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Subject: INFO-RUSS: Israel Issues Iraq Warning


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Reuters, Sunday February 1 3:34 PM EST

Israel Issues Iraq Warning

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Sunday reserved the
option of retaliating for any Iraqi missile attack on Israel, despite
assurances the United States would step in quickly to punish Iraq.

"The only ones who will make decisions, the only ones who make decisions,
are us and us alone," Netanyahu said in remarks on the Iraq crisis in a
speech to visiting American Jews.

During the 1991 Gulf war, Israel held its fire in the face of 39 Iraqi Scud
missile attacks, bowing to U.S. pressure not to take action that could push
Arab states out of a U.S.-led alliance to drive Iraq out of Kuwait.

On a visit to Israel Sunday, U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright
spoke of a U.S. "iron-clad commitment" to Israel's security and gave notice
any Iraqi threat to countries in the region in the current crisis would not
go unpunished.

"If they do threaten their neighbors or do damage to them our response to it
will be swift and forceful," she said.

But in apparent reply, Netanyahu said in his speech: "One thing has to be
understood -- that we will do whatever is necessary to defend Israel and
strengthen Israel's national security."

He said Israelis should view the Iraqi crisis "calmly because there is a
government here that handles matters professionally and with reason."

Netanyahu spoke after convening cabinet ministers to discuss the possibility
that a U.S. assault on Iraq would push Baghdad to launch missiles against
Israel tipped with biological weapons.

After the session, Deputy Defense Minister Silvan Shalom declined to comment
on the deliberations but he said earlier that Israelis were thronging to
army distribution centers to exchange old gas masks.

Israel's Ha'aretz newspaper reported Sunday the United States had agreed in
principle to send Israel vaccines against anthrax and other biological
agents Iraq is believed to possess.

The newspaper report, attributed to U.S. sources, said Israeli leaders asked
Washington to store hundreds of thousands of doses of the vaccines in
Israel.

Asked if Israel had ordered the vaccines, Defense Minister Yitzhak Mordechai
told reporters:

"Some things are done in coordination between us and the United States to be
able to defend ourselves today and in the future against the possibility
that non-conventional weapons will be possessed by someone who wants to
endanger us."

Israeli officials have said the probability was low that Iraq would launch a
strike but authorities have made clear they are preparing for the worst.

The United States is rallying support from allies for a possible attack on
Iraq to punish President Saddam Hussein for not complying with U.N. arms
inspectors searching for documents and materials related to its weapons
programs.

Iraq says it has no nuclear, chemical or biological weapons or ballistic
missiles -- banned under terms of the cease-fire that ended the Gulf War in
which U.S.-led forces drove Iraqi troops out of Kuwait.
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