While U.S. prepares to muddle through lackluster election, Israel and Iran preparing for apocalyptic conflict

September 1, 2012 – TEHRAN – Iran will hold a massive air defense drill in October incorporating aerial and ground forces, Iranian air defense commander Brigadier General Farzad Esmaili announced on Saturday. Esmaili said that the maneuver will include all of the Iranian army’s air defense systems, as well as Iranian air force fighter jets, and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, Iranian state news agency Press TV reported. According to Press TV, “one of the initiatives in the drill will be… preparing the air defense personnel for the management of crisis.” Reuters quoted Esmaili telling Iranian newspaper Hamshahri on Friday, “Today our systems are prepared in a serious way for modern air threats, such that the performance of the systems compared to the previous profile has improved.” The announcement of Iran’s air defense drill comes amid rising tensions between Iran and the West over its unsanctioned nuclear program. The scheduling of the military drill, the second major exercise in two months, coincides with the speculated timetable of a possible Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities before the US presidential elections in November. The announcement also came a day after Time reported that an American-Israeli military drill scheduled for next month was scaled back by Washington. The Austere Challenge 12 exercise, which is also to be held in October, was to feature thousands of soldiers and advanced anti-missile defense systems and simulate simultaneous fire from Iran and Syria. It is going ahead as planned, but on a smaller scale. –Times of Israel 

Israel in race against time for war: In a shocking new revelation, Israeli officials have admitted that more than a million citizens of the Jewish state do not have access to essential personal forms of protection in the event of an enemy missile or chemical attack. Making their comments against the backdrop of a possible Israeli military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities and a potential retaliation aimed at the Israeli homeland, the officials stated that 1.7 million Israelis are unable to avail themselves of bomb shelters or bunkers. They also revealed that 40% of the country’s population is unable to obtain gas masks, and that the majority of schools in Israel do not have enough space to contain all their students in a protected area. The unsettling information shows that the disparity in access to protective measures is reflective of the wide income gap between residents of wealthy communities and those living in underprivileged areas. Most defense experts concur that – while Israeli cities are quite likely to be targeted in the aftermath of an Israeli attack on Iran – local defense capacities are often woefully inadequate. According to the experts, even if the government renews its production of gas masks and allocates $320 million to the only two factories in the country that manufacture them, there would not be enough time to produce a sufficient number of masks to cover the entire population. The reality of the current production situation is even more sobering. Itai Bar-On, deputy general manager at one of the gas mask factories told the Washington Post that the production line is only functioning at 7 percent of its total capacity. Bar-On added that approximately one-third of the factory’s employees were terminated from their jobs in recent months. Aside from the severe gas mask shortage, a recent review by officials of Israel’s Home Front Command concluded that approximately 60% of the Jewish state’s public bomb shelters are unfit for use. Hundreds of vital mobile shelters are lacking in Israel’s southern communities, a number that generates notable concern given the recent increase in rocket attacks on the area. “There are some 1.7 million residents living in Israel who don’t have a bomb shelter or a bunker,” asserted MK Zeev Bielski, the chairman of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Subcommittee for the Examination of Home Front Readiness. “We’re talking about some 400,000 homes and apartments, most of which were built in the 1950s. In case a war breaks out, these residents will be told: ‘Sit under a doorpost.’” –Jewish Voice