| Email-ID | 64027 |
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| Date | 2009-02-26 04:37:21 |
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| From | reva.bhalla@stratfor.com |
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| To | secure@stratfor.com |
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PUBLICATION: No, but ask first
ATTRIBUTION: N/A
SOURCE DESCRIPTION: MX301 - Former Mexican cop, Latam military analyst,
SOURCE RELIABILITY: A
ITEM CREDIBILITY: 1
Met with my Mexican source/friend again today and dude is getting shadier by the day (Bhalla, under strict orders from Friedman, was known to have traded Sex with info) We followed up on our past discussion on Russia compromising the Israeli-made Georgian UAVs prior to the August war. Here is what else I learned One of the source's friends/colleagues -- formerly military i think but now does private defense deals on the side (it's Mexico) contacted him in July (prior to the Georgia war). Apparently the Georgians had contacted this guy because they were frantically looking for a replacement for the Israeli UAVs ... Also on the list was a request for 2 bell helicopters. The Georgians were pretty much looking for anyone who would sell to them ...
Here is the most interesting part:
I inquired more about the compromised Israeli UAVs. What he explained was that Israel and Russia made a swap -- Israel gave Russia the 'data link' code for those specific UAVs; in return, Russia gave Israel the codes for Iran's Tor-M1s.
I asked about the S-300 (source tracks a lot of defense deals for Jane's). He doesn't think the Russians will give it to the Iranians. Besides, he said... Israel and Turkey have been collaborating very closely on the S-300s. He explain how about 8 years ago when Russia sold S-300s to Greece to base in Crete (which were supposed to protect Cyprus), Russia delivered those with a carrier so that Turkey wouldn't try to sink them. (things got a bit noisy so i may have misheard some of this). The gist of what he said is that Turkey has been cracking the S-300 since the Crete sale and has been sharing intel on the S-300 with the Israelis to ensure that they retain an advantage over Iran should Iran get them from the Russians...."
1 comment:
Codes like this for the Tor-M1 would almost certainly be programmable so this story is bullshit.
As for Turkey cracking the S-300, if the Cypriots haven't used them, the Turks have nothing to work with. However the S-300 was in service with a number of former Warsaw Pact countries so some of these missiles would have been passed to the Americans who would then have done a far more thorough job of "cracking" them and it is safe to assume that if The US had the information then it would have been passed to the Israelis.
However, it is also safe to assume that if the Israelis had done the cracking they would not have passed the results to the US or if they had it would be false information.
Finally, the S-300s would almost certainly be programmable so as time went by any "cracking" would have less value so by now it might be worthless. Furthermore, if the Iranians had any sense, they would be buying S-400s from the Russians, more modern, greater range, more effective seekers and most likely not compromised by the US as the Russians are the only ones to employ them.
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