OLMERT: PREPARE FOR WAR WITH SYRIA

Olmert tells defense heads to prepare for war with Syria (JPost)
While chances for all-out war with Syria in 2007 are deemed low by Israel's top intelligence officials, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert instructed the defense establishment on Sunday to prepare for the possibility.

The cabinet heard intelligence assessments from the Mossad, the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), Military Intelligence, the National Security Council and the Foreign Ministry.

Military Intelligence chief Maj.-Gen. Amos Yadlin opened the briefing and told the ministers that "Israel is surrounded by negative processes... that create more instability in the Middle East than in the past."

Yadlin and Mossad head Meir Dagan agreed that the chances for war with Syria are low, but they differed concerning the sincerity of Damascus's calls for peace talks.

Yadlin said the chances that Syria would initiate an all-out conventional war "like the Yom Kippur and Six Day Wars" was low, although it was likely that President Bashar Assad would respond aggressively to any Israeli action along the border.