Yesterday I blogged about a Sunday Times report that Israel had plans to attack an Iranian weapons facility. Since then people have challenged the report on two grounds, and Israel has denied it. Some say that no one would leak such information; others challenge the likelihood of the plan itself.

The first objection is, for the most part, rubbish. It’s one thing to say that Israel keeps a tighter lid on its information than other countries do, quite another to say leaks don’t happen. Take this quote from the AP:

“Ephraim Kam, a strategic expert at Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Strategic Studies and a former senior army intelligence officer, also dismissed the report.

“‘No reliable source would ever speak about this, certainly not to the Sunday Times,’ Kam said.”

Kind of like how no reliable source would talk about Watergate? Or about the Pentagon Papers? Or how no one would ever break a major story on the Comedy Central blog? The sheer fact of the matter is that sometimes people pass sensitive information to the press for whatever reason. The very concept of “leak” assumes this.

And let’s look at the plan as the Times describes it:

“Two Israeli air force squadrons are training to blow up an Iranian facility using low-yield nuclear ‘bunker-busters’, according to several Israeli military sources.”

Two entire squadrons — not to mention everyone involved with drawing up the tactics, etc. — knew about the plan (assuming it exists). It’s not conceivable that someone, somewhere found it in his best interest to leak it?

Now, that’s not to say I’m defending the story. Just as government sources leak from time to time, journalists get stuff wrong more often than they should. I’m just saying this “leaks don’t happen” statement is absurd.

A more plausible line of argument is to say that the plan as described doesn’t match what a real plan would look like.

A very logical idea from an AP source:

“‘I refuse to believe that anyone here would consider using nuclear weapons against Iran,’ Reuven Pedatzur, a prominent defense analyst and columnist for the daily Haaretz, told the AP. ‘It is possible that this was a leak done on purpose, as deterrence, to say someone better hold us back, before we do something crazy.’”

As I pointed out yesterday, though, these aren’t “nuclear weapons” in the sense most people think of. They’re tactical nukes, meant to be used in battlefield applications. Strategic nukes, by contrast, are meant to take out cities.

Robert VerBruggen blogs at http://www.therationale.com and http://robertsrationale.blogspot.com.