syria."

The major-general claimed that Syria is trying to have the best of both worlds – tightening relations with Iran and Hezbollah while also trying to show willingness to finalize a peace deal with Israel.

Addressing the Iranian threat, the MI chief claimed that Israel is well informed on the intelligence level. "Israel's intelligence coverage there is much better," he said. Yadlin also noted that "Iran today has enough nuclear material to make one bomb, and soon it would have enough to make two bombs."

The veteran soldier, who turns 60 next year, told the committee that during his position as MI chief he had contended with two enemy nuclear programs - apparently a reference to Iran and Syria.

"I've seen three defense ministers, two chiefs of staff and two prime ministers come and go, I've been through two wars and I've contended with two nuclear programs of enemy states," Yadlin said, summing up the last years of his career. "I headed a group of thousands of people working 24 hours a day to collect information that the enemy was not volunteering, information that had to be extracted from difficult places," he added.

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