US Treatment of Iran
US Plan to Invade Iran Is Updated, Says Top Intelligence Analyst
Arab News - 17/04/2006
Barbara Ferguson
WASHINGTON, 17 April 2006 ? Disconcerting news from Washington. First we learned earlier this year that the Bush administration was making plans to attack Iraq even before the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Now we learn Iran may also have been included in that plan.
Recent media reports have suggested that President George W. Bush's administration is considering a military attack of Iran over concerns that the country is developing a nuclear weapon. Bush has dismissed those reports as "wild speculation."
But a former US intelligence analyst disclosed yesterday that the Bush Administration has made plans to use nuclear weapons against Iran, to prevent it acquiring its own atomic warheads. This includes missile strikes, a land invasion and a naval operation to establish control over the Strait of Hormuz, all this before the March 2003 invasion of Iraq.
William Arkin, who served as the US Army's top intelligence strategist on West Berlin in the 1970s and accurately predicted US military operations against Iraq, said the plan is known in military circles as TIRANNT, an acronym for "Theater Iran Near Term."
The plan includes a scenario for a land invasion led by the US Marine Corps, a detailed analysis of the Iranian missile force and a global strike plan against any Iranian weapons of mass destruction, Arkin wrote in The Washington Post.
US and British planners have already conducted Caspian Sea war games as part of these preparations, the scholar said.
"According to military sources close to the planning process, this task was given to Army Gen. John Abizaid, now commander of CENTCOM, in 2002," Arkin wrote, referring to the Florida-based US Central Command.
A follow-on TIRANNT analysis, which began in October 2003, calculated the results of different scenarios to provide options to commanders, Arkin wrote. But preparations under TIRANNT began in earnest in May 2003 and never stopped, he said. The plan has since been updated using information collected in Iraq.
In June 2004, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld alerted the US Strategic Command in Omaha, Nebraska, to be prepared to implement CONPLAN 8022, a global strike plan that includes Iran, according to the scholar.
The news has caused much alarm among Middle East experts in Washington. In an Op-Ed piece in The New York Times, former White House counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke warned the Bush administration against a military strike on Iran. The piece was co-authored by another former senior counterterrorism official, Steven Simon.
Clarke and Simon theorized that Iran would respond to US aggression in three possible ways: attack Gulf oil facilities to drive up oil prices, use its alleged terror network to strike American targets around the world, or send militias to aid insurgents in Iraq.
Clarke has before called the invasion of Iraq an "enormous mistake" that is further increasing US tensions with the countries in the region.
Dianne Feinstein, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, warned this weekend "there are some in this administration who have been pushing to make nuclear weapons more usable." "This is pure folly," the Democratic senator commented in The Los Angeles Times. "First use of nuclear weapons by the United States should be unthinkable."
But President George W Bush is said to be so alarmed by the threat of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, that privately he refers to him as "the new Hitler", says Seymour Hersh, who broke the story of the Abu Ghraib Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal.
Hersh claims that one of the plans, presented to the White House by the Pentagon, entails the use of a bunker-buster tactical nuclear weapon, such as the B61-11, against underground nuclear sites. One alleged target is Iran's main centrifuge plant, at Natanz, 320 km south of Tehran.
A hard-line Iranian group said in Tehran yesterday that some 200 Iranians have volunteered in the past few days to carry out "martyrdom missions" against US and British interests if Iran is attacked over its nuclear program.
Mohammad Ali Samadi, spokesman for the Committee for the Commemoration of Martyrs of the Global Islamic Campaign, said fresh fears over a possible US attack on Iran's nuclear sites helped attract volunteers during its latest recruitment drive. "Because of the recent threats, we have started to register more volunteers since Friday," Samadi was quoted by the Reuters news agency as saying.
"Some 200 people have registered to carry out operations against our enemies. America and Britain are definitely considered enemies." Chanting "Death to America" and "Nuclear technology is our right," volunteers registered their names at the former American Embassy in southern Tehran yesterday.
They signed a document called "Registration form for martyrdom-seeking operations" and pledged to "defend the Islamic republic's interests."
US warns of tough Iran resolution
2 May 2006
BBC News
A top US diplomat has said he expects European states to prepare a binding UN resolution on Iran's nuclear programme that could allow for sanctions.
Mr Burns said the world must
"send a stiff message" to Iran
US Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns was speaking ahead of Paris talks between all five permanent members of the UN Security Council on the issue.
But he insisted that diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis were not over.
A UN report last week said Iran was violating a Security Council order to stop uranium enrichment.
Iran insists its nuclear programme is peaceful.
"I think what we will see unfold [following Tuesday's talks] is that European governments will put forward... some form of Chapter 7 resolution, and we'll discuss the form of it," Mr Burns said.
"We believe there can be a diplomatic solution to the problem... We are focusing on diplomacy," he added.
Chapter 7 Security Council resolutions are binding on all UN members, but do not automatically lead to sanctions or military action. Further decisions would be needed for such measures.
Before a Chapter 7 resolution is passed, the Council has to agree that there is a threat to "international peace and security".
The expectation is that, if Russia and China do agree to join western nations in ordering Iran to comply with the demands of the UN nuclear watchdog for a "full and sustained suspension" of its enrichment activities, they would not agree to threatening sanctions, at least not at this stage, the BBC world affairs correspondent Paul Reynolds says.
Iranian Foreign Minister Manuchehr Mottaki said earlier Russia and China had told Iran they were "against sanctions and military attacks".
"There is a very wrong assumption held by some that the West can do anything it wants through the Security Council," he told Tehran newspaper Kayhan.
Iran has said already that it will dismiss any UN resolution regarding its nuclear programme.
Growing pressure
The Paris talks between the five permanent Council members, as well as Germany, come ahead of a 9 May meeting in New York of foreign ministers from the top Council nations.
Iran says its nuclear programme
will only serve its energy needs
Officials say the diplomatic route has still a long way to run.
However, there is growing anxiety about the apparently fading prospects of making Tehran stop uranium enrichment - and of the risk of US military action if it fails to do so.
An IAEA report on Friday said that Iran had failed to comply with a 30-day Security Council deadline to stop uranium enrichment.
On Tuesday, Iran's atomic energy chief said Tehran had enriched uranium to 4.8% - which experts say is a low level used in atomic power reactors.
Iran on Monday strongly criticised the US at the UN, accusing Washington of threatening to launch a military strike against its nuclear facilities.
US President George W Bush has refused to rule out military action against Iran, but has repeatedly insisted that the dispute be resolved diplomatically.
Arab News - 17/04/2006
Barbara Ferguson
WASHINGTON, 17 April 2006 ? Disconcerting news from Washington. First we learned earlier this year that the Bush administration was making plans to attack Iraq even before the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Now we learn Iran may also have been included in that plan.
Recent media reports have suggested that President George W. Bush's administration is considering a military attack of Iran over concerns that the country is developing a nuclear weapon. Bush has dismissed those reports as "wild speculation."
But a former US intelligence analyst disclosed yesterday that the Bush Administration has made plans to use nuclear weapons against Iran, to prevent it acquiring its own atomic warheads. This includes missile strikes, a land invasion and a naval operation to establish control over the Strait of Hormuz, all this before the March 2003 invasion of Iraq.
William Arkin, who served as the US Army's top intelligence strategist on West Berlin in the 1970s and accurately predicted US military operations against Iraq, said the plan is known in military circles as TIRANNT, an acronym for "Theater Iran Near Term."
The plan includes a scenario for a land invasion led by the US Marine Corps, a detailed analysis of the Iranian missile force and a global strike plan against any Iranian weapons of mass destruction, Arkin wrote in The Washington Post.
US and British planners have already conducted Caspian Sea war games as part of these preparations, the scholar said.
"According to military sources close to the planning process, this task was given to Army Gen. John Abizaid, now commander of CENTCOM, in 2002," Arkin wrote, referring to the Florida-based US Central Command.
A follow-on TIRANNT analysis, which began in October 2003, calculated the results of different scenarios to provide options to commanders, Arkin wrote. But preparations under TIRANNT began in earnest in May 2003 and never stopped, he said. The plan has since been updated using information collected in Iraq.
In June 2004, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld alerted the US Strategic Command in Omaha, Nebraska, to be prepared to implement CONPLAN 8022, a global strike plan that includes Iran, according to the scholar.
The news has caused much alarm among Middle East experts in Washington. In an Op-Ed piece in The New York Times, former White House counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke warned the Bush administration against a military strike on Iran. The piece was co-authored by another former senior counterterrorism official, Steven Simon.
Clarke and Simon theorized that Iran would respond to US aggression in three possible ways: attack Gulf oil facilities to drive up oil prices, use its alleged terror network to strike American targets around the world, or send militias to aid insurgents in Iraq.
Clarke has before called the invasion of Iraq an "enormous mistake" that is further increasing US tensions with the countries in the region.
Dianne Feinstein, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, warned this weekend "there are some in this administration who have been pushing to make nuclear weapons more usable." "This is pure folly," the Democratic senator commented in The Los Angeles Times. "First use of nuclear weapons by the United States should be unthinkable."
But President George W Bush is said to be so alarmed by the threat of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, that privately he refers to him as "the new Hitler", says Seymour Hersh, who broke the story of the Abu Ghraib Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal.
Hersh claims that one of the plans, presented to the White House by the Pentagon, entails the use of a bunker-buster tactical nuclear weapon, such as the B61-11, against underground nuclear sites. One alleged target is Iran's main centrifuge plant, at Natanz, 320 km south of Tehran.
A hard-line Iranian group said in Tehran yesterday that some 200 Iranians have volunteered in the past few days to carry out "martyrdom missions" against US and British interests if Iran is attacked over its nuclear program.
Mohammad Ali Samadi, spokesman for the Committee for the Commemoration of Martyrs of the Global Islamic Campaign, said fresh fears over a possible US attack on Iran's nuclear sites helped attract volunteers during its latest recruitment drive. "Because of the recent threats, we have started to register more volunteers since Friday," Samadi was quoted by the Reuters news agency as saying.
"Some 200 people have registered to carry out operations against our enemies. America and Britain are definitely considered enemies." Chanting "Death to America" and "Nuclear technology is our right," volunteers registered their names at the former American Embassy in southern Tehran yesterday.
They signed a document called "Registration form for martyrdom-seeking operations" and pledged to "defend the Islamic republic's interests."
US warns of tough Iran resolution
2 May 2006
BBC News
A top US diplomat has said he expects European states to prepare a binding UN resolution on Iran's nuclear programme that could allow for sanctions.
Mr Burns said the world must
"send a stiff message" to Iran
US Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns was speaking ahead of Paris talks between all five permanent members of the UN Security Council on the issue.
But he insisted that diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis were not over.
A UN report last week said Iran was violating a Security Council order to stop uranium enrichment.
Iran insists its nuclear programme is peaceful.
"I think what we will see unfold [following Tuesday's talks] is that European governments will put forward... some form of Chapter 7 resolution, and we'll discuss the form of it," Mr Burns said.
"We believe there can be a diplomatic solution to the problem... We are focusing on diplomacy," he added.
Chapter 7 Security Council resolutions are binding on all UN members, but do not automatically lead to sanctions or military action. Further decisions would be needed for such measures.
Before a Chapter 7 resolution is passed, the Council has to agree that there is a threat to "international peace and security".
The expectation is that, if Russia and China do agree to join western nations in ordering Iran to comply with the demands of the UN nuclear watchdog for a "full and sustained suspension" of its enrichment activities, they would not agree to threatening sanctions, at least not at this stage, the BBC world affairs correspondent Paul Reynolds says.
Iranian Foreign Minister Manuchehr Mottaki said earlier Russia and China had told Iran they were "against sanctions and military attacks".
"There is a very wrong assumption held by some that the West can do anything it wants through the Security Council," he told Tehran newspaper Kayhan.
Iran has said already that it will dismiss any UN resolution regarding its nuclear programme.
Growing pressure
The Paris talks between the five permanent Council members, as well as Germany, come ahead of a 9 May meeting in New York of foreign ministers from the top Council nations.
Iran says its nuclear programme
will only serve its energy needs
Officials say the diplomatic route has still a long way to run.
However, there is growing anxiety about the apparently fading prospects of making Tehran stop uranium enrichment - and of the risk of US military action if it fails to do so.
An IAEA report on Friday said that Iran had failed to comply with a 30-day Security Council deadline to stop uranium enrichment.
On Tuesday, Iran's atomic energy chief said Tehran had enriched uranium to 4.8% - which experts say is a low level used in atomic power reactors.
Iran on Monday strongly criticised the US at the UN, accusing Washington of threatening to launch a military strike against its nuclear facilities.
US President George W Bush has refused to rule out military action against Iran, but has repeatedly insisted that the dispute be resolved diplomatically.
posted by HRM Deborah of Israel and the Messenger of Peace at 12:53 AM
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