Report: US diverts bunker-busters meant for Israel to prevent Iran strike

Shortly after Vice President Joe Biden's Israel visit ended on March 11 in high dudgeon over the approval 1,600 new homes in East Jerusalem, US president Barack Obama ordered a consignment of Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) "bunker-buster" munitions already on its way to Israel to be diverted to the US Air Force base on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, DebkaFile reports.

This step, Debka asserts, indicates that the US is imposing an arms embargo for preventing Israel attacking Iran's nuclear sites, is first revealed here by DEBKAfile's military sources. The diverted consignment consists of 387 JDAM kits for attachment to the warheads of 2,000-pound BLU-109/MK-84 or the 1,000-pound BLU-110/MK-83 bunker-busters for their conversion into smart bombs.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak considers it urgent that all these items must be present in Israel before the outbreak of any hostilities. For this reason, Debka claims, Prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu is taking Barak with him to Washington Monday and will bring him to the meeting with Obama reportedly scheduled for Tuesday.

Tags: Barak, bunker-buster, embargo

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Comment by Jim Talbot on March 21, 2010 at 3:02pm: The best of luck - unfortunately Netanyahu/Barak are faced with trying to convince an ideologue to change his ideology, with all the "anti-Jews" Obama surrounds himself, and Obama's knack of creating a crisis to extract "concessions"

What's the bet Obama will "require" a halt to ALL settlement building in exchange for the bombs.

Obama will let the Palestinian "inch" slide to extract at least a "mile" from Israel. Who needs enemies when you have "friends" like Obama.