US plans are ready for bombing of Iran

Despite the Bush administration's insistence it has no plans to go to war with Iran, a Pentagon panel has been created to plan a bombing attack that could be implemented within 24 hours of getting the go-ahead from President Bush, The New Yorker magazine reported in its latest issue. The special planning group was established within the office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in recent months, according to US intelligence officials cited in the article by veteran investigative reporter Seymour Hersh in the Mar. 4 issue. The plans for air strikes extend beyond nuclear sites and include most of the country's military infrastructure. It is understood that any such attack–if ordered–would target Iranian air bases, naval bases, missile facilities and command-and-control centers. The BBC reported on Feb. 20 that senior officials at US Central Command in Florida have already selected their targets. That list includes Iran's uranium enrichment plant at Natanz and facilities at Isfahan, Arak and Bushehr. Long range B2 stealth bombers would drop so-called "bunker-busting" bombs in an effort to penetrate the Natanz site, which is buried some 27 yards underground. Last year Iran resumed uranium enrichment–a process that can make fuel for power stations or, if greatly enriched, material for a nuclear bomb. Tehran insists its program is for peaceful, civil use only, but Western countries are alleging, without evidence, that Iran is trying to build nuclear weapons. Analysts at both ends of the political spectrum put little stock in Bush's insistence that he's focused only on diplomacy. "I still believe, at the end of the day, that he will bomb the Iranian facilities," said Joshua Muravchik, a neoconservative scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a think tank with close ties to the Bush administration. Muravchik, who favors military action, sees Bush's current focus on diplomacy as a prelude to attack. "When he does it–if he does it–it will be wildly unpopular. He certainly at least wants to be able to say convincingly, 'I tried everything else,'" Muravchik said. Skeptics note that Bush also stressed diplomacy in the run-up to the Iraq War, declaring his peaceful intentions even as he prepared for the 2003 invasion. "I don't have any war plans on my desk," he told reporters during a visit to France on May 26, 2002. While that may have been technically correct, Bush already had received a series of briefings on invasion plans, including one about two weeks before his European trip. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Feb. 26 that Moscow is "worried" about the possibility of US military action against Iran. "We are worried that the forecasts and suppositions of a possible attack on Iran have become more frequent," Lavrov said during a meeting with President Vladimir Putin that was shown on state television. Lavrov referred in particular to comments made last week by Vice President Dick Cheney, who said that "all options are still on the table" for Washington to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. "What attacks are they talking about, without sanctions from the UN Security Council?" Putin asked. "In military terms, in political terms, the stage is being set," said retired Air Force Col. Sam Gardiner, a frequent administration critic. "The path is toward the military option, although a decision, I don't think, has been made." Gardiner's warnings echo Texas House Republican Ron Paul, who had harsh words for the Bush administration and Congress in an alarming speech before the US House of Representatives on Jan. 11. He accused them both of using "the talk of a troop surge and jobs program in Iraq" to "distract Americans from the very real possibility of an attack on Iran." "Rumors are flying about when, not if, Iran will be bombed by either Israel or the US," Paul added, "and possibly with nuclear weapons. Our CIA says Iran is ten years away from producing a nuclear bomb and has no delivery system, but this does not impede our plans to keep 'everything on the table' when dealing with Iran." General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said recently there was "zero chance" of a war with Iran. He played down claims by US intelligence that the Iranian government was responsible for supplying weapons to insurgents in Iraq, forcing Bush on the defensive. Pace's view was backed up by British intelligence officials who said the extent of the Iranian government's involvement in activities inside Iraq by a small number of Revolutionary Guards was "far from clear." Hillary Mann, the National Security Council's main Iran expert until 2004, said Pace's repudiation of the administration's claims was a sign of grave discontent at the top. "He is a very serious and a very loyal soldier," she said. "It is extraordinary for him to have made these comments publicly, and it suggests there are serious problems between the White House, the National Security Council and the Pentagon." Mann fears the administration is seeking to provoke Iran into a reaction that could be used as an excuse for an attack. TIRANNT Code-named by US military planners as TIRANNT, "Theater Iran Near Term" has identified several thousand targets inside Iran as part of a "shock and awe" blitzkrieg, which is now in its final planning stages. According to the Kuwait-based Arab Times, an attack on Iran under TIRANNT could possibly occur anytime between late February and the end of April. Revealed in April 2006 by William Arkin, a former US intelligence analyst, writing in the Washington Post, TIRANNT was first established in May 2003, following the invasion of Iraq. In early 2003, even as US forces were on the brink of invading Iraq, the Army had already begun conducting an analysis for a full- scale war with Iran. The analysis, called TIRANNT, was coupled with a mock scenario for a Marine Corps invasion and a simulation of the Iranian missile force. US and British planners conducted a Caspian Sea war game around the same time. And Bush directed the US Strategic Command to draw up a global strike war plan for an attack against Iranian weapons of mass destruction. All of this will ultimately feed into a new war plan for "major combat operations" against Iran that military sources confirm now exists in draft form. The 2003 decision to target Iran under TIRANNT should come as no surprise. It is part of the broader military roadmap. Already during the Clinton administration, US Central Command (CENTCOM) had formulated in 1995 "war theater plans" to invade first Iraq and then Iran. Among other information included, the plans stated: "The purpose of US engagement… is to protect the United States' vital interest in the region–uninterrupted, secure US/Allied access to Gulf oil." First Iraq, then Iran Consistent with CENTCOM's 1995 "sequencing" of theater operations, the plans to target Iran were activated under TIRANNT in the immediate wake of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Confirmed by Arkin, the active component of the Iran military agenda was launched in May 2003 "when modelers and intelligence specialists pulled together the data needed for theater-level [meaning large-scale] scenario analysis for Iran." The US Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines have all reportedly prepared battle plans and spent four years building bases and training for "Operation Iranian Freedom." Concurrently, the various parallel components of TIRANNT were put in place, including the Marines "Concept of Operations." The Marines have not only been involved in CENTCOM's war planning, but have been focused on their own specialty, "forcible entry." In April 2003, the Corps published its "Concept of Operations" for a maneuver against a mock country that explores the possibility of moving forces from ship to shore against a determined enemy without first establishing a beachhead. Though the Marine Corps enemy is described only as a deeply religious revolutionary country named Karona, it is–with its Revolutionary Guards and oil wealth–unmistakably meant to be Iran. From September through December 2006, the US conducted a New Cold War scenario of all-out war directed against Iran and its Cold war-era enemies: Entitled Vigilant Shield 07, the war games are not limited to a single Middle East war theater (e.g. Iran), they also include Russia, China and North Korea. The details of the Vigilant Shield 07 exercise scenario, is contained in a US Northern Command briefing dated August 2006. War preparations in Israel have been ongoing since late 2004. The Israeli Air Force would attack Iran's nuclear facility at Bushehr using US as well as Israeli produced bunker buster bombs. The attacks could be carried out in three separate waves "with the radar and communications jamming protection being provided by US Air Force AWACS and other US aircraft in the area." Anxieties about even more war in the Middle East were stoked further on Feb. 24 when the British newspaper the Daily Telegraph reported that Israel is negotiating with the United States for permission to fly over Iraq as part of a plan to attack Iran's nuclear facilities. To conduct air strikes, Israeli war planes would need to fly across Iraq. But to do so the Israeli military authorities in Tel Aviv need permission from the Pentagon. The newspaper quoted a senior Israeli defense official who said negotiations were now underway between the two countries for the US-led coalition in Iraq to provide an "air corridor" in the event that Israel took action. "We are planning for every eventuality, and sorting out issues such as these are crucially important," said the official. "The only way to do this is to fly through US-controlled air space. If we don't sort these issues out now, we could have a situation where American and Israeli war planes start shooting at each other."