Scott Ridder:The US war with Iran has already begun (6-2005)

The US war with Iran has already begun
-By Scott Ritter
June 23, 2005

"Many hold out the false hope that an extension of the
current insanity in Iraq can be postponed or prevented in the case
of Iran. But this is a fool's dream. The reality is that the US war
with Iran has already begun."

06/19/05 "Aljazeera" - - Americans, along with the rest of the
world, are starting to wake up to the uncomfortable fact that
President George Bush not only lied to them about the weapons of
mass destruction in Iraq (the ostensible excuse for the March 2003
invasion and occupation of that country by US forces), but also
about the very process that led to war.
.
On 16 October 2002, President Bush told the American people that "I
have not ordered the use of force. I hope that the use of force will
not become necessary."
.
We know now that this statement was itself a lie, that the
president, by late August 2002, had, in fact, signed off on
the 'execute' orders authorising the US military to begin active
military operations inside Iraq, and that these orders were being
implemented as early as September 2002, when the US Air Force,
assisted by the British Royal Air Force, began expanding its
bombardment of targets inside and outside the so-called no-fly zone
in Iraq.
.
These operations were designed to degrade Iraqi air defence and
command and control capabilities. They also paved the way for the
insertion of US Special Operations units, who were conducting
strategic reconnaissance, and later direct action, operations
against specific targets inside Iraq, prior to the 19 March 2003
commencement of hostilities.
.
President Bush had signed a covert finding in late spring 2002,
which authorised the CIA and US Special Operations forces to
dispatch clandestine units into Iraq for the purpose of removing
Saddam Hussein from power.
.
The fact is that the Iraq war had begun by the beginning of summer
2002, if not earlier. This timeline of events has ramifications that
go beyond historical trivia or political investigation into the
events of the past.
.
It represents a record of precedent on the part of the Bush
administration which must be acknowledged when considering the
ongoing events regarding US-Iran relations. As was the case with
Iraq pre-March 2003, the Bush administration today speaks
of "diplomacy" and a desire for a "peaceful" resolution to the
Iranian question.
.
But the facts speak of another agenda, that of war and the forceful
removal of the theocratic regime, currently wielding the reigns of
power in Tehran.
.
As with Iraq, the president has paved the way for the conditioning
of the American public and an all-too-compliant media to accept at
face value the merits of a regime change policy regarding Iran,
linking the regime of the Mullah's to an "axis of evil" (together
with the newly "liberated" Iraq and North Korea), and speaking of
the absolute requirement for the spread of "democracy" to the
Iranian people.
.
"Liberation" and the spread of "democracy" have become none-too-
subtle code words within the neo-conservative cabal that formulates
and executes American foreign policy today for militarism and war.
.
By the intensity of the "liberation/democracy" rhetoric alone,
Americans should be put on notice that Iran is well-fixed in the
cross-hairs as the next target for the illegal policy of regime
change being implemented by the Bush administration.
.
But Americans, and indeed much of the rest of the world, continue to
be lulled into a false sense of complacency by the fact that overt
conventional military operations have not yet commenced between the
United States and Iran.
.
As such, many hold out the false hope that an extension of the
current insanity in Iraq can be postponed or prevented in the case
of Iran. But this is a fool's dream. The reality is that the US war
with Iran has already begun. As we speak, American over flights of
Iranian soil are taking place, using pilotless drones and other,
more sophisticated, capabilities.
.
The violation of a sovereign nation's airspace is an act of war in
and of itself. But the war with Iran has gone far beyond the
intelligence-gathering phase.
.
President Bush has taken advantage of the sweeping powers granted to
him in the aftermath of 11 September 2001, to wage a global war
against terror and to initiate several covert offensive operations
inside Iran.
.
The most visible of these is the CIA-backed actions recently
undertaken by the Mujahadeen el-Khalq, or MEK, an Iranian opposition
group, once run by Saddam Hussein's dreaded intelligence services,
but now working exclusively for the CIA's Directorate of Operations.
.
It is bitter irony that the CIA is using a group still labelled as a
terrorist organisation, a group trained in the art of explosive
assassination by the same intelligence units of the former regime of
Saddam Hussein, who are slaughtering American soldiers in Iraq
today, to carry out remote bombings in Iran of the sort that the
Bush administration condemns on a daily basis inside Iraq.
.
Perhaps the adage of "one man's freedom fighter is another man's
terrorist" has finally been embraced by the White House, exposing as
utter hypocrisy the entire underlying notions governing the ongoing
global war on terror.
.
But the CIA-backed campaign of MEK terror bombings in Iran are not
the only action ongoing against Iran.
.
To the north, in neighbouring Azerbaijan, the US military is
preparing a base of operations for a massive military presence that
will foretell a major land-based campaign designed to capture Tehran.
.
Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld's interest in Azerbaijan may
have escaped the blinkered Western media, but Russia and the
Caucasus nations understand only too well that the die has been cast
regarding Azerbaijan's role in the upcoming war with Iran.
.
The ethnic links between the Azeri of northern Iran and Azerbaijan
were long exploited by the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and
this vehicle for internal manipulation has been seized upon by CIA
paramilitary operatives and US Special Operations units who are
training with Azerbaijan forces to form special units capable of
operating inside Iran
for the purpose of intelligence gathering, direct action, and
mobilizing indigenous opposition to the Mullahs in Tehran.
.
But this is only one use the US has planned for Azerbaijan. American
military aircraft, operating from forward bases in Azerbaijan, will
have a much shorter distance to fly when striking targets in and
around Tehran.
.
In fact, US air power should be able to maintain a nearly 24-hour a
day presence over Tehran airspace once military hostilities commence.
.
No longer will the United States need to consider employment of Cold
War-dated plans which called for moving on Tehran from the Persian
Gulf cities of Chah Bahar and Bandar Abbas. US Marine Corps units
will be able to secure these towns in order to protect the vital
Straits of Hormuz, but the need to advance inland has been
eliminated.
.
A much shorter route to Tehran now exists - the coastal highway
running along the Caspian Sea from Azerbaijan to Tehran.
.
US military planners have already begun war games calling for the
deployment of multi-divisional forces into Azerbaijan.
.
Logistical planning is well advanced concerning the basing of US air
and ground power in Azerbaijan.
.
Given the fact that the bulk of the logistical support and command
and control capability required to wage a war with Iran is already
forward deployed in the region thanks to the massive US presence in
Iraq, the build-up time for a war with Iran will be significantly
reduced compared to even the accelerated time tables witnessed with
Iraq in 2002-2003.
.
America and the Western nations continue to be fixated on the
ongoing tragedy and debacle that is Iraq. Much needed debate on the
reasoning behind the war with Iraq and the failed post-war
occupation of Iraq is finally starting to spring up in the United
States and elsewhere.
.
Normally, this would represent a good turn of events. But with
everyone's heads rooted in the events of the past, many are missing
out on the crime that is about to be repeated by the Bush
administration in Iran - an illegal war of aggression, based on
false premise, carried out with little regard to either the people
of Iran or the United States.
.
Most Americans, together with the mainstream American media, are
blind to the tell-tale signs of war, waiting, instead, for some
formal declaration of hostility, a made-for-TV moment such as was
witnessed on 19 March 2003.
.
We now know that the war had started much earlier. Likewise, history
will show that the US-led war with Iran will not have begun once a
similar formal statement is offered by the Bush administration, but,
rather, had already been under way since June 2005, when the CIA
began its programme of MEK-executed terror bombings in Iran.
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Scott Ritter is a former UN weapons inspector in Iraq, 1991-1998,
and author of Iraq Confidential: The Untold Story of America's
Intelligence Conspiracy, to be published by I B Tauris in October
2005.