“It is a missile launch bunker. Somewhere within a mile to five miles are silos with the missiles in them.”

Insider Report from NewsMax.com email newsletter for December 17, 2006

4. Congress Doubles U.S. Weapons Storage in Israel

The U.S. Senate and House of Representatives have approved the doubling of American arms stored in Israel for emergency use.

The United States stores arms and equipment in classified facilities called War Reserve Stockpiles (WRS), to be used if needed in wartime. Outside Israel, most WRS facilities are located in NATO countries, according to IsraelNationalNews.com.

Meanwhile, another media outlet in Israel is reporting that the U.S. is building a massive new base for the Israeli military on the West Bank border.

The IsraelInsider.com Web site reports that the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) claims the base will be used as a storage facility for reservists’ equipment.

“Still, the base’s massive size — dozens of huge warehouses, with reinforced bunkers, watchtowers, and tunnels — casts a shadow of doubt over this singular explanation for its use,” according to IsraelInsider.

The Web site reports that investigative journalist Barry Chamish tried to visit the base and was told by a guard about the facility: “You’ve never seen so many computers and cameras in your life.”

And a former American soldier who examined photographs of the base told IsraelInsider: “I saw these kind of installations when I was in the military. For years I was stationed at a base where a major part of it was like this. These are not barracks of any kind. The metal facilities built up on the rocks are huge electronic facilities, probably filled with CIA and extensive phone and other electronic monitoring stuff . . .

“It is a missile launch bunker. Somewhere within a mile to five miles are silos with the missiles in them.”

But an IDF spokesman insisted the base is a storage facility for reservists’ equipment, to be used in an emergency.

According to a 2001 report in the Jerusalem Post, the U.S. has agreed to build new bases to replace bases in the West Bank if and when the territory comes under Palestinian control.