http://www.upi.com/International_Intelligence/Analysis/2007/07/30/analysis_cheney_favors_attack_on_iran/6974/ International Intelligence - Analysis
Published: July 30, 2007 at 1:09 PM
Analysis: Cheney favors attack on Iran
By CLAUDE SALHANI
UPI International Editor
WASHINGTON, July 30 (UPI) -- Diplomatic arm-wrestling between Iran and the West over the future of the Islamic republic's nuclear program has not prevented talk of the military option as a solution to the crisis, despite the tsunami-like reaction such a military adventure would generate in the Arab and Islamic world.
Of late, there has been much speculation regarding the probability of U.S. and/or Israeli military strikes intended to destroy the Islamic republic's nuclear power sites before they become fully operational. The Iranians say the plants are being built for peaceful purposes, but Western sources believe Iran's intention is to develop military-grade nuclear material.
In fact, President George W. Bush has reiterated on numerous occasions that "everything is still on the table" when it comes to discussing Iran's nuclear development and how to sanction Iran over its continuing refusal to abide by directives from the international community.
But a well-informed source tells United Press International that according to senior U.S. intelligence officials, President Bush has definitely decided not to strike any of Iran's alleged nuclear weapons production facilities this year.
The sources say the officials stressed the words "this year," meaning in 2007. That, however, does not rule out the possibility of military intervention in 2008, right until January 2009, when Bush's term in the White House comes to an end.
This information seems to back up a report published in the July 16 issue of the London Guardian that claims President Bush gave in to Vice President Dick Cheney, accepting to carry out military action against Iran before he leaves office.
According to the Guardian, a series of meetings held during June and July involving top White House, Pentagon and State Department officials was used by the vice president to stress the point that the diplomatic approach to solving the crisis had failed. The London newspaper went on to say that the vice president was able to convince the president by saying that no future U.S. administration would have the courage to act militarily against Tehran.
At the same time, sources familiar with the intelligence community report that there have been "a lot of stories about bunker buster bombs being moved to the region." The source says, however, that there is no basis for these reports, which, according to them, are being floated by Israeli intelligence.
"This is 'PSYOP' rubbish," a well-informed source told UPI. PSYOP stands for psychological operations; or in other words, playing mind games with the enemy.
The aim of PSYOP is to demoralize the enemy by inseminating doubt among his troops as well as the local population. Psychological operations play a vital role in military and political planning of most countries.
One prime example of PSYOPs was used during Operation Desert Storm in 1990-91, when the United States led an international coalition to oust Saddam Hussein from Kuwait, which he had occupied in August 1990. By placing a Marine expeditionary force aboard Navy vessels anchored off the coast, U.S. military planners had Saddam believe that the U.S. Marines would launch a seaborne assault on Kuwait, therefore tying down large numbers of Iraqi forces and building massive defenses along Kuwait's beachfront for an attack that never materialized. Instead, the major thrust came across the desert from Saudi Arabia, a move the Iraqi leader did not expect.
Part of the task performed by PSYOPs includes developing and employing propaganda in a convincing manner.
Instead of a direct attack on Iran's nuclear facilities, Vice President Cheney has proposed a measure that would launch a very limited military strike at one or more known Iranian training centers whose forces are being deployed to Iraq.
Cheney's proposal has gotten no approval, so far, say the sources.
Indeed, the Bush administration accuses Iran of supporting terrorism, primarily groups in Lebanon and in the Palestinian territories, groups Washington considers to engage in terrorist activities. A particular point of contention between Iran and the Bush administration are accusations from Washington over the nefarious role Iran continues to play in neighboring Iraq, while Iran accuses the United States of trying to implement regime change in Iran.
One of the primary culprits accused by the Bush administration of fomenting trouble in Iraq is Moqtada Sadr, the pro-Iranian firebrand young Shiite cleric, and his Mahdi Army. It is believed that Iran supplies Sadr and his fighters with logistic and financial support, as well as weapons and improvised explosive devices.
U.S. intelligence sources, however, say that the White House estimates of the assistance provided to the Iraqi Shiite community by Iran, as well as the amounts, "are exaggerated."
Launching a war against Iran in 2008 -- their last year in office -- the Bush administration would in fact be leaving a second war they started in the Middle East for the next administration to resolve.
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Ex-CIA officer Slams US Allegations against Iran as Sham
CASMII Press Release
28 July 2007
In an alarming exposure of the acceleration and urgency of the American war party's push towards catastrophic war with Iran, Philip Giraldi, former CIA counter terrorism officer, in an interview [1] on 24th July with Anti War Radio debunked the NeoCons' repeated myth of Iran's support for AlQaeda as a pretext for war. Whilst acknowledging Iran's helpfulness in trying to establish security in both Afghanistan and Iraq, Giraldi spoke of the United States' hypocritical and illegal support for terrorist separatists groups inside Iran, and various plans and scenarios which have been drawn up to destroy Iran's military and economic infrastructure by massive bombardment, with the use of nuclear bombs a real and stated possibility.
Giraldi refuted the assumption that sharing hostilities towards the US, placed Iran and AlQaeda in the same camp and sharing similar agenda, arguing that Iran followed a very different agenda in its dealings with the US. He emphasised both the fact of Iranians' helpfulness in Iraq, in terms of pushing for greater stability, and also their help and cooperation in Afghanistan, as well as the reality of the deep hostilities between Shiia Iran and Sunni extremism of AlQaeda. Giraldi recalled the major attack against the Iranian consulate general in Afghanistan by the Taliban, a close ally of AlQaeda, in which 11 Iranian diplomats were killed, and the regular AlQaeda violent attacks against Shiia population in Iraq, and concluded that a Shiia Iranian-AlQaeda alliance was not a plausible possibility.
He described the recent New York Sun's allegation [2] that AlQaeda prisoners in Iran led terrorist operations inside Iraq under the advice of the Iranian government, as one of many propaganda pieces making a case for war. He said how in 2003, the Iranian government, through the Swiss embassy, had offered to hand over the six AlQaeda prisoners kept in Iran, which includes Osama Bin Laden's son, in exchange for the US ceasing its support for the MEK, and how this offer was rejected by the US. He said of the MEK that it was sheltered and armed by Saddam against Iran, and now supported and armed by Pentagon against Iran.
Highlighting what he called American "ultimate hypocrisy", Giraldi explained how the US government is supporting terrorist groups and ethnic division in Iran and charging the Iranians in Iraq for what the US was doing in Iran itself and with a lot more evidence. Giraldi talked of US's support for Jundullah which he described as a Sunni Baluchi separatist group in eastern Iran that has launched deadly terrorist attacks inside Iran. He also spoke of US support for separatists amongst the Arab minority which is closer to the border with Iraq.
Giraldi repeated the alarm call he first made in his revelations in the American Conservative Magazine in 2005 that Dick Cheney, who has no authority under the constitution, had ordered the air force to draw up plans for air strike against Iran that even included the use of nuclear weapons. He said he thought there was a lot of evidence since then to suggest that nuclear weapons are still very much on the table and named Republican Senators such as McCain, Gilliani and Romney who had not "flinched at all" in the debate about the prospect of using nuclear weapons against Iran.
He spoke of various war scenarios cooked up by the war party. One scenario was of the automatic use of the nuclear weapons in order to reach and destroy the Iranian nuclear sites buried under ground. Another scenario was to use the nuclear threat if the "Iranians continue to fight back after we staged our attack", the idea being "that's what the nukes are for, our nukes that everybody knows that we in fact do have, is to tell them, listen, you are going to sit there and take it while we bomb you for a week or two and you are not going to fight back and if you do fight back then we will use nuclear weapons on you", and he cited the example scenario of Iranians resisting by staging attack in the Strait of Hormouz or destabilising Afghanistan.
Setting out the horrifying context of the possibility of the US using nuclear strikes against Iran, under the pretext of destroying Iranian nuclear bombs which do not exist and Iran's cooperation with AlQaeda, another propaganda fabrication, Giraldi drew attention to the recent warning to Iran and the threat of war issued by AlQaeda for Iran's support for the Shiia government in Iraq, as well as AlQaeda's constant horrific attacks inside Iraq targeting Shiia population and mosques.
Prof. Abbas Edalat of CASMII said today: "Giraldi's revelations is consistent with and confirms the emergence of a shift in the dynamics of the American foreign policy decision making away from dialogue and in favour of the war. The reality of the shared strategic interests between Iran and the US in stabilising Iraq and the possibility and great benefits for both countries in reaching a rapprochement in their bilateral relationship, based on mutual respect and cooperation rather than threat and coercion, is persistently obscured and sabotaged by the fanatical warmongers of Cheney camp and the Israeli lobby, who are relentlessly pushing for war".
It is incumbent upon the media and journalists to give active voice to informed and conscientious individuals like Giraldi who have well-established connections within the intelligence community and are warning the international community about the impending catastrophic war against Iran.
For more information please contact CASMII or visit
http://www.campaigniran.org Notes
[1]
http://www.antiwar.com/blog/2007/07/24/philip-giraldi-5/ [2]
http://www.nysun.com/article/58599 [END]
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Email to Jeff Fager (who is the executive producer of CBS '60 Minutes'):
Date: Sun, 29 Jul 2007 03:04:08 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: For Jeff Fager
Dear Mr. Fager,
I would like to know if '60 Minutes' has a segment in the works to interview respected political science professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt about their soon to be released book (it will be available on September 4th, 2007) which was expanded from their paper (
http://tinyurl.com/obe2j ) on the pro-Israel lobby and how it pushed US to attack Iraq and is doing similar to get US to attack Iran. If '60 Minutes' does not plan to do a segment about the Mearsheimer/Walt book, I would like to know why (I have a pretty good idea already though). The following currently can be found at www.amazon.com after doing a search there for 'Mearsheimer':
Editorial Reviews
Book Description
The Israel Lobby,” by John J. Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen M. Walt of Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, was one of the most controversial articles in recent memory. Originally published in the London Review of Books in March 2006, it provoked both howls of outrage and cheers of gratitude for challenging what had been a taboo issue in America: the impact of the Israel lobby on U.S. foreign policy.
Now in a work of major importance, Mearsheimer and Walt deepen and expand their argument and confront recent developments in Lebanon and Iran. They describe the remarkable level of material and diplomatic support that the United States provides to Israel and argues that this support cannot be fully explained on either strategic or moral grounds. This exceptional relationship is due largely to the political influence of a loose coalition of individuals and organizations that actively work to shape U.S. foreign policy in a pro-Israel direction. Mearsheimer and Walt provocatively contend that the lobby has a far-reaching impact on America’s posture throughout the Middle East—in Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, and toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict—and the policies it has encouraged are in neither America’s national interest nor Israel’s long-term interest. The lobby’s influence also affects America’s relationship with important allies and increases dangers that all states face from global jihadist terror.
Writing in The New York Review of Books, Michael Massing declared, “Not since Foreign Affairs magazine published Samuel Huntington’s ‘The Clash of Civilizations?’ in 1993 has an academic essay detonated with such force.” The publication of The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy is certain to widen the debate and to be one of the most talked-about books of the year.
About the Author
John J. Mearsheimer is the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science and the co-director of the Program on International Security Policy at the University of Chicago. He has published several books, including The Tragedy of Great Power Politics.
Stephen M. Walt is the Belfer Professor of International Affairs at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and was academic dean of the Kennedy School from 2002 to 2006. He is the author of Taming American Power: The Global Response to U.S. Primacy, among other books.
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Product Details
Hardcover
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (September 4, 2007)
Language: English
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Israeli Interrogators in Iraq:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3863235.stm See the following URL for more about the 'A Clean Break' as discussed by Bamford on pages 261-269/318-321 of 'A Pretext for War' (the paperback version of 'A Pretext for War' includes an additional chapter about the AIPAC espionage case which the pro-Israel biased US media is not covering either for the most part - neither is the BBC!):
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/zone0/viewtopic.php?t=28769 Bamford also had the following 'Iran: The Next War' article for Rolling Stone magazine which mentions the AIPAC espionage case as well:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/10962352/iran_the_next_war Tam Dalyell exposed the 'JINSA crowd' did initially in 'Vanity Fair' and via the articles linked at the bottom of the following URL:
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/05/13/179248 Even Colin Powell conveyed for Washington Post editor Karen DeYoung's new bio book about him that the 'JINSA crowd' was in control of the Pentagon - one can look up 'Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs'/JINSA in the index:
A War for Israel? Colin Powell seems to think so:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/zone0/viewtopic.php?t=61128 BBC: The War Party (if only Americans could see such a program!)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4667039539703585825&q=%22The+War+Party%22
PS: Please take a look at the exchange with 9/11 Commission co-chair Lee Hamilton via the 'What Motivated the 9/11 Hijackers?' link at the upper left of the following URL which includes a transcript of the exchange with Hamilton:
The Gorilla in the Room is US Support for Israel
http://representativepress.blogspot.com/2005/08/gorilla-in-room-is-us-support-for.html SCANDAL: 9/11 Commissioners Bowed to Pressure to Suppress Main Motive for the 9/11 Attacks:
http://representativepress.blogspot.com/2006/09/reviews-of-without-precedent-inside.html You might also be interested in viewing the following youtube video short which has the moderator of the terrorism 'expert' panel trying to cut off the 'Q & A' at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books at UCLA this past April before the main motivation for 9/11 was conveyed:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7EB1FxENxQ Additional at the following URL:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/zone0/viewtopic.php?t=39590