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Bush setting America up for war with Iran (for Israel)
Bush setting America up for war with Iran
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main...6/wiran116.xml By Philip Sherwell in New York and Tim Shipman in Washington Last Updated: 3:20am BST 16/09/2007 Senior American intelligence and defence officials believe that President George W Bush and his inner circle are taking steps to place America on the path to war with Iran, The Sunday Telegraph has learnt. Dick Cheney ('The Man') with George W Bush Pentagon planners have developed a list of up to 2,000 bombing targets in Iran, amid growing fears among serving officers that diplomatic efforts to slow Iran's nuclear weapons programme are doomed to fail. Pentagon and CIA officers say they believe that the White House has begun a carefully calibrated programme of escalation that could lead to a military showdown with Iran. Now it has emerged that Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state, who has been pushing for a diplomatic solution, is prepared to settle her differences with Vice-President Dick Cheney and sanction military action. In a chilling scenario of how war might come, a senior intelligence officer warned that public denunciation of Iranian meddling in Iraq - arming and training militants - would lead to cross border raids on Iranian training camps and bomb factories. advertisementA prime target would be the Fajr base run by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Quds Force in southern Iran, where Western intelligence agencies say armour-piercing projectiles used against British and US troops are manufactured. Under the theory - which is gaining credence in Washington security circles - US action would provoke a major Iranian response, perhaps in the form of moves to cut off Gulf oil supplies, providing a trigger for air strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities and even its armed forces. Senior officials believe Mr Bush's inner circle has decided he does not want to leave office without first ensuring that Iran is not capable of developing a nuclear weapon. The intelligence source said: "No one outside that tight circle knows what is going to happen." But he said that within the CIA "many if not most officials believe that diplomacy is failing" and that "top Pentagon brass believes the same". He said: "A strike will probably follow a gradual escalation. Over the next few weeks and months the US will build tensions and evidence around Iranian activities in Iraq." Possible flash points: Click to enlarge Previously, accusations that Mr Bush was set on war with Iran have come almost entirely from his critics. Many senior operatives within the CIA are highly critical of Mr Bush's handling of the Iraq war, though they themselves are considered ineffective and unreliable by hardliners close to Mr Cheney. The vice president is said to advocate the use of bunker-busting tactical nuclear weapons against Iran's nuclear sites. His allies dispute this, but Mr Cheney is understood to be lobbying for air strikes if sites can be identified where Revolutionary Guard units are training Shia militias. Recent developments over Iraq appear to fit with the pattern of escalation predicted by Pentagon officials. Gen David Petraeus, Mr Bush's senior Iraq commander, denounced the Iranian "proxy war" in Iraq last week as he built support in Washington for the US military surge in Baghdad. The US also announced the creation of a new base near the Iraqi border town of Badra, the first of what could be several locations to tackle the smuggling of weapons from Iran. A State Department source familiar with White House discussions said that Miss Rice, under pressure from senior counter-proliferation officials to acknowledge that military action may be necessary, is now working with Mr Cheney to find a way to reconcile their positions and present a united front to the President. The source said: "When you go down there and see the body language, you can see that Cheney is still The Man. Condi pushed for diplomacy but she is no dove. If it becomes necessary she will be on board. "Both of them are very close to the president, and where they differ they are working together to find a way to present a position they can both live with." The official contrasted the efforts of the secretary of state to work with the vice-president with the "open warfare between Colin Powell and Donald Rumsfeld before the Iraq war". Miss Rice's bottom line is that if the administration is to go to war again it must build the case over a period of months and win sufficient support on Capitol Hill. The Sunday Telegraph has been told that Mr Bush has privately promised her that he would consult "meaningfully" with Congressional leaders of both parties before any military action against Iran on the understanding that Miss Rice would resign if this did not happen. The intelligence officer said that the US military has "two major contingency plans" for air strikes on Iran. "One is to bomb only the nuclear facilities. The second option is for a much bigger strike that would - over two or three days - hit all of the significant military sites as well. This plan involves more than 2,000 targets." James Morris wrote: US strikes on Iran predicted as tension rises over arms smuggling and nuclear fears (Proxy war could soon turn to direct conflict, analysts warn): http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story...9798%2C00.html Julian Borger and Ian Black Saturday September 15, 2007 The Guardian The growing US focus on confronting Iran in a proxy war inside Iraq risks triggering a direct conflict in the next few months, regional analysts are warning. US-Iranian tensions have mounted significantly in the past few days, with heightened rhetoric on both sides and the US decision to establish a military base in Iraq less than five miles from the Iranian border to block the smuggling of Iranian arms to Shia militias. The involvement of a few hundred British troops in the anti-smuggling operation also raises the risk of their involvement in a cross-border clash. US officers have alleged that an advanced Iranian-made missile had been fired at an American base from a Shia area, which if confirmed would be a significant escalation in the "proxy war" referred to this week by General David Petraeus, the US commander in Iraq. "The proxy war that has been going on in Iraq may now cross the border. This is a very dangerous period," Patrick Cronin, the director of studies at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said. Iran's leaders have so far shown every sign of relishing the confrontation. The supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, declared yesterday that American policies had failed in the Middle East and warned: "I am certain that one day Bush and senior American officials will be tried in an international court for the tragedies they have created in Iraq." In such circumstances, last week's Israeli air strike against a mystery site in northern Syria has triggered speculation over its motives. Israel has been silent about the attack. Syria complained to the UN security council but gave few details. Some say the target was Iranian weapons on their way to Hizbullah in Lebanon, or that the sortie was a dry run for a US-Israeli attack on Syria and Iran. There is even speculation that the Israelis took out a nuclear facility funded by Iran and supplied by North Korea The situation is particularly volatile because the struggle for influence threatens to exacerbate a confrontation over Tehran's nuclear ambitions. The US has called a meeting of major powers in Washington next Friday to discuss Iran's defiance of UN resolutions calling for its suspension of uranium enrichment. It comes amid signs that the Bush administration is running out of patience with diplomatic efforts to curb the nuclear programme. Hawks led by the vice-president, Dick Cheney, are intensifying their push for military action, with support from Israel and privately from some Sunni Gulf states. "Washington is seriously reviewing plans to bomb not just nuclear sites, but oil sites, military sites and even leadership targets. The talk is of multiple targets," said Mr Cronin. "In Washington there is very serious discussion that this is a window that has to be looked at seriously because there is only six months to 'do something about Iran' before it will be looked at as a purely political issue." US presidential elections are due in November 2008, and military action at the height of the campaign is usually seen by voters as politically motivated. Vincent Cannistraro, a former CIA counter-terrorism chief who is now a security analyst, said: "The decision to attack was made some time ago. It will be in two stages. If a smoking gun is found in terms of Iranian interference in Iraq, the US will retaliate on a tactical level, and they will strike against military targets. The second part of this is: Bush has made the decision to launch a strategic attack against Iranian nuclear facilities, although not before next year. He has been lining up some Sunni countries for tacit support for his actions." US and British officials have complained to Iran about the use by Shia militias in Iraq of what they say are Iranian-made weapons. The main concern is the proliferation of roadside bombs that fire a bolt of molten metal through any thickness of armour, which the officials say must have been made in Iran. A US military spokesman in Baghdad, Major General Kevin Bergner, raised the stakes when he said the 240mm rocket that hit the US military headquarters outside Baghdad this week, killing an American soldier and wounding 11, had been supplied to Shia militants by Iran. Gen Bergner used to work in the White House, where he was aligned with administration hawks, and his dispatch to Baghdad was seen by some as a move to increase pressure on Iran. "There are an awful lot of lower level officers who are very angry about the deaths from explosively formed projectiles said to come from Iran. There is a certain amount of military pressure to do something about this," said Patrick Clawson, the deputy director for research at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "That said, it is very difficult for us to do anything without much better evidence. In that respect, border control is a sensible solution." Any US decision to attack Iran would force Gordon Brown to choose between creating a serious rift in the transatlantic alliance and participating in or endorsing American actions. British officials insist that Washington has given no sign it is ready to abandon diplomacy and argue that UN sanctions are showing signs of working. They point to the resurgence in Iran of Hashemi Rafsanjani, seen as a pragmatic counterweight to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Hopes that a new war could still be avoided have also been boosted by Gen Petraeus's claim that Iran's covert Quds force alleged to be supporting Shia attacks on coalition forces had been pulled out of Iraq. If true, it could be that in the stand-off between the US and Iran, Iran has blinked first. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The 'proxy war': UK troops are sent to Iranian border http://news.independent.co.uk/world/...cle2953462.ece British soldiers return to action as tensions between US and Iran grow Published: 12 September 2007 British forces have been sent from Basra to the volatile border with Iran amid warnings from the senior US commander in Iraq that Tehran is fomenting a "proxy war". In signs of a fast-developing confrontation, the Iranians have threatened military action in response to attacks launched from Iraqi territory while the Pentagon has announced the building of a US base and fortified checkpoints at the frontier. The UK operation, in which up to 350 troops are involved, has come at the request of the Americans, who say that elements close to the Iranian regime have stepped up supplies of weapons to Shia militias in recent weeks in preparation for attacks inside Iraq. The deployment came within a week of British forces leaving Basra Palace, their last remaining base inside Basra city, and withdrawing to the airport for a widely expected final departure from Iraq. Brigadier James Bashall, commander of 1 Mechanised Brigade, based at Basra said: "We have been asked to help at the Iranian border to stop the flow of weapons and I am willing to do so. We know the points of entry and I am sure we can do what needs to be done. The US forces are, as we know, engaged in the 'surge' and the border is of particular concern to them." The mission will include the King's Royal Hussars battle group, 250 of whom were told at the weekend that they would be returning to the UK as part of a drawdown of forces in Iraq. The operation is regarded as a high-risk strategy which could lead to clashes with Iranian-backed Shia militias or even Iranian forces and also leaves open the possibility of Iranian retaliation in the form of attacks against British forces at the Basra air base or inciting violence to draw them back into Basra city. Relations between the two countries are already fraught after the Iranian Revolutionary Guards seized a British naval party in the Gulf earlier this year. The move came as General David Petraeus, the US commander in Iraq, and Ryan Crocker, the US ambassador to Iraq, made some of the strongest accusations yet by US officials about Iranian activity. General Petraeus spoke on Monday of a "proxy war" in Iraq, while Mr Crocker accused the Iranian government of "providing lethal capabilities to the enemies of the Iraqi state". In an interview after his appearance before a congressional panel on Monday, General Petraeus strongly implied that it would soon be necessary to obtain authorisation to take action against Iran within its own borders, rather than just inside Iraq. "There is a pretty hard look ongoing at that particular situation" he said. The Royal Welsh battle group, with Challenger tanks and Warrior armoured vehicles, is conducting out regular exercises at the Basra air base in preparation for any re-entry into the city. No formal handover of Basra to the Iraqi government has yet taken place and the UK remains responsible for maintaining security in the region. The Iraqi commander in charge of the southern part of the country, General Mohan al-Furayji, said he would not hesitate to call for British help if there was an emergency. While previous US military action has been primarily directed against Sunni insurgents, it is Shia fighters, which the US accuses Iran of backing, who now account for 80 per cent of US casualties. For the British military the move to the border is a change of policy. They had stopped patrols along the long border at Maysan despite US concerns at the time that the area would become a conduit for weapons into Iraq. The decision to return to the frontier has been heavily influenced by the highly charged and very public dispute with the United States. British commanders feel that they cannot turn down the fresh American request for help after refusing to delay the withdrawal from Basra Palace. They also maintain that the operation will stop Iranian arms entering Basra. Brigadier Bashall said: "We are not sitting here idly at the air bridge. The security of Basra is still our responsibility and we shall act where necessary. We are also prepared to restore order in Basra City if asked to do so." The US decision to build fortifications at the Iranian border, after four years of presence in Iraq, shows, say American commanders, that the "Iranian threat" is now one of their main concerns. Maj-Gen Rick Lynch, commander of the US Army's 3rd Infantry Division, said 48 Iranian-supplied roadside bombs had been used against his forces killing nine soldiers. "We've got a major problem with Iranian munitions streaming into Iraq. This Iranian interference is troubling and we have to stop it," he told The Wall Street Journal this week. Meanwhile at a conference in Baghdad on regional co-operation, Iran claimed the US was supporting groups mounting attacks from Iraqi territory in the Kurdish north. Said Jalili , Iran's deputy foreign minister, last night said: "I think [the US and its allies] are going to prevaricate with the truth because they know they have been defeated in Iraq and they have not been successful. And so they are going to put the blame on us, on the other side." C-SPAN 'Washington Journal' viewer calls about Mearsheimer/Walt and the coming war with Iran: http://www.itszone.co.uk/zone0/viewtopic.php?t=78398 Anti-Iran hype reaches fever pitch By Khody Akhavi http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/II12Ak01.html War with Iran real risk according to former CIA operative: http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/zone0...ic.php?t=71055 Jim Moran's Mouth, Again http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...42.html?sub=AR justicequest2000 wrote (in the comments section associated with the above Op-Ed appearing in the Washington Post today): Can I assume that Mr. King hasn't even read the new book (The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy - see israellobbybook.com) by respected political science professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt about the power/influence of the pro-Israel lobby (AIPAC, JINSA, etc) and how it pushed for the attack on Iraq and has been doing similar to get US to attack Iran. Can I assume that Mr. King also hasn't read the third edition of former Republican Congressman Paul Findley's 'They Dare to Speak Out' book either. Mr. King might be interested in accessing the following URL as well which conveys how CBS '60 Minutes' is refusing to do a segment about the Mearsheimer/Walt book: http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/zone0...ic.php?t=78398 Pentagon Has Given Up on Diplomacy, Crafting Plan to Bomb Iran (for Israel!) http://www.itszone.co.uk/zone0/viewtopic.php?t=78746 Pentagon Has Given Up on Diplomacy, Crafting Plan to Bomb Iran (for Israel!) http://www.itszone.co.uk/zone0/viewtopic.php?t=78746 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bin Laden warns of unprecedented attack on US interests for support of Israel (no coverage of such either in the Israel first US mainstream media) LONDON, Sept 11 (Reuters) - Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden warned three weeks ago that he and his followers would carry out an unprecedented attack on US interests for its support of Israel, an Arab journalist with access to him said on Tuesday. Abdel-Bari Atwan, editor of the London-based al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper said Islamic fundamentalists led by Bin Laden was "almost certainly" behind the attack of the World Trade Center in New York. "It is most likely the work of Islamic fundamentalists. Osama bin Laden warned three weeks ago that he would attack American interests in an unprecedented attack, a very big one," Atwan told Reuters. "Personally we received information that he planned very, very big attacks against American interests. We received several warnings like this. We did not take it so seriously, preferring to see what would happen before reporting it." Atwan has interviewed Bin Laden and maintains close contacts with his followers. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Gorilla in the Room is US Support for Israel http://representativepress.blogspot....pport-for.html SCANDAL: 9/11 Commissioners Bowed to Pressure to Suppress Main Motive for the 9/11 Attacks: http://representativepress.blogspot....nt-inside.html Additional at the following URL: http://www.itszone.co.uk/zone0/viewtopic.php?t=39590 |
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Bush setting America up for war with Iran (for Israel)
On Sep 16, 4:34 am, wrote:
Bush setting America up for war with Iran http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main...07/09/16/wiran... By Philip Sherwell in New York and Tim Shipman in Washington Last Updated: 3:20am BST 16/09/2007 snip The US was telling Europe several months BEFORE Sept 11, 2001 that they had plans to invade Afghanistan. All they needed was a 'Pearl Harbour'. Almost by magic they got it. Today they have big hard-ons over Iran. What's the bets that (a) the missing 120 kiloton Nuke is used to stage an "attack"? OR (b) the aging, no longer upgradeable USS Enterprise is sacrificed by Israel plunging several torpedoes into her guts and blaming it on Iran? |
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