Operation Bramble Bush

IDF Chief of Staff Ehud Barak persuaded Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir and then his successor Yitzhak Rabin to approve an operation to assassinate Saddam Hussein. In January 1992, he formed a team headed by Amiram Levin to examine ways Saddam could be assassinated. Various schemes were considered, among them crashing an Israeli plane or satellite in Iraq and then blowing it up when Hussein came to inspect it, creating a European straw company to sell him a new modern television studio from which he could broadcast his speeches and blowing it up as he broadcast, and detonating a booby-trapped monument as he stood before it at a memorial ceremony. Sayeret Matkal commandos drilled for the operation with a replica of the Hussein family's cemetery at the infantry training base near kibbutz Tze'elim in the Negev. When the commandos were declared ready, a rehearsal for the operation led by Doron Kempel was held for senior IDF commanders on November 5, 1992. Ehud Barak was among those in attendance. The operation's execution was planned for just two days away. == Training accident ==

The members of the hit team drilled with live missiles, while members of the unit's intelligence and administrative staff played the part of Saddam and his entourage. The commandos fired live rounds at a convoy simulating the target after mistaking a "dry run", where a soldier posed as Saddam waving at crowds, for a "wet run", where Saddam's part was replaced by a mannequin due to weariness from the training as well as poor planning to the point where the same code word was used for both a "dry" and "wet" run. As a result, the commandos fired two missiles at their fellow soldiers simulating Saddam and his convoy, one of which hit the middle of the convoy while the other landed a few yards away. Five soldiers were killed and six wounded. Israeli censors tried to prevent Israeli newspapers from publishing the fact that the head of military intelligence, Uri Sagi, had witnessed the accident, but the censors relented a few weeks later. On November 24, the American newspaper The Miami Herald reported that the soldiers involved in the accident had been rehearsing a plan to kill Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. The New York Times, The Times, and the Independent also reported on the apparent attempt against Nasrallah, and the Israeli military censor complained the reporters from all newspapers involved had violated censorship laws. == Aftermath ==

Seven years later, Operation Bramble Bush II once again targeted Saddam. Mossad agents had scouted locations in Iraq for the ambush of the Iraqi leader. However, as before, the plan was scrapped, this time because of both the British-American Operation Desert Fox and concerns that the operation could harm the Arab–Israeli peace process. ==References==