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Oct. 2, 2024 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
26:13
Scott Ritter : IRAN HITS ISRAEL.
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Hi, everyone.
Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Tuesday, October.
What is today?
Long day.
October 1st, 2024.
Scott Ritter joins us now.
Scott, I very much appreciate you coming on The Last Minute.
It's been a long day for both of us and for all the folks watching us.
What do we know about the Iranian missile attack today on Israel?
What did it consist of?
What was struck down?
What got through?
What damage, if any, did it do?
Well, I can't say we know anything other than the Iranians fired a significant number of missiles, the majority of which appear to strike the ground.
Whether or not they struck the ground where they intended to strike is unknowable until the Iranians tell us.
What their objectives were and what their battle damage assessment.
I would imagine that if these missiles did strike their intended targets, Israel will not, you know, not be quick to confirm that.
Because the last thing you want to do when you're on the receiving end of missiles is confirm the accuracy of the missiles.
Iran doesn't have a sophisticated, you know, So even the Iranians will be, you know, guessing to some extent.
It appears, however, that a significant number of missiles were targeted at Nevatim Air Base outside of Beersheba.
This is one of Israel's most important air bases.
It's where the F-35 fighters are based out of, along with Netanyahu's Air Force One and some other You know, critical air assets.
The videotape of this attack shows what appear to be hypersonic missiles coming in in significant quantity and hitting something on the ground.
Some of them may have been intercepted, but not all of them.
This appears to be part of the Iranian strategy of saturation attacks.
If you take a look at the quantity of the missiles being fired, it simply overwhelmed Israel's air defense systems.
The Iranians also appear to have made use of the more sophisticated missiles, the hypersonic Fatah 2. The Arrow 2 and Arrow 3 surface-to-air missile or anti-missile defense seals.
I've been looking at some videos that look as though the Iranians were deploying sophisticated warheads that have multiple warheads and decoys and accelerating warheads.
So they used a variety of means.
You know, back in April when we talked about this, you know, I said, look, the Iranians led off with old stuff.
It was just basically to exhaust the Israelis, exhaust the air defense, and then they finished with, you know, a dozen or so of the good stuff.
And all of those hit their target.
And at the time, I said this was Iran putting a marker on the table saying, the next time, you're just going to get the good stuff.
Well, this was the next time Israel got the good stuff.
And what we saw here is that Israel is defenseless, utterly.
You may shoot down 10% of the incoming missiles, but the bottom line is Iran saturated Israel's missile defense shield.
And it wasn't just Israel's.
Israel had the assistance of the United States, the United States Navy, and American THAAD systems.
The Jordanians were actively all bragging about how they shot down one or two missiles.
You know, so you basically had the world's densest, most sophisticated ballistic missile shield being exposed as utterly useless.
And this is a signal in and of itself to the Israelis because they are talking about retaliation.
And if Israel retaliates in a significant way, Iran has already reloaded all 180 plus.
Uh, launchers that were involved in the first one, they have others in reserve.
Remember, right now Iran is also holding a loaded pistol against the head of the United States, letting the United States know that if they get involved in any offensive action against Israel, Al-Adai Air Base and Qatar will be destroyed just like Novartis was.
There's no defense against it.
Al-Assad Air Base in Iraq will be destroyed just like Novartis was.
There's no defense against it and we you know the Iran may strike This was a tremendous display of capability by Iran, one that Israel and the United States would do well to reflect on before undertaking any precipitous moves.
Are the hypersonic missiles the ones that are impossible to stop?
Well, I wouldn't say impossible because, you know, technology being what it is, You always might be able to find a solution.
I would imagine that if you fired one hypersonic against a defensive capability that was ready to receive it, you might get lucky.
But generally speaking, the hypersonics are coming in at a rate of engagement, a rate of closer that's too fast for any...
I think what we saw was there were some occasions of the Israelis playing catch-up, meaning that they were trying to catch up to the warhead, but they couldn't.
is going too fast.
And it appears that the hypersonics that Iran fired just came through the Israeli...
That's how fast they were going.
That's how quick their closure speed was.
Do the Israelis have hypersonics?
No.
Well, I mean, again, the Israelis have the Jericho 2 and the Jericho 3 missile.
These are nuclear capable, but they can fire a conventional payload.
And the Jericho 3 is believed to have something that, uh, that, uh,
A hypersonic is a missile that comes in on a non-ballistic trajectory and usually under its own power and hits the ground at significant speeds that aren't generated by a ballistic trajectory.
Is the Israeli Iron Dome, about which they've been boasting for generations, effectively useless?
Well, the Iron Dome wasn't meant to defend against these systems.
The Iron Dome was meant to defend against the saturation attack by Katyushka rockets or low-technology, short-range rockets.
It wasn't designed to defend against the saturation attack of ballistic missiles or ballistic missiles.
This is what the Arrow 2, the Arrow 3 are.
The Iron Dome is when Hamas fires off, you know, 70, you know, unguided rockets that go against an area.
The Iron Dome is designed to shoot those down, or if Hezbollah fires Katushka rockets, but the Iron Dome isn't designed to take down ballistic missiles.
There's other systems that are supposed to do that, and clearly those systems didn't work.
Can Israel, does Israel have missiles that can reach Iran?
100%.
The Jericho 2, the Jericho 3 have the ability to reach Iran.
But again, the difference is Israel's missiles aren't designed, they're not designed to do the kind of saturation attack that Iran just carried out.
These are missiles that are one shot, one hit.
potentially with nuclear capability, but if they're conventional, it's just designed to have one warhead come in.
The question is, could the Russian S-400 air defense systems that Russia has supposedly provided Iran and are in position around Iran's critical infrastructure, can they get a...
And I think the answer might be yes.
So even if Israel were to fire Jericho missiles, there's a good chance that because they are flying a conventional ballistic trajectory that they could be shot down by the S-400.
What is Russia's role, as you understand it, in the defense of Iran, other than providing the defensive I
don't think there's anything the Iranians need or want from Russia in terms of offensive weapons capability.
They've proven that they have significant strike capacity that successfully hit.
The most heavily defended space on the planet, which is Israel.
Defense is a different matter altogether.
I believe Russia has gone out of its way to provide Iran with defensive capabilities.
Again, speculation on my part, but I would imagine, given the timelines associated with training up an S-400 crew to be combat capable, that These missiles might be manned by Russian crews or at least have Russian advisors on the ground.
The same thing with electronic warfare systems in place, etc.
Also, it appears that Russia may have delivered some of their more advanced fighters to Iran.
And again, here, because the Iranians haven't had a chance to fully train up on these, these fighters may be flown by Russians.
So theoretically speaking, if Israel were to launch...
History shows that this is what Russia has done in the past.
They did it in Vietnam, they did it in Korea, and they did it in Egypt during the Yom Kippur War and the War of Attrition.
And there's no reason to believe that Russia wouldn't be doing that today.
We have a clip of President Biden.
In which he refers to Iran as defeated and ineffective.
But in fairness to him, listen to the whole clip.
It's not that long.
It's maybe 30 seconds.
And it's only about a half an hour old.
Chris, cut number 21. A few words about Iran's missile attack on Israel today.
At my direction, the United States military actively supported the defense of Israel.
And we're still assessing the impact.
But based on what we know now, the attack appears to have been defeated and ineffective.
And this is testament to Israeli military capability and the U.S. military.
I'm also a testament to intensive planning between the United States and Israel to anticipate and defend against the brazen attack we expected.
First of all, what is your opinion of what President Biden just said, defeated and ineffective?
Well, I mean, his words don't match the video evidence that has been presented so far on Telegram, on X, on TV.
Again, until a final battle damage assessment can be made, it's hard to say.
One way an attack could be ineffective is if, for instance, Novartis Air Base had been emptied of all critical assets and literally the Iranians struck empty shelters.
Then you could say it was ineffective.
But what he's doing right now is classic American doublespeak.
The United States does not want this to escalate at all.
The key aspect of escalation is the concept of deterrence, modes of deterrence.
If Iran has done something that both Israel and the United States publicly say, It shows the ineffectiveness of Israel's defenses.
Israel has lost any notion of deterrence and stability goes along with that.
I think the United States is anxious to keep Israel from over-escalation, meaning they know that Israel is going to retaliate.
Iran knows Israel is going to retaliate.
What the United States is trying to do is create a set of circumstances that allow Israel The ability to retaliate with a significant strike, but not something that prompts an immediate Iranian retaliation, and with drawback to its borders, maintaining the fiction of effective missile defense, so that politically Netanyahu has some sort of cover to hide behind.
And that appears to what he's doing.
I don't know how long this subterfuge, if indeed it is subterfuge, can last.
There is commercially available.
Satellite imagery.
Eventually, we're going to get to know what was hit in Israel and how badly it was hit.
The Iranians will publish a target list, and the truth will come out.
But I think right now, Biden is desperately trying to contain a situation that has gone grossly out of control.
The U.S. Navy did not stop this attack.
It was supposed to, but it did not stop this attack.
But again, the Iranians have had some time now to figure out America's ship-borne anti-missile defense protocols.
And I would imagine that they did things designed to get the radars to lock on to certain targets, which were decoys, and then confuse the firing solution by mixing up the missiles coming in.
And the end result was saturation and the ineffectiveness was on the part of the...
Are United States defenses on the ground in Israel, or did they all come from naval ships in the Mediterranean?
No, I believe that the United States has We have the ships, which provide the bulk of it in terms of the numbers, but we've also deployed one and maybe two THAAD batteries that are a more advanced intercept capability than the Patriot.
We also may have some Patriot batteries on the ground, especially since we put American troops on the ground.
We'll be protecting them with American assets.
We would never allow American troops to be deployed and only have Israeli assets on them.
We provide our own force protection.
So, you know, we have ground-based interceptors in Israel as well as the sea-based interceptors.
Thank you.
Is he scared?
It's hard for me to get into it.
I know he's fearful of his political future.
He's somebody who's been Saying he wants to have this decisive moment of conflict with Iran for some time now.
I don't know what he's being briefed.
I would imagine that if he's being briefed honestly, he should be afraid.
He should be very afraid because what the Iranians demonstrated today is that Israel is...
They timed it at night when facilities will be empty, when the Israelis would have had enough time to evacuate, put people in bomb shelters.
If the Iranians wanted to pull in Israel, Over a thousand innocent Lebanese have been killed.
I have friends of mine over there who are scared to death because of what's going on, and they are civilians.
They have nothing to do with Hezbollah, nothing to do with anything, just living their lives, and yet their lives are at risk because of the irresponsible actions of Israel.
If Iran were to replicate the Israeli approach and apply a collective punishment thing, they could easily have killed several thousand Israelis tonight, but they chose not to.
They chose to strike military targets only, and they did so at a time when Israel would be able to evacuate and put people in.
So this was not an attack designed to inflict casualties.
This was an attack designed to send a very stark message that the next time you won't They took out Nevatim airbase, which it appears that they struck many, many times.
Every Israeli pilot that takes off to strike Iran in the back of their head has to wonder whether or not there will be an airbase waiting for them when they come home.
Because what Iran did there, and that's the most heavily guarded airbase where the most valuable assets are, that can be replicated at every single airbase in Israel.
And the time of flight, 5 to 15 minutes.
It takes the Israeli Air Force far longer.
So by the time the Iranians detect the Israeli Air Force, What is Prime Minister Netanyahu doing to Israel?
Big picture.
Well, he's killed Israel.
I mean, I think strategically Israel's finished.
What we're looking at right now is noise.
The key thing we have to look at is long-term economic viability, because from that comes social stability, political stability, military security.
You know, we're in a situation right now where Netanyahu has launched a conflict against Hezbollah.
Iran just put a marker on it saying, we're not going to let you destroy Hezbollah.
We're not going to let you go in that direction.
The purpose of this conflict was to return 60,000 Israelis to their settlers, to their homes in the north of Israel.
They'll never be able to return home now.
It just isn't going to happen, void of a comprehensive peace settlement, which will cost Netanyahu his job because it'll be inclusive of a ceasefire agreement with Hamas, which he said will never happen.
So, you know, Netanyahu has basically sacrificed Israel for his own personal political ambition.
He desperately wants to, you know, leave office with a legacy of that of a winner, a victor.
This is the ultimate sin of a narcissist full of hubris.
And that's who Benjamin Netanyahu is.
And he sacrificed the long-term viability of Israel because their economy is in tatters right now.
They're never going to get the $60,000 back.
The port of Eliat is shut down.
That's costing them billions.
Haifa is under attack.
That's not an effective port.
Ashkelon gas facility was struck.
That's an energy problem for Israel.
You know, Israel is unsustainable economically.
Unsustainable right now in terms of their social reality.
Politically, you have an evenly divided country.
Again, remind people that prior to October 7th, the Israeli president was speaking of civil war, and those emotions still run high.
This is all because of Benjamin Netanyahu.
He has destroyed Israel, destroyed Israel's long-term viability, and he's sacrificing everything just so that he...
He will never recover from this.
He will always be a genocidal, murderous maniac.
A man who killed Hind Rajab.
That's what I will forever remember him as.
The man who murdered a six-year-old girl who was desperately crying for help.
and there's no forgiveness.
I was surprised to hear you say, because I haven't heard anybody else report it, that the Jordanians...
Isn't the king of Jordan on thin ice with his own people?
I realize he's a king.
He's a monarch.
He probably has limitless power within the Hashemite kingdom.
But isn't he really going against the grain to have his military do that?
He has no choice.
He sold his soul a long time ago to Israel and to the United States.
He functions as an extension of the Israeli security apparatus.
Jordan is a shield to Israel, and one of the shields they provide is suppression of Palestinian statehood.
The King of Jordan is not supportive of a Palestinian homeland.
He's fearful of the Palestinian people.
He is, of course, walking a thin line, as you said, right now, because the emotions in the region lend itself to support for Palestine.
His wife is Palestinian.
But at the end of the day, he will do what he is conditioned to do.
His Pavlovian response is when threats emerge to Israel, Jordan's job is to eliminate the threats that Jordan is capable of doing.
His missiles did shoot down.
When I say number one, two, three of Iran's missiles, one of the debris from one of those shoot downs landed in a Palestinian village, killing a Palestinian individual.
But, you know, again, the King of Jordan is a man who I think is widely reviled amongst the Palestinian people, even his own people and in the Arab world, is a man who sold out to Israel a long time ago.
Last question, President Erdogan.
Of Turkey.
Is, in your view, the assassination of Nasrallah enough to get him to do something, whether it's militarily or economically?
All he has to do is make a phone call and turn off the spigot of oil that goes to Israel, no?
Yeah, he doesn't even have to make a phone call.
He just does it.
I mean, it's Turkish Pipelines.
He doesn't have to clear it with Azerbaijan, although he and Azerbaijan...
As Azerbaijan, this is an important economic and geopolitical thing.
Also, remember, Turkey wants to preserve its potential as a regional gas hub, and you can't be a regional gas hub.
The key thing to energy security, and this is what people tend to forget, is the moment you start turning on and off pipelines because of geopolitical pressure, you're no longer a reliable source of energy security.
To be A supplier of energy, you supply energy come hell or high water.
You know, this is what Russia has done.
I mean, there's a lot of people before the Ukraine conflict that said that Russia would weaponize its energy.
Russia never weaponized.
Russia has met every single contract because that's what you have to do to be a reliable supplier of energy.
Azerbaijan desires to be a reliable supplier of energy, and Turkey desires to be a regional energy hub.
Which means you have to be a reliable supplier of energy.
So anybody waiting for him to shut down the oil, you've got to think strategically and understand that's not something Turkey's going to do.
And until Turkey is willing to do that, I think we have to take at face value any rhetoric that comes from Erdogan about confronting Israel.
Turkey has a military capable of confronting Israel.
If it chose to do so, it will not do so.
This is just posturing by Erdogan.
Scotty, I can't thank you enough.
We put this show together at the last minute in light of your schedule and mine and in light of the events in the Middle East.
This is the largest audience you've ever had and it is the largest live audience we've ever had.
So before I let you go, I know Scott agrees with me.
Please like and subscribe to Judging Freedom.
Help us spread the word.
This This is the top of the heap right here, my dear friend Scott Ritter.
Scott, thank you very much.
Thank you for your time.
Coming up tomorrow, another champion at 11 o 'clock in the morning, Colonel Douglas McGregor at noon, live from Ukraine, and he'll get through this time.
Patrick Lancaster at 1.30 in the afternoon, Aaron Maté at 2 in the afternoon, Phil Giraldi.
It's been a long day.
Thank you for watching.
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