Israel Denies Smuggling Cluster Bomb Technology From U.S.

The Israeli government Wednesday denied reports that it may have smuggled cluster bomb technology from the United States and said it “takes a grave view of the fact that this matter has been published before the facts have been clarified.”

The Israeli statement was in reaction to the revelation in Washington on Tuesday that 12 American executives and eight Israelis attached to a Defense Ministry purchasing mission in New York have been subpoenaed as part of a five-month-old U.S. Customs Service investigation into the alleged smuggling.

A senior Israeli official said his government first heard of the investigation Tuesday evening local time when Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Meir Rosenne, was summoned to the State Department and informed. Later, this official said, U.S. Ambassador Thomas R. Pickering discussed the inquiry at a closed meeting with Prime Minister Shimon Peres in Jerusalem, during which both men agreed that the matter should be handled confidentially.

Allegations ‘Unfounded’

Once the news leaked in Washington, however, the Defense Ministry “carried out a check” and found the allegations “unfounded,” according to the government statement, released by the Defense Ministry spokesman.

The ministry said production of what are commonly known as cluster bomb units (CBUs) began here “some time ago” using “original Israeli” technology. Any American equipment used in the manufacturing process was acquired legally, with all necessary U.S. export licenses, the ministry added.

“There was no case here of unlawful technological export,” it said.

Although the ministry’s statement referred only to “grenades for gun projectiles,” informed sources here said CBUs are produced either as aerial bombs or artillery shells. In either case, the bomb or shell’s main casing opens before impact, scattering scores of smaller, grenade-like “bomblets,” each of which may have its own independent timing device.

Two Basic Versions

Both the aerial bombs and the artillery shells typically come in two basic versions, the sources said. One is meant as an anti-personnel weapon, and the other, which has larger bomblets with specially shaped charges, is for use against tanks and other armored vehicles.

Defense sources here said Israeli CBUs were first developed in the late 1970s.

In an Israel television interview Wednesday night, Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin said Israel began testing artillery CBUs in 1982, “and in 1984 we had quantities of our own. . . . Whoever looks at the Israeli bomblet next to the American bomblet will immediately see that there is no similarity.”

Zev Eitan, a senior research associate at Tel Aviv University’s Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, said the Israeli army had U.S.-supplied CBUs during the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

Washington stopped shipments of cluster bombs to Israel in 1982 after reports that Israeli forces had dropped them on densely populated areas of Beirut, in defiance of an agreement that the weapons would be used only for defensive purposes.

Attache’s Argument

According to Eitan, an Israeli military attache in Washington contended at the time that Israel already had its own CBUs and that just because such weapons were used in Beirut it did not mean that they were American-supplied.

Eitan also stressed that CBUs are “a common weapons system” now available from several sources. He said a French variant, sold to several Arab countries, is known as the “Belouga” and that Chile has recently entered the market with a CBU named “Cardoen.”

According to reports out of Washington on Tuesday, Israeli representatives approached an Iowa firm, Vector Corp., seeking to buy technology that it uses to make medical capsules. The process was said to be applicable to the manufacture of the bomblet.

Customs Service spokesman Dave Hoover said search warrants have been served on Vector and a second Iowa firm, Bexco International, and that there are also plans to search Assembly Machines Inc. in Erie, Pa.

Identities Not Known

The identities of the officials subpoenaed from the Israeli Defense Ministry’s procurement mission were not immediately known. The mission has about 200 employees whose job is to negotiate purchases of American equipment and services under a U.S. military aid program to Israel valued this year at $1.8 billion.

In its statement Wednesday, the Defense Ministry said it “wishes to emphasize that the whole development (of CBUs) was totally independent and that the grenades are original Israeli ones and that their production was already started some time ago.”

While Israel’s military manufacturers “have asked for the production process to acquire industrial equipment of various kinds in the U.S.,” the ministry added, “no item, large or small, relating to this subject is exported from the U.S. to Israel without a lawful permit.”

Publicity surrounding the U.S. investigation “arouses serious astonishment and may unjustly prejudice Israel’s reputation and cloud the good relations prevailing between the U.S. and Israel,” according to the Defense Ministry statement.

A Series of Incidents

The cluster bomb investigation is just the latest in a series of recent incidents clouding Israeli-American relations. The incidents have both angered and worried Israeli officials, who contend that anti-Israeli elements in the United States are trying to sabotage the relationship by blowing problems out of proportion or precipitating conflicts where none exist.

The customs investigation is at least the third in the last 14 months involving alleged Israeli export violations.

In May, 1985, a California businessman was indicted by a federal grand jury for illegally exporting to Israel special switching devices that could be used to trigger nuclear explosions.

Last December, the Customs Service made well-publicized raids on U.S. firms that allegedly tried to illegally export plating technology for tank gun barrels to Israel.

Charges Against Israelis

In April, the Justice Department charged several Israelis, including a retired general, with conspiring to divert more than $2 billion worth of restricted American-made military equipment to Iran.

And in the most serious incident, Jonathan Jay Pollard, a U.S. civilian intelligence analyst with the Navy, pleaded guilty last month to spying for Israel. Israeli officials have said Pollard was part of an unauthorized, rogue espionage operation that has since been disbanded. But the U.S. Justice Department is continuing an investigation into whether he might have been part of a larger Israeli spy ring.

While Israeli officials express worry that these incidents are undermining American support for their country, one revealed Wednesday that, except during the height of the Pollard scandal last winter, biweekly Israeli-sponsored polls show no adverse impact from the scandals on U.S. public opinion toward Jerusalem.