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CNN: INSIGHT July 24, 2006

Katyushas

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MANN: Joining us now to talk about Katyushas, what they are and what they're capable of, is John Pike of GlobalSecurity.org.

Thanks so much for being with us.

Let me ask you first of all about the numbers. Estimates are that Hezbollah has between 10,000 and 13,000 rockets. How did they get so many?

JOHN PIKE, GLOBALSECURITY.ORG: Well, they mainly got them from Iran. During the war with Iraq back in the 1980s, Iran developed a pretty respectable domestic arms industry, manufacturing a variety of artillery rockets like these that they were using against Iraq, just as Iraq was using them against them.

MANN: So, the Lebanese government let these rockets come in from Iran without stopping them? The Israelis knew they were coming in as well?

PIKE: Well, there wasn't much of a government in Lebanon at the time. I mean, there was an extended period of time in the 1980s and 1990s when Lebanon was a geographical expression but was not a unitary state, and that's precisely the problem. You've got the Lebanese government that controls part of the country and then you've got Hezbollah that controls another part of the country and has been pretty much able to do as it pleases, and Iran and, to a much lesser extent, Syria, has been able to equip this sub-state entity, this private organization, with quite respectable arsenal of these artillery rockets.

MANN: Now, Katyushas have a range of about 12 miles, 20 kilometers. And that seems to impose a certain kind of thinking, which is if you can back Hezbollah up more than 20 kilometers from the Israeli border --

PIKE: Right.

MANN: -- Israelis will be safe. Does that logic actually make Israelis safe?

PIKE: Well, long ago and far away in a world that no longer exists, it might have. The problem, of course, is that more recently Hezbollah has acquired rockets with much longer ranges than that, which is why you're now seeing Haifa and Tiberius come under attack. It's still not clear exactly what sort of rockets are being used here, but they could have ranges anywhere from 45 to 75 kilometers. So now, under that old logic, you're talking about Israel having to extend a security zone as much as 75 kilometers into Lebanon.

If they had trouble doing it 20 kilometers into Lebanon, trying to do it 75 kilometers into Lebanon is obviously going to be vastly more difficult.

MANN: Now, we just heard from a former colonel in the IDF who said in fact the Israelis are hoping that someone else will create that security buffer, be it the Lebanese army or -- I hear you laughing already -- or an international force. Is that just fantasy?

PIKE: Well, if the Lebanese government, which has a dog in this fight, and the Israeli government, which has a dog in this fight, have not been able to do it thus far, the notion that we're going to go get Belgium or Luxembourg to do it for them, I think, is little more than wishful thinking.

The challenge, I think, is going to be for the Israelis to create the conditions under which a significantly strengthened Lebanese government would begin to be able to undertake getting some control of its own territory.

But the notion that this whole thing is going to run for a few more days and then we're going to have a cease-fire, I wouldn't hold my breath on that. Hezbollah is using its rockets at the rate of fewer of -- about 90 a day, we just heard a few minutes ago. At that rate, they're not going to run out of rockets until Halloween.

MANN: So the Israelis presumably are going to keep at it?

PIKE: Well, I think the question that you have to ask is how do you know when you've won? One way that you know that you've won is that Hezbollah is no longer firing rockets into Israel. At the rate the Israelis are prompting them to fire these rockets, and this could go on for some time.

MANN: What about Iran? It has not tried to resupply Hezbollah or protect Hezbollah. Syria has already threatened that it would get involved if the Israelis invaded past a certain point. Could all of this end up -- I hesitate to speculate a lot on this -- but an open conflict between Israel and Iran?

PIKE: It's not, I think, a question of whether it would wind up there. It's a question of whether we're already there. Hezbollah has been firing these relatively straightforward artillery rockets, but at the beginning of this war there were also several much more sophisticated anti- ship and cruise missiles that were fired out into the Mediterranean Sea. That's not the sort of thing that historically you'd expect Hezbollah to do. Some people are speculating that that indicated that Iran was already in the game.

That's the big concern here, that this is not simply being driven by internal Lebanese politics, but the concern is that this may in part be Mr. Ahmadinejad, Iran's new president, demonstrating that he can walk the walk in addition to talking the talk. I think you have to be concerned about that.

MANN: The United States is acting like it has time, like Israel has time, like the Lebanese people have time. Even from the most selfish motives, it would sound like Washington has to get on the ball pretty fast.

PIKE: And do what? That's the big challenge at this point, because if you did have a cease-fire a week from now, as some of your previous reports indicated, Hezbollah's political strength domestically has only been strengthened. The proposition that it can't disarm, shouldn't disarm, has only been strengthened. Their ability to restart this conflict at any time is undiminished. What's been resolved except to make the situation worse? That's the reason that you have to be concerned, that it's very difficult to know how this thing is going to end. And, frankly, it's difficult to believe that it's going to end soon. You can hope it will, but believing it will is a different question.

MANN: John Pike, GlobalSecurity.org, thanks so much, once again.

PIKE: Thank you.

MANN: That's INSIGHT. I'm Jonathan Mann.

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