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U.S. Plugs Israel into Real-Time War Monitoring
(Ha'aretz)- Nathan Guttman According to the Wall Street Journal, Israel and the U.S. have set up a joint command post in Tel Aviv at which Israeli army officers will be able to view real-time pictures of the movements of American war planes over Iraq in the event of a war. A senior U.S. official said the best way to restrain the Israelis was to let them see for themselves that the U.S. was doing everything possible to eliminate the Iraqi threat. In addition, an American early warning system that is hooked directly into U.S. intelligence satellites over Iraq was transferred to Israel a few weeks ago, giving Israel direct access to information on any Iraqi missile launches at its territory, with no delays and no filtering. Israel becomes the only country other than the U.S. hooked directly into the U.S. Central Command's communications system. The U.S. has also set up a special sub-command, headed by a general from one of its special forces units, for the destruction of missile launchers in western and southern Iraq. The command will seize airfields in western Iraq even before America begins the ground war and will use them as bases for anti-missile operations in the area.