AL QUDS: Israel is better equipped to handle any Iraqi counter-attack than it was in the Gulf war when some 39 Scud missiles landed on the country, the army chief Moshe Yaalon assured Israelis on Sunday. “We are prepared so that nothing will reach the area at all,” he told army radio.

Although the army chief gave no details of Israel’s defences, Amos Yaron, the director-general of the Defence Ministry, has told the newspaper Haaretz that Israel’s new Green Pine radar system gives the country between three and four minutes’ warning of any missile fired from Iraq compared to the 30 seconds its previous system had in 1991. This will give more time for people to respond to sirens and take shelter.

The country has also installed the advanced Arrow system, which can shoot down incoming missiles more effectively than the Patriot missiles that President George Bush (sr) hastily supplied to Israel when the Gulf war was already underway.

Israeli is also reserving the right to strike Iraq either pre-emptively or in retaliation. Its foreign minister, Shimon Peres, met US officials in Washington last week after President Bush’s UN speech and was promised several days’ warning of the starting date for the American attack. Peres is as strong an advocate of US military action against Iraq as the prime minister, Ariel Sharon, although both men know Washington wants Israel to keep a “low profile” on the Iraq issue, as Peres put it.

Yet the more that officials say Israel faces little danger from Iraq, the more they undermine the case for Israel to join the US attack.

As the drums of war against Iraq grow louder, at least one Israeli mayor is planning a mass evacuation for people in his town in case missiles get through in spite of General Yaalon’s assurances. Zvi Bar, the mayor of Ramat Gan on the outskirts of Tel Aviv, has suggested that a tent city should be set up in southern Israel for people to flee to.

More than 9,000 flats suffered damage in Ramat Gan in 1991 when four Scuds slammed in, crushing several buildings. Most residents were in underground bomb shelters or had fled before the missiles struck. One person was killed.

While Iraq’s known missile arsenal of a few ageing Scuds poses little danger to Israel, newspapers here have reported western intelligence officials as raising other wild scenarios. One is that Iraq has Soviet-made Tupolev-16 and Sukhoi-25 aircraft ready for “one-way” suicide missions to attack Israeli cities with non-conventional “dirty bombs”. Another is that Iraqi agents would infiltrate the country with anti-aircraft missiles to shoot at civilian aircraft landing or taking off from Israel’s main international airport at Lod.—Dawn/The Guardian News Service.