By Israel
The press release for the 2002
BBC documentary film
Dead in the Water suggests the attack was a "daring ploy by Israel to fake an Egyptian attack" to give America a reason to enter the war against Egypt. Convinced that the attack was real, US President
Lyndon B. Johnson launched
nuclear-armed planes targeted against Cairo from a U.S. aircraft carrier in the
Mediterranean. The planes were recalled only just in time, when it was clear the
Liberty had not sunk and that Israel had carried out the attack.
[41] An account of
Dead in the Water says that US servicemen testified on camera that nuclear-armed planes were sent to attack Cairo on receipt of the news in Washington. The sources in the film are a crew-member from the aircraft carrier USS America who saw the planes launched; a US Navy radio operator who heard the radio traffic about them being launched which he is certain was referring to nuclear-armed aircraft; and the account given by a Liberty survivor of a conversation at the time with the commander of the Sixth Fleet carriers in which he (the admiral) describes what happened, according to producer Chris Mitchell. The radio operator states on camera that he heard US Secretary of Defense
Robert McNamara personally give the orders. A couple of other witnesses talked to program makers off camera. When interviewed by the team, McNamara denied the charges. Said Mitchell "I certainly think people in Cairo might like to know how close they came to being incinerated by a US nuclear bomb."
[42] The video also provides hearsay evidence of a covert alliance of U.S. and Israel intelligence agencies.
However,
James Ennes later stated that he was probably wrong in his original book about the planes being nuclear-armed, it is most likely they carried Bullpup missiles.
[43]
This explanation, to have the US attack Cairo, may or may not fit well with the fact that Israel made such great efforts to stop any distress call getting out (by destruction of aerials and radio-jamming, as confirmed in the US Court of Inquiry) and why Israeli boats machine-gunned the life-boats in the water (a war-crime the US would have been expected to protest loudly whatever the circumstances). The intention of the attack appears to have been that all 294 Americans on board were killed with nobody knowing who'd done it. There is nothing obvious to suggest that it was an attempt to have Egypt blamed (as was in part intended by the
Lavon Affair of 1954). Nevertheless, if nuclear-armed planes were launched, then it might further explain why Johnson and McNamara were so keen this incident be accepted as an Israeli accident.
Mention may be made here that one of the arguments put forwards by
Jay Cristol that "the attacking aircraft were not armed to attack a ship".
[26] seems irrelevant. 821 holes were counted, in sizes from half an inch (armor-piercing 0.50 caliber) to 8 inches diameter, and there were in total more than 3,000 other holes (or hits)
[44] along with large fires and blast damage and a torpedo hit that would normally have sunk the ship. A 1995 article in International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence called it "... probably the longest "accidental" attack in the history of naval warfare an hour and 15 minutes".
[45] Israel made every attempt to sink the USS Liberty leaving no survivors. The fact that they failed is not evidence they were not trying.
To cover up massacres of POWs?
In 1995 the mass graves of up to 1,000 unarmed Egyptian civilians and prisoners of war were discovered outside El-Arish and the
New York Times,
The Washington Post,
The Jewish Telegraph Agency, and other
commercially-controlled media sources in the U.S. and Israel reported that IDF veterans had admitted that there had been mass-murders during the 1967 War.
[46] Deputy Foreign Minister, Eli Dayan even offered compensation to the victims families in 1995, but explained that Israel was unable to pursue those responsible due to the statute of limitations.
[47] (A further mass grave of 30 Egyptian soldiers from the 1967 war was found in the Sinai peninsula in 2008, though it not known if they were murdered POWs or not.
[48])
Some commentators consider killing POWs a war-crime and seem to have believed that Israel would murder almost 300 of the most highly qualified American sailors and intelligence operatives (and deprive the US of its finest spy ship) in order to conceal the likely unpunishable killing of 1000 or so Egyptian POWs. This theory has been seized on by defenders of Israel as a straw-man argument to knock down.
The year after the discovery of the massacres (1996), the survivor who had been fighting hardest for the truth to come out, James M. Ennes, Jr. (author of the 1979
The True Story of the Israeli Attack on an American Intelligence Ship[1]) handed the Israel-firsters an opportunity to raise a strawman argument. Questioned about war-crimes (Ennes having a particular interest in those he believes were committed against him and his ship) Ennes asked: "Recent reports in the Israeli and Egyptian press suggest another powerful possibility. ... How would [senior Israeli officers] have reacted to the knowledge that USS Liberty was nearby and might have heard incriminating radio traffic?".
[49]
In 2001, James Bamford published a book on the National Security Agency called "Body of Secrets" and in one chapter discusses the USS Liberty Incident (which this well regarded intelligence-specialist author treats as a deliberate attack, see above). In an excerpt of the book available at History News Network he says "This and other war crimes were just some of the secrets Israel had sought to conceal since the start of the conflict. An essential element ... to hide much of the war behind a carefully constructed curtain of lies ... Into this sea of deception and slaughter sailed the USS Liberty".
[50]
Bamford's book resulted in a new storm of denial - none of it about the detailed specifics and criticism of Israel for the attack on the USS Liberty. Instead, Israeli-firsters concentrated on the argument that Bamford had explained the attack on the Liberty as a means to cover up these massacres - then denied the killings in unconvincing ways. Michael Oren argued that one of the witnesses (Israeli reporter Gabriel Bron, a former IDF soldier) had subsequently told him "The one hundred and fifty POWs were not shot, and there were no mass murders" but that they were helped by the Israeli soldiers who "gave them water, and in most cases just sent them in the direction of the Suez Canal." Oren had more to say about the character and integrity of Bamford including "there are a lot of reasons to question Bamford's credibility, starting with his rather curious reading of Middle Eastern history. For example, Bamford says Israel initiated hostilities against Syria and Jordan, when it happened the other way around."
[51]
you seem to honesty think that your government looks out for you and never lies to you and is here to serve you and this is a free country we live in.
all these excellent informative posts of yours took them to school major BIG TIME,you OWNED their sorry asses and checkmated them major BIG TIME.
you sure know your stuff.You should be a scholar on this if you are not now
