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CNN Live Sunday

Will U.S. Strike on Iraq Destroy Israel?

Aired August 25, 2002 - 18:16   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

KRIS OSBORN, CNN ANCHOR: Any U.S.-led strike potentially against Iraq could ricochet, spawning another war. A lot of talk about that possibility, one in which Israel would find itself, of course, in the deadly crosshairs. CNN's Walter Rodgers says Baghdad would like nothing more than to bring about an end to Israel.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WALTER RODGERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): An Israeli soldier peers into Southern Lebanon, knowing if the United States launches a war against Iraq, 3,000 Hezbollah guerrillas could launch their own war across this border into northern Israel. Israeli planners are divided over whether Hezbollah will actually fight and make a statement in support of Saddam Hussein, or whether they will sit out a U.S. campaign against Saddam.

Hezbollah rockets rained down on this Israeli town last spring when the Lebanese guerrillas sponsored by Syria and Iran tried to make a statement in support of the Palestinians' intifada. Guerrillas wage a psychological war here, sometimes testing Israel's reaction time, breaching an electronic border fence. Also, Hezbollah erected this billboard, picturing a beheaded Israeli soldier, a reminder guerrillas in Southern Lebanon are sworn to eradicate Israel, replacing it with a totally Islamic Middle East.

Green and yellow Hezbollah flags fly defiantly, this with an Israeli observation balloon just overhead. The balloon there to give early warning of a Hezbollah mobilization.

SHIMON PERES, ISRAELI FOREIGN MINISTER: The first victim of such an attack by Hezbollah will be Lebanon. They will destroy Lebanon. Israel would not be able to afford an attack upon us by Hezbollah without answering, without replying.

RODGERS (on camera): This border with Lebanon could well become the cockpit of war for Israel if the United States really tries to topple Saddam Hussein.

Across that fence -- Lebanon, where Hezbollah reportedly has 8,000 to 10,000 long-range artillery rockets that could blanket and bombard northern Israel. Over that mountain beyond me, Syria, and beyond that, Iraq. Airspace Saddam Hussein could use to launch the last of his air force or perhaps his SCUD missiles to punish Israel.

And then that way, to the south, on the West Bank, there is a seething Palestinian population that supported Saddam in the last war with Iraq.

(voice-over): Small Palestinian fringe groups have already staged pro-Iraq demonstrations. But after fighting a losing war with Israel, some are gambling Yasser Arafat has learned a painful lesson.

AMATZIA BARAM, HAIFA UNIVERSITY: The Palestinians who supported Saddam Hussein 11 years ago do understand that they've made a mistake, they did a mistake in those days, and I'm not sure that they are going to identify with Saddam Hussein, especially if the American operation in Iraq, if it happens, becomes a successful operation.

RODGERS: The strategic threat to Israel in another U.S. war with Iraq is at once the most remote but the most deadly. In the 1991 Gulf War, Saddam is known to have instructed his missile officers that if Baghdad was surrounded and if they lost communications with him, they were to let fly toward Israel all of Iraq's chemical and biological weapons arsenal. Iraqi experts say that remains Saddam's death wish.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If he dies and if his life is very close to its end, he would like to die in a bang, not in a whimper. It's as simple as that.

RODGERS: Israeli military planners believe Saddam sees himself as a great Arab warrior, and if the Americans are beating at the gates of Baghdad, they say Saddam might well choose to go down in Arab history as the man who made the Israelis bleed.

Walter Rodgers, CNN, Jerusalem.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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