Global Free-Fire Zone

[onedomino]

The possible US covert missions into Iran were first discussed 01.16 in this thread: http://www.usmessageboard.com/forums/showthread.php?p=229047#post229047. Our mistrust of the journalist who broke the story was emphasized. In this 01.17 thread, I would like to ask the question: What if the reports are true? What do you think about Iran as the next campaign in the War on Terror? Does the US Army have enough troops? Should it be an Air Force/Navy air operation only? What will happen to oil prices if we attack? Can we afford to wait while Iran draws ever closer to nuke weapons?

Next stop: Iran
Yank commandos already in place, mag says
BY JAMES GORDON MEEK
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/272150p-233046c.html

WASHINGTON - U.S. commandos are hunting for secret nuclear and chemical weapons sites and other targets in Iran, and have a plan to turn the hard-line Islamic country into the next front in the war on terrorism.
"It's not if we're going to do anything against Iran. They're doing it," an ex-intelligence official tells this week's issue of The New Yorker.

Since at least last summer, the U.S. teams have penetrated eastern Iran, reportedly with Pakistan's help, the magazine said.

"Iraq is just one campaign," the official told investigative reporter Seymour Hersh. "The Bush administration is looking at this as a huge war zone. Next, we're going to have the Iranian campaign."

The aim is to rid America and its allies of a major state sponsor of terrorism, Hersh writes.

"We've declared war and the bad guys, wherever they are, are the enemy," the official tells Hersh. "This is the last hurrah - we've got four years and want to come out of this saying we won the war on terrorism."

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, whom President Bush has asked to stay on in his second term, has been jockeying for more power to conduct covert ops without nagging congressional oversight.

"It's a global free-fire zone," said one Pentagon adviser.

Iran has fought tooth and nail demands that it open its nuclear energy program for inspection, fueling suspicion that the charter member of President Bush's "axis of evil" is up to no good.

That same secrecy also has heightened tensions with another axis member with nuclear ambitions, North Korea.

Pentagon neoconservatives - hard-liners who include Rumsfeld and his deputy Paul Wolfowitz - believe that surgical strikes on a small list of military targets will minimize civilian casualties and may spark an uprising by reformers against the ruling fundamentalist mullahs, current and ex-officials said.

Hersh told CNN that if targets are lined up by this summer, U.S. attacks could soon follow.

They "want to go into Iran and destroy as much of the military infrastructure as possible," a Pentagon consultant told Hersh.

Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz believe that, just as with some Soviet-bloc countries, "the minute the aura of invincibility the mullahs enjoy is shattered ... the Iranian regime will collapse," the consultant said.

Yet Rep. Peter King (R-L.I.) of the House International Relations Committee said, "I wouldn't assume the Iranian regime will just collapse."

With combat operations still raging in Afghanistan and Iraq, where the hunt for weapons of mass destruction came up empty, Bush would have to explain fully a new call for military action against Iran, King said.

"He'd have to get the people behind it," King told the Daily News. "But you'd have to factor in that the American public would be somewhat suspicious."

But Bush aides are "compulsively optimistic" that the mullahs have a fragile hold on power, and they are sure to strike soon, predicted defense analyst John Pike of GlobalSecurity.org.

"I think they're going to do it," he told The News. "I'm skeptical that diplomacy will succeed."

While presidential counselor Dan Bartlett complained that Hersh's story was "riddled with inaccuracies," he notably did not outright deny any of it.

"No President at any juncture in history has ever taken military options off the table," Bartlett told CNN's "Late Edition." "What President Bush has shown [is] that he believes we can emphasize the diplomatic initiatives that are under way right now."

Target Iran: http://globalsecurity.org/military/ops/iran-strikes.htm
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[pegwinn]

I think the war in Iran should be covert.
After the "WMD" debacle the President would have a hard time selling military action to congress.

But, if we ferment rebellion and back it up with recon units and sniper teams we could use our own version of terror tactics.

 

[onedomino]

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Bush Won't Rule Out Action Against Iran Over Nukes
Reuters
Jan. 17, 2005 - President Bush said on Monday he would not rule out military action against Iran if that country was not more forthcoming about its suspected nuclear weapons program.

"I hope we can solve it diplomatically, but I will never take any option off the table," Bush said in an interview with NBC News when asked if he would rule out the potential for military action against Iran "if it continues to stonewall the international community about the existence of its nuclear weapons program."

Iran denies it has been trying to make nuclear weapons and says its nuclear program is geared solely to producing electricity. (BS)

Bush's comments followed Pentagon criticism on Monday of a published report that it was mounting reconnaissance missions inside Iran to identify potential nuclear and other targets.

"The Iranian regime's apparent nuclear ambitions and its demonstrated support for terrorist organizations is a global challenge that deserves much more serious treatment than Seymour Hersh provides in the New Yorker article titled "The Coming Wars," the Pentagon's chief spokesman, Lawrence DiRita, said in a statement.

Hersh's article, published on Sunday, was "so riddled with errors of fundamental fact that the credibility of his entire piece is destroyed," DiRita said.

Hersh reported Bush had signed a series of top-secret findings and executive orders authorizing secret commando groups and other Special Forces military units to conduct covert operations against suspected terrorist targets in as many as 10 nations in the Middle East and South Asia.

DiRita did not comment on that assertion.

He said Hersh's sources fed him "rumor, innuendo, and assertions about meetings that never happened, programs that do not exist and statements by officials that were never made."

Asked whether U.S. military forces had been conducting reconnaissance missions in Iran, Defense Department spokesman Lt. Col. Barry Venable said, "We don't discuss missions, capabilities or activities of Special Operations forces."

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[NATO AIR]

I think it should begin as a covert destablization effort. Park an aircraft carrier or two near Iran and just fly missions as often as possible, keeping the Iranian military on edge. Drop leaflets encouraging the Iranian people to rise up. Start attacking secret Iranian facilities. Announce the formation of an EU backed special "crimes against humanity" court that will try and convict Iranian leaders who've committed gross human rights violations. Rattle them, see what happens. If it isn't what you want, start the bombing of their military and intelligence units.

 

[onedomino]

I think it should begin as a covert destablization effort. Park an aircraft carrier or two near Iran and just fly missions as often as possible, keeping the Iranian military on edge. Drop leaflets encouraging the Iranian people to rise up. Start attacking secret Iranian facilities. Announce the formation of an EU backed special "crimes against humanity" court that will try and convict Iranian leaders who've committed gross human rights violations. Rattle them, see what happens. If it isn't what you want, start the bombing of their military and intelligence units.

Good ideas. But they beg the question: are the Mullahs completely out of their minds? Do they think the EU or Russia will restrain America? They must realize by now that Bush will do what he says. Are the Mullahs suicidal? Will they back down at the last moment? We will find out in 2005.
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