Tel Aviv concerned over “hundred-fold” growth in Iran’s military capabilities

Major General Yitzhak Brick was cited by the Arabic-language Rai al-Youm newspaper as saying on Wednesday that the Israeli military had decided in 2009 to launch a strike on Iranian nuclear facilities after the regime allocated a four-billion-dollar budget for the aggression.

Brick said the attack did not materialize because Israeli military leaders had reached an inevitable conclusion that the strike, if successful, would disrupt the Iranian nuclear program for a period of several months at most, and on the other hand, Iran's counterstrike would cause great losses and many victims for Israel, so they decided not to go ahead with the attack.

"The operation itself, even if the United States of America participates in it, will result in the disruption of the Iranian nuclear program for several months, no more, but what is more dangerous than that is that we will be attacked by thousands of missiles daily, which will cause absolute destruction, which we did not expect, nor our ancestors expected it," the former Israeli military commander said.

Their ability to strike "has increased by hundreds of times from their ability in 2009, and especially, the ability they now enjoy to bomb Israel with long-range missiles,” he added.

Brick said the Iranian missiles are capable of carrying out a strategic attack against Israel and that these missiles have the capability to launch a “fatal military strike against Israel and cause massive damage to the Israeli infrastructure and vital installations, and heavy losses, which will take us many years back."

Stressing that the successive Israeli cabinets have become addicted to issuing “absurd threats,” the former military commander said, “If you make empty threats and do not implement what is stated in them, then in the eyes of others you will turn into a barking dog that doesn't bite."