[WCUSP] Fw: American preparations for invading Iran are complete

[Libby or Mort Frank]

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From: <moderator at PORTSIDE.ORG>
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Sent: Sunday, February 18, 2007 8:53 PM
Subject: American preparations for invading Iran are complete


> American preparations for invading Iran are complete
> 
> Iran - Ready to attack
> 
> by Dan Plesch
> 
> New Statesman - issue of 19 February 2007
> 
> http://www.newstatesman.com/200702190014
> 
> American military operations for a major conventional
> war with Iran could be implemented any day. They extend
> far beyond targeting suspect WMD facilities and will
> enable President Bush to destroy Iran's military,
> political and economic infrastructure overnight using
> conventional weapons.
> 
> British military sources told the New Statesman, on
> condition of anonymity, that "the US military switched
> its whole focus to Iran" as soon as Saddam Hussein was
> kicked out of Baghdad. It continued this strategy, even
> though it had American infantry bogged down in fighting
> the insurgency in Iraq.
> 
> The US army, navy, air force and marines have all
> prepared battle plans and spent four years building
> bases and training for "Operation Iranian Freedom".
> Admiral Fallon, the new head of US Central Command, has
> inherited computerised plans under the name TIRANNT
> (Theatre Iran Near Term).
> 
> The Bush administration has made much of sending a
> second aircraft carrier to the Gulf. But it is a tiny
> part of the preparations. Post 9/11, the US navy can
> put six carriers into battle at a month's notice. Two
> carriers in the region, the USS John C Stennis and the
> USS Dwight D Eisenhower, could quickly be joined by
> three more now at sea: USS Ronald Reagan, USS Harry S
> Truman and USS Theodore Roosevelt, as well as by USS
> Nimitz. Each carrier force includes hundreds of cruise
> missiles.
> 
> Then there are the marines, who are not tied down
> fighting in Iraq. Several marine forces are assembling,
> each with its own aircraft carrier. These carrier
> forces can each conduct a version of the D-Day
> landings. They come with landing craft, tanks, jump-
> jets, thousands of troops and, yes, hundreds more
> cruise missiles. Their task is to destroy Iranian
> forces able to attack oil tankers and to secure
> oilfields and installations. They have trained for this
> mission since the Iranian revolution of 1979.
> 
> Today, marines have the USS Boxer and USS Bataan
> carrier forces in the Gulf and probably also the USS
> Kearsarge and USS Bonhomme Richard. Three others, the
> USS Peleliu, USS Wasp and USS Iwo Jima, are ready to
> join them. Earlier this year, HQ staff to manage these
> forces were moved from Virginia to Bahrain.
> 
> Vice-President Dick Cheney has had something of a love
> affair with the US marines, and this may reach its
> culmination in the fishing villages along Iran's Gulf
> coast. Marine generals hold the top jobs at Nato, in
> the Pentagon and are in charge of all nuclear weapons.
> No marine has held any of these posts before.
> 
> Traditionally, the top nuclear job went either to a
> commander of the navy's Trident submarines or of the
> air force's bombers and missiles. Today, all these
> forces follow the orders of a marine, General James
> Cartwright, and are integrated into a "Global Strike"
> plan which places strategic forces on permanent 12-hour
> readiness.
> 
> The only public discussion of this plan has been by the
> American analysts Bill Arkin and Hans Kristensen, who
> have focused on the possible use of atomic weapons.
> These concerns are justified, but ignore how forces can
> be used in conventional war.
> 
> Any US general planning to attack Iran can now assume
> that at least 10,000 targets can be hit in a single
> raid, with warplanes flying from the US or Diego
> Garcia. In the past year, unlimited funding for
> military technology has taken "smart bombs" to a new
> level.
> 
> New "bunker-busting" conventional bombs weigh only
> 250lb. According to Boeing, the GBU-39 small-diameter
> bomb "quadruples" the firepower of US warplanes,
> compared to those in use even as recently as 2003. A
> single stealth or B-52 bomber can now attack between
> 150 and 300 individual points to within a metre of
> accuracy using the global positioning system.
> 
> With little military effort, the US air force can hit
> the last-known position of Iranian military units,
> political leaders and supposed sites of weapons of mass
> destruction. One can be sure that, if war comes, George
> Bush will not want to stand accused of using too little
> force and allowing Iran to fight back.
> 
> "Global Strike" means that, without any obvious signal,
> what was done to Serbia and Lebanon can be done
> overnight to the whole of Iran. We, and probably the
> Iranians, would not know about it until after the bombs
> fell. Forces that hide will suffer the fate of Saddam's
> armies, once their positions are known.
> 
> The whole of Iran is now less than an hour's flying
> time from some American base or carrier. Sources in the
> region as well as trade journals confirm that the US
> has built three bases in Azerbaijan that could be
> transit points for troops and with facilities equal to
> its best in Europe.
> 
> Most of the Iranian army is positioned along the border
> with Iraq, facing US army missiles that can reach 150km
> over the border. But it is in the flat, sandy oilfields
> east and south of Basra where the temptation will be to
> launch a tank attack and hope that a disaffected
> population will be grateful.
> 
> The regime in Tehran has already complained of US- and
> UK-inspired terror attacks in several Iranian regions
> where the population opposes the ayatollahs' fanatical
> policies. Such reports corroborate the American
> journalist Seymour Hersh's claim that the US military
> is already engaged in a low-level war with Iran. The
> fighting is most intense in the Kurdish north where
> Iran has been firing artillery into Iraq. The US and
> Iran are already engaged in a low-level proxy war
> across the Iran-Iraq border.
> 
> And, once again, the neo-cons at the American
> Enterprise Institute have a plan for a peaceful
> settlement: this time it is for a federal Iran.
> Officially, Michael Ledeen, the AEI plan's sponsor, has
> been ostracised by the White House. However, two years
> ago, the Congress of Iranian Nationalities for a
> Federal Iran had its inaugural meeting in London.
> 
> We should not underestimate the Bush administration's
> ability to convince itself that an "Iran of the
> regions" will emerge from a post-rubble Iran.
> 
> [Dan Plesch is a research associate at the School of
> Oriental and African Studies. He has written for the
> Guardian, the Independent, the New York Times, the
> Observer, Tribune, the Washington Post and the
> Washington Times. He has regularly provided live
> political and military analysis of evolving news
> stories for the BBC, CNN, ITN and other news media.]
> 
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