Quote Originally Posted by Rex Brynen View Post
Not so much. Deterred by Israel, Iraq made no effort to use CBW warheads.
So they had them after all. Who else have you shared this with?

Instead it used largely ineffectual HE warheads on highly inaccurate SCUDs for largely symbolic attacks, resulting in only two Israeli deaths.
They had an alternative to these HE warheads?

The symbolism was that the scuds can hit Israel at will and when someone has a CBW (or nuclear) warhead Israel will have a real problem.

The marginal damage done to Israel clearly didn't pass the threshold where Israeli leaders felt that there was anything to gain by striking back themselves, and let the coalition do it for them.
Yes I would love to know exactly (not through idle speculation) what the US used to convince Israel to sit on its hands.

Were a future Iran to nuke Israel, Israel would certainly retain sufficient second strike capability to level every major Iranian population centre, and then some.
This sounds interesting. You know this for sure or are you just guessing? You have some sources for this?

Now what leads you to believe that Israel will wait to retaliate with a second strike?

You may have missed the fact that twice (1981 in Iraq and 2007 in Syria) Israel has carried out strikes on nuclear facilities. What leads you to believe that Israel will fail to respond this time?