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Sat 8 Apr, 2006 08:45 pm
April 8, 2006, 6:03PM
Report: U.S. plans for possible Iran attack
Reuters News Service
WASHINGTON -- The U.S. administration is stepping up plans for a possible air strike on Iran, despite publicly pushing for a diplomatic solution to a dispute over its nuclear ambitions, according to a report by influential investigative journalist Seymour Hersh.
Hersh's story in the April 17 issue of the New Yorker magazine quotes former and current intelligence and defense officials as saying the administration increasingly sees "regime change" in Tehran as the ultimate goal.
"This White House believes that the only way to solve the problem is to change the power structure in Iran, and that means war," Hersh quotes an unidentified senior Pentagon adviser on the war on terror as saying.
The report says the administration has stepped up clandestine activities in Iran and has initiated a series of talks on its plans with "a few key senators and members of Congress."
A former senior defense official is cited as saying the military believed a sustained bombing campaign against Iran would humiliate the leadership and lead the Iranian public to overthrow it, adding that he was shocked to hear the strategy.
The report also says the U.S. military is seriously considering the use of a tactical nuclear weapon against Iran to ensure the destruction of Iran's main centrifuge plant at Natanz. The Pentagon advisor is quoted as saying some senior officers and officials were considering quitting over the issue.
The United States says it is focused on forging a diplomatic solution to the Iran impasse but refuses to rule out an attack to deal with what it says is one of the biggest threats to Middle East stability.
Hersh won a Pulitzer prize in 1970 for uncovering the infamous My Lai massacre by U.S. troops in Vietnam and his reporting on abuses by American troops at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison helped expose one of the worst scandals to hit the administration of President Bush.
(Oh, noooooooooooooooooooooooo!)
I was ready to be skeptical, then saw it was from Hersh.
Uh-oh.
This reporter doesn't deliberately tell lies.
Seymour doesn't deliberately tell lies. But he does throw monkey scat with the best of them. If none of this ever happens, can we ignore him from now on? Unless he is doing some Tom Harveyish topical anecdote thing. Hersh has one of the best voices extant.
We just have to watch and wait.
This is nothing new.
There are plans in the Pentagon to wage war against every country on earth,and those plans have existed since the 1950's.
They are called "contingency plans",and they are updated constantly.
That does not mean they will ever be used,or that they are part of the Presidents plan.
Now," former senior defense official" could be anyone from a recent person to Sandy Berger,Clintons National Security Advisor.
I would have to know who Hersh's sources are and what positions they held in the DoD before I put serious stock in this report.
I am not calling Hersh a liar,but I want more info from him about his sources and their bona fides before I take this report to seriously.
Ahmadinejad is going to talk Iran into a parking lot.
Some people act like we have a limitless armed force, which will stretch, gumby-like, to maintain multiple major theatres.
And the US will get blamed,no matter what happens.
If Iran does use nukes,then we will get blamed for "allowing" it to happen,when we could have prevented it.
If we remove their nuke capability,then we get the blame and called "imperialists,war mongers,etc"
Thats why I say we should do nothing,and let the EU and the UN handle it.
Both groups claim to be able to handle world problems better then we can,so let them prove it.
It's not really
the Sunday topic in Europe, but ...
Quote:"The Brits think this is a very bad idea, but they're really worried we're going to do it," Flynt Leverett, a former member of the US National Security Council, is quoted as saying.
Source
snood wrote:Some people act like we have a limitless armed force, which will stretch, gumby-like, to maintain multiple major theatres.
The parking lot scenario doesn't require soldiers.
Lash wrote:snood wrote:Some people act like we have a limitless armed force, which will stretch, gumby-like, to maintain multiple major theatres.
The parking lot scenario doesn't require soldiers.
Yeh - nukem. good thinkin.
"There is only only one thing worse than the United States exercising a military option and that is a nuclear-armed Iran."--John McCain
Of course, I didn't advocate it. I merely gave an option to your gumby army.
Let's make a movie "A strike too far".
From the
NYT report
Quote:"The article contains information that is inaccurate," said Michele Ness, a spokeswoman for the Central Intelligence Agency. She declined to elaborate.
Would be more than interesting to know exactly what.
Just thinking:
- will this attack happen before November so that the then Demcrat majority can't block the war?
- will there be a new "coalition of the willing" if the UN doesn't go agree to the attack? (And who will join? [Doubtfully that UK will be again Bush's best partner.)
Lash wrote:"There is only only one thing worse than the United States exercising a military option and that is a nuclear-armed Iran."--John McCain
Of course, I didn't advocate it. I merely gave an option to your gumby army.
Even leaving aside the idea that we nuke Iran, it's not a sane option. Airstrikes will not exist in a vacuum. We have to launch them from somewhere - The likely place would be Iraq. Which would involve longer term deployment and infrastructure in Iraq. Which is square one.
Lash wrote:"There is only only one thing worse than the United States exercising a military option and that is a nuclear-armed Iran."--John McCain
Of course, I didn't advocate it. I merely gave an option to your gumby army.
Even leaving aside the idea that we nuke Iran, it's not a sane option. Airstrikes will not exist in a vacuum. We have to launch them from somewhere - The likely place would be Iraq. Which would involve longer term deployment and infrastructure in Iraq. In any case, all military action is interrelated by definition. Support and supply is all interrelated. Only in cartoons and comicbooks can someone launce a massive airstrike without getting the means to do it from somewhere else we might need it.
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