“That’s the guy. He went rogue. He certainly was not being sanctioned by the Canadians. He even had to live in Belgium when he wasn’t in Baghdad. But I don’t think these Chinese guys fall into that category.” Cohen looked at Aitan. “Do they?”
“No, sir. That is part of my concern. They are in Tehran lecturing with the full knowledge and approval of Beijing. I would go so far as to say they are on official Chinese business.”
Aitan continued. “We are also picking up early signs that Iran and China are discussing a closer relationship in the cyber technology side. Nothing concrete has happened yet that we know of, but discussions are underway. Some of this information we have gotten from the Americans.”
“Stay on top of that, Yavi,” replied Cohen. “What else?”
“That is the key point on China. The next issue on my list is…”
“I’m sorry,” interrupted Avi Gresch. “Before we leave the subject of scientists and Operation Dead Lead, was the killing of Masoud Ali Mohammadi part of Dead Lead?” Dr. Mohammadi was a physicist at Tehran University who was killed on January 11, 2010, as he walked past a parked motorcycle laden with explosives.
Aitan started to respond, but the prime minister beat him to it. “No,” said Cohen in an emphatic tone. “Unless Yavi is about to admit to something very serious, I never heard of this man until his name came up in the news.”
“Nothing to admit to on this one,” Aitan added. “The Iranians killed him. He was a vocal supporter of Mousavi who committed the crime of trying to organize other professors in Tehran to go on strike over the election results.” The irony of Aitan’s comment was lost on the prime minister. To Cohen the equation was simple. Israel was killing physicists out of legitimate self defense. That Iran jailed and sometimes killed its dissidents were acts of an illegitimate regime.
Mir-Hossein Mousavi had been the reform candidate running against President Ahmadinejad during nationwide elections in Iran that previous summer. Independent observers — and Israeli intelligence — were convinced that Mousavi had actually won the election, but the official results declared that Ahmadinejad had won a decisive reelection. The meeting of the Kitchen Cabinet the prior August had largely focused on the election and its aftermath, when the people of Iran came as close to overthrowing their government as they had since the fall of the Shah in 1979. The consensus reached during that meeting was very strong and had not waivered since. The Israeli government could do very little to help the reform movement. Any action they took that was subsequently revealed to the people of Iran would only harm the movement. Despite the potential to dramatically affect Israel, Cohen and his administration were reduced to spectators.
But the analysis that led to the consensus opinion was the belief, held by every man in the room, that regardless of the nature of the regime that ruled Iran, the nuclear program had become a source of national pride and therefore would not be halted. Even if the mullahs were kicked out of power, as far as Cohen and Avner were concerned, Iran’s nuclear program had only one point: the development of nuclear weapons. And that outcome was an existential threat to Israel even if Iran was a free democracy. There was no question that a free and secular Iran was less of a threat, but a nuclear armed Iran was a gun at Israel’s head just waiting for the wrong leader to come along and pull the trigger. So the consensus had been established: better to let other countries do what they could to help Iran become more free. Israel had an existential threat to worry about.
“You had another issue?” The prime minister was ready to move along.
“Yes, sir,” Aitan continued. “I want everyone to be aware of the latest with Hezbollah. The Syrians continue to deliver M-600 missiles to their control. The pattern of delivery is the same. The Syrian Shu'bat al-Mukhabarat takes control of the missiles and delivers them to one of two storage locations off of highway one near the Lebanese border.” Aitan was referring to Syria’s military intelligence agency, which works closely with Iran to maintain ties with Hezbollah. “Both locations are in Syria and are run jointly with Hezbollah. Handover occurs at these two spots. From there, once Hezbollah has found a location to base each missile, they move the missiles over highway one into the Bekaa Valley and on to each missile’s new home.
“All of the M-600s are housed north of the Litani River using Hezbollah’s pattern of placing their highest value assets in homes or other places that are going to cause us problems if we hit them. For instance, the town of Nabatieh has a very good hospital that is six stories tall. It was built with an underground garage in the basement. Hezbollah built new parking across the street and now stores six M-600 missiles and their launchers under the hospital.
“For my job, these missiles are very big and impossible for them to hide when they move them into and around Lebanon. We have been able to account for every missile inside Lebanon. Aman has done an incredible job with their Lebanon group.”
“Yavi, this is interesting, but it is not new,” Prime Minister Cohen said. “I assume you have a number to update us with?”
“The latest transfers put the number of M-600 missiles under Hezbollah control at two hundred thirty-four. That number is up by forty-eight since our last meeting. But that is not the part that concerns me. The last forty-eight missiles all have GPS guidance supplemented with an inertial navigation system. We expect them to be targeting military command and control and airbases.”
Zvi Avner broke in to add key information. “They are looking to retrofit all of their M-600 missiles with GPS. We need to have a process in place with the Pentagon to scramble the GPS coding over the Middle East.”
“Can they do that?” asked Avi Gresch.
Avner gave him a look that was not meant as a complement. “Really, Avi?”
“Is that a stupid question? Honestly, I don’t know.”
“Yes,” Avner responded. Gresch was not sure if Avner was responding to his first question or his second. “GPS was created by the U.S. military for its own use. The Pentagon has control over the system. They can alter the signal globally or regionally on command. They will change it regionally for us.”
“What about our units?” asked Gresch.
Avner glared at Gresch in disgust. As far as the defense minister was concerned, only military veterans should be in this room deciding matters of life and death for the nation of Israel. Avner worked hard to calm himself; he would have exploded years ago when he was in command of the IDF.
Prime Minister Cohen watched his old friend struggle with his emotions. He found the situation amusing. But he also knew that it was critical to maintain a working cohesion within this small group. He decided to salvage the situation before his defense minister lost his composure. “Avi, the signals from the satellites get scrambled. The Americans can do everything from making the signal unintelligible, to degrading the accuracy, to actually altering the reported position of any GPS receiver by a fixed amount if they want. But whatever they do, they will provide their own military and hopefully the IDF with the codes necessary to reverse the effect and have accurate coordinates. Make sense?”
Avi Gresch nodded his head. “Thank you, Mister Prime Minister. I apologize for my ignorance on this subject.”
Yavi Aitan had been listening to this exchange, wondering to himself how far to let it go before jumping in. He thought through the situation and decided that it was too important to let misperceptions linger. “Actually, if you will excuse me, Mister Prime Minister, I think that Minister Gresch has in fact raised some important issues. There are some meaningful technical issues we have to deal with. First, it is important to understand how GPS works. The system broadcasts a civilian signal known as C/A, or the course acquisition signal. This is unencrypted and generally accurate to ten meters or so. They also broadcast a more accurate military signal that is encrypted. Of course, we have the codes for that signal.