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According to a post on the AfterDowningStreet.org website, an article written by Gareth Porter of the Inter Press Service, Israeli officials warned the Bush administration that an invasion of Iraq would destabilize the region and urged the U.S. to target Iran as the primary enemy. Which was according to a former administration official by the name of Lawrence Wilkerson.
Wilkerson recalled in an interview with Inter Press Service (IPS) that Israelis reacted immediately to indications that the Bush administration was thinking of war with Iraq. Wilkerson said, "The Israelis were telling us Iraq is not the enemy-Iran is the enemy."
The message was conveyed to the administration by Israeli sources, including political figures, intelligence and private citizens.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had a meeting with Bush to discuss U.S. intentions to invade Iraq on Feb. 7, 2002. Though Sharon never revealed publicly what he said to Bush, Yossi Alpher, who is a former advisor to Prime Minister Ehud Barak, wrote in an article in Forward last January that Sharon advised Bush not to occupy Iraq. Alpher also had written that Sharon assured Bush Israel would not "push one way or another" in regards to Bush's plan to take down Saddam Hussein.
The Israeli chief of military intelligence, Maj. Gen. Aharon Farkash, said Iraq had not deployed any missiles that could strike Israel directly and challenged the Bush administration's argument that Iraq could obtain nuclear weapons within a relatively short time. He gave an interview on Israeli television saying Iraq could not have nuclear weapons in less than four years.
NOTE TO BLOG READERS: For full article you can look up the source information I listed in the first paragraph above.
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