| Author | Message | | Alpha | | Posted: Mon Jul 18, 2005 12:04 am Post subject: US Plans Nuclear Attack on Iran |
| Cheney's Plan: Nuke Iran
http://antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=6734
Pentagon preparing for Nuclear Pre-emptive Strike
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2005/09/11/pentagon-preparing-guidel_n_7162.html
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From: "Stephen Sniegoski" <hectorpv@comcast.net>
Subject: US Plans Nuclear Attack on Iran
Date: Sun, 17 Jul 2005 19:32:32 -0400
Friends,
US Plans Nuclear Attack on Iran
Philip Giraldi, a former intelligence officer in the CIA (and DIA), claims that the United States is developing a plan for the bombing of supposed military targets in Iran, which would include the use of NUCLEAR WEAPONS. The US strike would take place after a 9/11-type terrorist attack on the US. However, the US attack would not depend on Iran actually being involved in the terrorism. In short, the planned attack on Iran would be analogous to the unprovoked attack on Iraq.
Could this criminal insanity be possibly true? Would the United States really launch an unprovoked nuclear attack? Giraldi is a reputable source and has provided information on Iran to Seymour Hersh in the past. Moreover, other articles have come out indicating that the United States has developed contingency plans to use nuclear weapons to attack military installations in Iran and North Korea. (I have included an article by William Arkin from the Washington Post). Giraldi adds that a terrorist attack on the US would serve as the pretext for putting the plan into action.
Now could it be implemented? Certainly, the 9/11 terrorism led to the eventual attack on Iraq (neocons wanted to attack Iraq immediately after September 11), so another terrorist attack could be used as a pretext to attack Iran. I (along with knowledgeable people such as Scott Ritter) expected the United States to either have attacked Iran by now, or at least be far advanced in its propaganda offensive. While the Bush administration has talked about the danger of Iran, the propaganda offensive has not approached the intensity achieved during the 2002-2003 build-up for the attack on Iraq. Undoubtedly the problems in Iraq and war weariness of the American people have made such a propaganda offensive less viable at this moment. Also, many Americans now realize the war lies the Bush administration has relied upon, so any propaganda offensive, by itself, might be counterproductive. However, a new catastrophic terrorist event could so traumatize and anger a large sector of the American public as to provide a window of opportunity to launch an attack on Iran. The terror attack would be immediately followed by a massive propaganda barrage linking Iran to the terrorism. The idea that Iran is behind all terrorism has already appeared in the writing of neocons Michael Ledeen, Kenneth Timmerman and others. I have attached an article on the current effort to demonize Iran. http://fairuse.1accesshost.com/news2/ft01.html
Perhaps the most extreme propaganda piece is "Atomic Iran: How the Terrorist Regime Bought the Bomb and American Politicians," by Jerome R. Corsi, which appears to be for average and sub-average IQ types and has been made into a video. It involves the nuclear bombing of the US by terrorists who are equipped by Iran. "The scenario described in ‘Atomic Iran’ shows that a 150-kiloton IND exploded in New York would reduce much of the city to rubble. Some 1.5 million people would be killed instantly, with another 1.5 million certain to die over the next few days." http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=43766 (I have attached this article too)
Naturally, Israel and its supporters are spearheading the move to attack on Iran. It should be emphasized that Israel has for some time regarded Iran as a serious threat. It is a threat to Israel’s nuclear monopoly in the Middle East and it provides support to Hezbollah in Lebanon and to a number of Palestinian resistance groups. My article "The future of the global War on Terror: Next stop, Iran" www.thornwalker.com/ditch/snieg_future.htm provides information on this issue. My article came out in October 2004, but Israel continues to voice its serious concerns. Some recent comments follow. The Jerusalem Post of June 29 reported a presentation by the head of the IDF Intelligence Corps research division that Iran is committed to building a nuclear bomb, which would help it spread the Islamic revolution across the Middle East. http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/Printer&cid=1119925651633&p=1101615860782
In late June, Israeli ambassador to the US Daniel Ayalon emphasized that Iran must be stopped from developing nuclear weapons. "The clock is ticking, and time is not on our side," Ayalon said. http://ap.lancasteronline.com/4/israel_iran
Sharon has supposedly handed Bush photographs of what are supposed to be Iran’s nuclear installations - http://www.counterpunch.org/nimmo04132005.html –which are certainly as accurate as the Israeli intelligence information on Saddam’s threatening WMD.
And Richard Perle was the big hit of this May’s AIPAC conference in Washington with his call for an attack on Iran. The danger of Iran was featured in an AIPAC multimedia show, "Iran's Path to the Bomb." As the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank described the multimedia show: "The exhibit, worthy of a theme park, begins with a narrator condemning the International Atomic Energy Agency for being ‘unwilling to conclude that Iran is developing nuclear weapons’ (it had similar reservations about Iraq) and the Security Council because it ‘has yet to take up the issue.’ In a succession of rooms, visitors see flashing lights and hear rumbling sounds as Dr. Seuss-like contraptions make yellowcake uranium, reprocess plutonium, and pop out nuclear warheads like so many gallons of hummus for an AIPAC conference." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/23/AR2005052301565_pf.html
Since a terrorist attack on the United States is, according to experts, almost inevitable, the Bush administration would likely be given the pretext to launch an attack on Iran. Would a propaganda offensive bring about public support for such an attack? With a Republican Congress it seems quite likely that there would be some type of congressional approval for a strike (not a declaration of war, of course). Maybe the Bush administration would not even seek congressional approval and launch the attack on the basis of alleged self-defense.
Iran is not going to stand around and take it. It is considerably stronger than Iraq. An American attack on Iran using conventional weapons would cause chaos in the Middle East. The use of nuclear weapons would have all types of terrible international ramifications—World War IV against Islam, global terrorist strikes, Sino-Russian reaction, etc.
As Giraldi points out, some Air Force officers are appalled by the nuclear strike plan "but no one is prepared to damage his career by posing any objections." Perhaps, no respectable person would want to risk his career to prevent a nuclear war. But this must be done if the United States, and planet Earth, is going to avoid a catastrophe.
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Philip Giraldi, Deep Background
The American Conservative August 1, 2005 p. 27
In Washington it is hardly a secret that the same people in and around the administration who brought you Iraq are preparing to do the same for Iran. The Pentagon, acting under instructions from Vice President Dick Cheney’s office, has tasked the United States Strategic Command (STRATCOM) with drawing up a contingency plan to be employed in response to another 9/11-type terrorist attack on the United States. The plan includes a large-scale air assault on Iran employing both conventional and tactical nuclear weapons. Within Iran there are more than 450 major strategic targets, including numerous suspected nuclear-weapons-program development sites. Many of the targets are hardened or are deep underground and could not be taken out by conventional weapons, hence the nuclear option. As in the case of Iraq, the response is not conditional on Iran actually being involved in the act of terrorism directed against the United States. Several senior Air Force officers involved in the planning are reportedly appalled at the implications of what they are doing—that Iran is being set up for an unprovoked nuclear attack—but no one is prepared to damage his career by posing any objections.
Philip Giraldi, a former CIA Officer, is a partner in Cannistraro Associates
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/14/AR2005051400071_pf.html
washingtonpost.com
Not Just A Last Resort?
A Global Strike Plan, With a Nuclear Option
By William Arkin
Post
Sunday, May 15, 2005; B01
Early last summer, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld approved a top secret "Interim Global Strike Alert Order" directing the military to assume and maintain readiness to attack hostile countries that are developing weapons of mass destruction, specifically Iran and North Korea.
Two months later, Lt. Gen. Bruce Carlson, commander of the 8th Air Force, told a reporter that his fleet of B-2 and B-52 bombers had changed its way of operating so that it could be ready to carry out such missions. "We're now at the point where we are essentially on alert," Carlson said in an interview with the Shreveport (La.) Times. "We have the capacity to plan and execute global strikes." Carlson said his forces were the U.S. Strategic Command's "focal point for global strike" and could execute an attack "in half a day or less."
In the secret world of military planning, global strike has become the term of art to describe a specific preemptive attack. When military officials refer to global strike, they stress its conventional elements. Surprisingly, however, global strike also includes a nuclear option, which runs counter to traditional U.S. notions about the defensive role of nuclear weapons.
The official U.S. position on the use of nuclear weapons has not changed. Since the end of the Cold War, the United States has taken steps to de-emphasize the importance of its nuclear arsenal. The Bush administration has said it remains committed to reducing our nuclear stockpile while keeping a credible deterrent against other nuclear powers. Administration and military officials have stressed this continuity in testimony over the past several years before various congressional committees.
But a confluence of events, beginning with the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks and the president's forthright commitment to the idea of preemptive action to prevent future attacks, has set in motion a process that has led to a fundamental change in how the U.S. military might respond to certain possible threats. Understanding how we got to this point, and what it might mean for U.S. policy, is particularly important now -- with the renewed focus last week on Iran's nuclear intentions and on speculation that North Korea is ready to conduct its first test of a nuclear weapon.
Global strike has become one of the core missions for the Omaha-based Strategic Command, or Stratcom. Once, Stratcom oversaw only the nation's nuclear forces; now it has responsibility for overseeing a global strike plan with both conventional and nuclear options. President Bush spelled out the definition of "full-spectrum" global strike in a January 2003 classified directive, describing it as "a capability to deliver rapid, extended range, precision kinetic (nuclear and conventional) and non-kinetic (elements of space and information operations) effects in support of theater and national objectives."
This blurring of the nuclear/conventional line, wittingly or unwittingly, could heighten the risk that the nuclear option will be used. Exhibit A may be the Stratcom contingency plan for dealing with "imminent" threats from countries such as North Korea or Iran, formally known as CONPLAN 8022-02.
CONPLAN 8022 is different from other war plans in that it posits a small-scale operation and no "boots on the ground." The typical war plan encompasses an amalgam of forces -- air, ground, sea -- and takes into account the logistics and political dimensions needed to sustain those forces in protracted operations. All these elements generally require significant lead time to be effective. (Existing Pentagon war plans, developed for specific regions or "theaters," are essentially defensive responses to invasions or attacks. The global strike plan is offensive, triggered by the perception of an imminent threat and carried out by presidential order.)
CONPLAN 8022 anticipates two different scenarios. The first is a response to a specific and imminent nuclear threat, say in North Korea. A quick-reaction, highly choreographed strike would combine pinpoint bombing with electronic warfare and cyberattacks to disable a North Korean response, with commandos operating deep in enemy territory, perhaps even to take possession of the nuclear device.
The second scenario involves a more generic attack on an adversary's WMD infrastructure. Assume, for argument's sake, that Iran announces it is mounting a crash program to build a nuclear weapon. A multidimensional bombing (kinetic) and cyberwarfare (non-kinetic) attack might seek to destroy Iran's program, and special forces would be deployed to disable or isolate underground facilities.
By employing all of the tricks in the U.S. arsenal to immobilize an enemy country -- turning off the electricity, jamming and spoofing radars and communications, penetrating computer networks and garbling electronic commands -- global strike magnifies the impact of bombing by eliminating the need to physically destroy targets that have been disabled by other means.
The inclusion, therefore, of a nuclear weapons option in CONPLAN 8022 -- a specially configured earth-penetrating bomb to destroy deeply buried facilities, if any exist -- is particularly disconcerting. The global strike plan holds the nuclear option in reserve if intelligence suggests an "imminent" launch of an enemy nuclear strike on the United States or if there is a need to destroy hard-to-reach targets.
It is difficult to imagine a U.S. president ordering a nuclear attack on Iran or North Korea under any circumstance. Yet as global strike contingency planning has moved forward, so has the nuclear option.
Global strike finds its origins in pre-Bush administration Air Force thinking about a way to harness American precision and stealth to "kick down the door" of defended territory, making it easier for (perhaps even avoiding the need for) follow-on ground operations.
The events of 9/11 shifted the focus of planning. There was no war plan for Afghanistan on the shelf, not even a generic one. In Afghanistan, the synergy of conventional bombing and special operations surprised everyone. But most important, weapons of mass destruction became the American government focus. It is not surprising, then, that barely three months after that earth-shattering event, the Pentagon's quadrennial Nuclear Posture Review assigned the military and Stratcom the task of providing greater flexibility in nuclear attack options against Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Libya, Syria and China.
The Air Force's global strike concept was taken over by Stratcom and made into something new. This was partly in response to the realization that the military had no plans for certain situations. The possibility that some nations would acquire the ability to attack the United States directly with a WMD, for example, had clearly fallen between the command structure's cracks. For example, the Pacific Command in Hawaii had loads of war plans on its shelf to respond to a North Korean attack on South Korea, including some with nuclear options. But if North Korea attacked the United States directly -- or, more to the point, if the U.S. intelligence network detected evidence of preparations for such an attack, Pacific Command didn't have a war plan in place.
In May 2002, Rumsfeld issued an updated Defense Planning Guidance that directed the military to develop an ability to undertake "unwarned strikes . . . [to] swiftly defeat from a position of forward deterrence." The post-9/11 National Security Strategy, published in September 2002, codified preemption, stating that the United States must be prepared to stop rogue states and their terrorist clients before they are able to threaten or use weapons of mass destruction against the United States and our allies."
"We cannot let our enemies strike first," President Bush declared in the National Security Strategy document.
Stratcom established an interim global strike division to turn the new preemption policy into an operational reality. In December 2002, Adm. James O. Ellis Jr., then Stratcom's head, told an Omaha business group that his command had been charged with developing the capability to strike anywhere in the world within minutes of detecting a target.
Ellis posed the following question to his audience: "If you can find that time-critical, key terrorist target or that weapons-of-mass-destruction stockpile, and you have minutes rather than hours or days to deal with it, how do you reach out and negate that threat to our nation half a world away?"
CONPLAN 8022-02 was completed in November 2003, putting in place for the first time a preemptive and offensive strike capability against Iran and North Korea. In January 2004, Ellis certified Stratcom's readiness for global strike to the defense secretary and the president.
At Ellis's retirement ceremony in July, Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told an Omaha audience that "the president charged you to 'be ready to strike at any moment's notice in any dark corner of the world' [and] that's exactly what you've done."
As U.S. military forces have gotten bogged down in Afghanistan and Iraq, the attractiveness of global strike planning has increased in the minds of many in the military. Stratcom planners, recognizing that U.S. ground forces are already overcommitted, say that global strike must be able to be implemented "without resort to large numbers of general purpose forces."
When one combines the doctrine of preemption with a "homeland security" aesthetic that concludes that only hyper-vigilance and readiness stand in the way of another 9/11, it is pretty clear how global strike ended up where it is. The 9/11 attacks caught the country unaware and the natural reaction of contingency planners is to try to eliminate surprise in the future. The Nuclear Posture Review and Rumsfeld's classified Defense Planning Guidance both demanded more flexible nuclear options.
Global strike thinkers may believe that they have found a way to keep the nuclear genie in the bottle; but they are also having to cater to a belief on the part of those in government's inner circle who have convinced themselves that the gravity of the threats demands that the United States not engage in any protracted debate, that it prepare for the worst and hope for the best.
Though the official Washington mantra has always been "we don't discuss war plans," here is a real life predicament that cries out for debate: In classic terms, military strength and contingency planning can dissuade an attacker from mounting hostile actions by either threatening punishment or demonstrating through preparedness that an attacker's objectives could not possibly be achieved. The existence of a nuclear capability, and a secure retaliatory force, moreover, could help to deter an attack -- that is, if the threat is credible in the mind of the adversary.
But the global strike contingency plan cannot be a credible threat if it is not publicly known. And though CONPLAN 8022 suggests a clean, short-duration strike intended to protect American security, a preemptive surprise attack (let alone one involving a nuclear weapon option) would unleash a multitude of additional and unanticipated consequences. So, on both counts, why aren't we talking about it?
Author's e-mail: warkin@igc.org
William M. Arkin, who writes frequently about military affairs, is the author of "Code Names: Deciphering U.S. Military Plans, Programs and Operations in the 9/11 World" (Steerforth).
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http://fairuse.1accesshost.com/news2/ft01.html
Financial Times
Books add to rightwing campaign to demonise Iran
Published: July 8 2005 03:00 | Last updated: July 8 2005 03:00
Two new books in the US - Countdown to Terror and Countdown to Crisis - accuse an incompetent Central Intelligence Agency of failing to recognise the potentially catastrophic threat posed by Iran through what it alleges are close ties between Iran and the fugitive Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda.
Serialised in the conservative media and popularised on talk-shows, the books have arrived in the midst of a rightwing campaign to demonise Iran - and expose the CIA - at the same time as the Bush administration is exploring ways of funding and backing Iranian opposition groups.
In Countdown to Terror, Curt Weldon, a Pennsylvania republican congressman and vice-chairman of the House armed services committee, charges that Iran will carry out the next terror strike on the US, has a bomb that can kill more than 100,000 people, and is giving refuge to Mr bin Laden.
Mr Weldon's information comes from "Ali", said to be a former senior official during the Shah of Iran's rule, whom he first met in Paris in April, last year.
Mr Weldon says he was driven to write his book after the CIA dismissed Ali as a fraud even though, Mr Weldon claims, many of his predictions came true.
Mr Weldon's secondary target is George Tenet, the former CIA boss, and what he calls the old intelligence community elite. Mr Weldon accuses this elite of waging a propaganda war against George W. Bush in the run-up to the 2004 presidential election.
Mr Weldon strongly defends his old friend Porter Goss, who replaced Mr Tenet last year, and his efforts to purge the agency. He concludes that the US would be justified in launching a pre-emptive war against Iran. But since this is not feasible, Mr Weldon argues that the US should give financial support to Iranian groups preparing for regime change.
The ferocity of Mr Weldon's accusations have driven Bill Murray, the former CIA station chief in Paris, to go public with his side of the story - that Ali was a fraudster well known to the agency. The CIA has responded by declassifying a letter to Mr Weldon, in which it says Ali was a fabricator who embellished press reports. "He has provided no information to date worthy of follow-up," it said, adding that it spent hundreds of man hours evaluating his claims.
Mr Murray told the Financial Times that he had informed Mr Weldon that Ali was a known fabricator who wanted money. He said Ali was "totally dependent" on Manouchehr Ghorbanifar, an Iranian arms dealer discredited by the CIA for his role in the Iran-Contra scandal of the 1980s.
James Woolsey, a friend of Mr Weldon and former CIA director, praises the book as "a case study of an intelligence failure in the process of happening, with potentially catastrophic consequences for the United States." Mr Goss has not commented on it in public.
The CIA has not commented either on Countdown To Crisis: the Coming Nuclear Showdown With Iran, by Kenneth Timmerman, a journalist and author with close ties to exiled Iranian opposition groups. A CIA spokesman said the agency was too busy to read it.
Mr Timmerman, quoting alleged high-level defectors from Iranian intelligence organisations, says Iran plotted the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US together with al-Qaeda, and is also protecting Mr bin Laden.
"Because of the arrogance and wilful blindness of our nation's top intelligence officers, America's leaders were misled about the threat from Iran until it was too late."
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http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=43766
NUCLEAR WAR-FEAR
Iran nuke commercial
hits TV markets
Spot depicting atomic terror attack in NYC to be seen in 20 cities
Posted: April 13, 2005
1:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com
A commercial produced by an organization fighting for the freedom of Iran that depicts a nuclear terror attack in America – the kind many experts believe is possible should Tehran get the bomb – will run in 20 markets across the country this month.
Titled "An Atomic 9-11: When Evil is Appeased," the spot, sponsored by the Iran Freedom Foundation, is based on a scenario described in the new WND Books release "Atomic Iran: How the Terrorist Regime Bought the Bomb and American Politicians," by Jerome R. Corsi, co-author of the best-selling "Unfit for Command."
The ad can be viewed on the IFF website.
Corsi believes an atomic 9-11 is an imminent threat once a terrorist state like Iran has the capability to develop nuclear weapons.
"The major technical problems that have kept terrorists from exploding improvised nuclear devices within American cities are solved once a terrorist regime like the Islamic Republic of Iran has the capability to manufacture a nuclear weapon and deliver it in containers to a major U.S. port," he said.
"The device can be picked up by sleeper terrorist cells, assembled and driven into the heart of the city, where it can be detonated at the height of an ordinary business day."
The resulting destruction from a successful atomic 9-11 attack on a major U.S. city like New York would be enormous.
"In the blink of an eye, the United States could be reduced to second-class economic status," Corsi said.
The scenario described in "Atomic Iran" shows that a 150-kiloton IND exploded in New York would reduce much of the city to rubble. Some 1.5 million people would be killed instantly, with another 1.5 million certain to die over the next few days.
The television ad will air for 13 days four times daily in each city. The markets include cities in Maine, Mississippi, Texas, Oregon, California, New Jersey, Illinois, Ohio, South Carolina, Alabama, Indiana, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Washington, Florida, and Washington, D.C.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/23/AR2005052301565_pf.html
AIPAC's Big, Bigger, Biggest Moment
By Dana Milbank
Post
Tuesday, May 24, 2005; A13
How much clout does AIPAC have?
Well, consider that during the pro-Israel lobby's annual conference yesterday, a fleet of police cars, sirens wailing, blocked intersections and formed a motorcade to escort buses carrying its conventioneers -- to lunch.
The annual meeting of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee has long produced a massive show of bipartisan pandering, as lawmakers praise the well-financed and well-connected group. But this has been a rough year for AIPAC -- it has dismissed its policy director and another employee while the FBI examines whether they passed classified U.S. information to Israel -- and the organization is eager to show how big it is.
Reporters arriving at the convention center yesterday were given a list of "Food Facts" for the three-day AIPAC meeting: 26,000 kosher meals, 32,640 hors d'oeuvres, 2,500 pounds of salmon, 1,200 pounds of turkey, 900 pounds of chicken, 700 pounds of beef and 125 gallons of hummus.
Another fact sheet announced that this is the "largest ever" conference, with its 5,000 participants attending "the largest annual seated dinner in Washington" joined by "more members of Congress than almost any other event, except for a joint session of Congress or a State of the Union address." The group added that its membership "has nearly doubled" over four years to 100,000 and that the National Journal calls it "one of the top four most effective lobbying organizations."
"More," "most," "largest," "top": The superlatives continued, and deliberately. In his speech Sunday, the group's executive director, Howard Kohr, said the "record attendance" at the conference would dispel questions about AIPAC raised by the FBI investigation.
"This is a test, a test of our collective resolve," Kohr said of the "unique challenge" presented by the FBI probe, "and your presence here today sends a message to every adversary of Israel, AIPAC and the Jewish community that we are here, and here to stay." (The official text has two exclamation points after that sentence.) Kohr, without mentioning the fired staffers, told participants that "neither AIPAC nor any of its current employees is or ever has been the target."
As yesterday's session showed, the scandal isn't keeping the powerful from lining up to woo AIPAC. The morning brought Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the evening brought congressional leaders, and at a luncheon "debate" in between, Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) and informal administration foreign policy adviser Richard N. Perle tried to one-up each other in pro-Israel views.
Perle drew cheers for denouncing Palestinian anti-Semitism and the French. Harman mentioned that an aide once worked for AIPAC, called her audience "very sophisticated" and celebrated Yasser Arafat's death as "a blessing." Debating a hard-liner in front of a pro-administration crowd, Harman heaped praise on President Bush, calling the Iraqi elections "sensationally impressive" and moving to "applaud" or "commend" Perle and the administration a dozen times. "Richard is right, and so is President Bush," she said at one point.
But after half an hour of this, Harman could not keep up. Perle provoked cheers from the crowd when he favored a military raid on Iran, saying that "if Iran is on the verge of a nuclear weapon, I think we will have no choice but to take decisive action." When Harman said the "best short-term option" is the U.N. Security Council, the crowd reacted with boos.
AIPAC is a demanding crowd, and even Rice, introduced as a "very special friend," did not satisfy universally. The participants applauded heartily her reminder that Bush did not meet with Arafat, but when she said Arafat's successor, Mahmoud Abbas, "is committed to both freedom and security," and when she mentioned more U.S. funds for Palestinians, the room was quiet.
Likewise, Rice's call for Arab states to "establish normal relations with Israel" earned an extended ovation; her reminder that Israel must not "jeopardize the true viability of the Palestinian state" did not.
There were subtle signs of dissent within AIPAC (a sticker critical of Israel's "disengagement" from Gaza, a policy supported by AIPAC) and not-so-subtle dissent from without: a group of anti-Zionist orthodox Jews with signs proclaiming, "Torah Forbids any Jewish State." But the attendees overall showed an impressive ideological discipline -- right down to AIPAC's multimedia show, "Iran's Path to the Bomb," in the convention center's basement.
The exhibit, worthy of a theme park, begins with a narrator condemning the International Atomic Energy Agency for being "unwilling to conclude that Iran is developing nuclear weapons" (it had similar reservations about Iraq) and the Security Council because it "has yet to take up the issue." In a succession of rooms, visitors see flashing lights and hear rumbling sounds as Dr. Seuss-like contraptions make yellowcake uranium, reprocess plutonium, and pop out nuclear warheads like so many gallons of hummus for an AIPAC conference.
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,12858,1549335,00.html
How Bush would gain from war with Iran
The US has the capability and reasons for an assault - and it is hard to see Britain uninvolved
Dan Plesch
Monday August 15, 2005
The Guardian
President Bush has reminded us that he is prepared to take military action to prevent Iran acquiring nuclear weapons. On Israeli television this weekend, he declared that "all options are on the table" if Tehran doesn't comply with international demands.
In private his officials deride EU and UN diplomacy with Iran. US officials have been preparing pre-emptive war since Bush marked Iran out as a member of the "axis of evil" back in 2002. Once again, this war is likely to have British support.
A plausible spin could be that America and Britain must act where the international community has failed, and that their action is the responsible alternative to an Israeli attack. The conventional wisdom is that, even if diplomacy fails, the US is so bogged down in Iraq that it could not take on Iran. However, this misunderstands the capabilities and intentions of the Bush administration.
America's devastating air power is not committed in Iraq. Just 120 B52, B1 and B2 bombers could hit 5,000 targets in a single mission. Thousands of other warplanes and missiles are available. The army and marines are heavily committed in Iraq, but enough forces could be found to secure coastal oilfields and to conduct raids into Iran.
A US attack is unlikely to be confined to the suspected WMD locations or to involve a ground invasion to occupy the country. The strikes would probably be intended to destroy military, political and (oil excepted) economic infrastructure. A disabled Iran could be further paralysed by civil war. Tehran alleges US support for separatists in the large Azeri population of the north-west, and fighting is increasing in Iranian Kurdistan.
The possible negative consequences of an attack on Iran are well known: an increase in terrorism; a Shia rising in Iraq; Hizbullah and Iranian attacks on Israel; attacks on oil facilities along the Gulf and a recession caused by rising oil prices. Advocates of war argue that if Iran is allowed to go nuclear then each of these threats to US and Israeli interests becomes far greater. In this logic, any negative consequence becomes a further reason to attack now - with Iran disabled all these threats can, it is argued, be reduced.
Iraq is proving an electoral liability. This is a threat to the Bush team's intention to retain power for the next decade - perhaps, as the author Bob Woodward says, with President Cheney at the helm. War with Iran next spring can enable them to win the mid-term elections and retain control of the Republican party, now in partial rebellion over Iraq.
The rise in oil prices and subsequent recession are reasons some doubt that an attack would take place. However, Iran's supplies are destined for China - perceived as the US's main long-term rival. And the Bush team are experienced enough to remember that Ronald Reagan rode out the recession of the early 1980s on a wave of rhetoric about "evil empire".
Even if the US went ahead, runs the argument, Britain would not be involved as Tony Blair would not want a rerun of the Iraq controversy. But British forces are already in the area: they border Iran around Basra, and will soon lead the Nato force on Iran's Afghan frontier. The British island of Diego Garcia is a critical US base.
It is hard to see Britain uninvolved in US actions. The prime minister is clearly of a mind to no more countenance Iran's WMD than he did Iraq's. In Iran's case the evidence is more substantial. The Iranians do have a nuclear energy programme and have lied about it. In any event, Blair is probably aware that the US is unlikely to supply him with the prized successor to the Trident submarine if Britain refuses to continue to pay the blood sacrifice of standing with the US. Tory votes might provide sufficient "national unity" to see off Labour dissenters.
New approaches are needed to head off such a dismal scenario. The problem on WMD is that Blair and Bush are doing too little, not too much. Why pick on Iran rather than India, Pakistan, Israel or Egypt - not to mention the west's weapons? In the era of Gorbachev and Reagan, political will created treaties that still successfully control many types of WMD. Revived, they would provide the basis for global controls. Iran must not be dealt with in isolation.
As the Iran debate unfolds, we will no doubt again hear about the joint intelligence committee. We should follow the advice of a former head of the committee, Sir Paul Lever, to remove US intelligence officials from around the JIC table, where they normally sit. Only in this way, argues Lever, can the British take a considered view themselves.
We need to be clear that our MPs have no mandate to support an attack on Iran. During the election campaign, the government dismissed any suggestion that Iran might be attacked as ridiculous scaremongering. If Blair has told Bush that Britain will prevent Iran's nuclear weapons "come what may", we need to be equally clear that nothing short of an election would provide the mandate for an attack.
· Dan Plesch is the author of The Beauty Queen's Guide to World Peace, about which he is speaking at the Edinburgh Book Festival
dan@danplesch.net
http://nomorewarforisrael.blogspot.com
Last edited by Alpha on Fri Oct 21, 2005 6:29 pm; edited 8 times in total | |  | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Mon Jul 18, 2005 5:51 am Post subject: Michael Ledeen Demands `Regime Change' in Iran |
| This article appears in the July 11, 2003 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.
`SYNARCHISM-NAZI/COMMUNISM'
Michael Ledeen Demands
`Regime Change' in Iran
by Scott Thompson
We have already crossed the Rubicon. We are already in Hell. World War III in Eurasia is already ongoing. There was not an Iraq war; there is a continuing Iraq war. There was not an Afghanistan war; there is a continuing Afghanistan war. There's already an onset of a war with Iran, being run covertly, as a covert operation, from the United States, in Iran right now! You see it on the television screens here. That is not a spontaneous student movement. That is a U.S.-run destabilization of Iran, trying to set up the conditions for a war. The situation in Korth Korea; other situations I know of; we are now inside World War III. It is not something that we could prevent from happening. We're there.
—Address by Lyndon LaRouche in Istanbul, Turkey, June 14, 2003
Ledeen's ideas are quoted daily by such figures as Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz. His views virtually define the stark departure from American foreign policy philosophy that characterized United States actions since September 11, 2001.... Now Ledeen is calling for 'regime change' beyond Iraq. In an address titled 'Time to Focus on Iran: The Mother of Modern Terrorism,' for the policy forum of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) on April 30, he declared: "The time for diplomacy is at the end; it is time for a free Iran, a free Syria and free Lebanon."
—William O. Beeman, "Michael Ledeen: Neoconservative Guru," in The Daily Star, Beirut, Lebanon, May 9, 2003
The same drumbeat for "regime change" that led to war against Iraq, is now coming from the mouths of Vice President Dick Cheney's "chicken-hawk" cabal; only now, the target is Iran. This destabilization is being run through U.S. private foundations and think-tanks, to overthrow the government in Iran, and run a destabilization, and/or military strike against Iran's nuclear energy production facilities.
The pointman is Michael Ledeen, who divides his time among National Review Online, JINSA, and the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). Ledeen is stirring up the networks in Congress and the press, and lining up tainted intelligence to justify war on Iran.
This is the same Michael Ledeen, who, as a consultant to the Reagan-Bush Administration National Security Council in the mid-1980s, was a pivotal criminal figure in the Iran-Contra fiasco, covertly peddling weapons to the very Ayatollahs whom he is now plotting to overthrow. He is also the same Ledeen who now calls for the United States to wage war against Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Sudan, Libya because, he alleges, they are all "masters of terror." Yet in the 1980s, Ledeen was one of the biggest promoters in Washington of the so-called Afghansi mujahideen—including Osama bin Laden—whom he touted as "freedom fighters" and "champions of the democratic struggle against totalitarian communism."
Ledeen's operations are not merely the rantings of deeply disturbed wanna-be Il Duce. His efforts should be understood as reflecting the immediate intentions of the Administration neo-conservatives. His cronies, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Doug Feith, are the key advisors to Secretary of Defense Donald "Dr. Strangelove" Rumsfeld.
Ledeen, the self-proclaimed "universal fascist," has long been under scrutiny by EIR researchers, as a man who has been in the midst of some of the dirtiest covert intelligence operations of the past 30 years. EIR's Special Report of April 1987, Project Democracy: The 'Parallel Government' Behind the Iran-Contra Affair, put a spotlight on Ledeen, from which I draw some of the brief profile published here.
Ledeen, as he wrote in his book Machiavelli on Modern Leadership: Why Machiavelli's Iron Rules Are As Timely and Important Today as Five Centuries Ago (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2000), is a believer in "total war" through "creative violence." There is no such thing as peace between nations, he maintains; peace is just an interlude between wars.
Ledeen fits the profile of a "Synarchist," or "Nazi/Communist," as those concepts were discussed in World War II-era documents made available to EIR by military intelligence and other sources during the 1980s (see Jeffrey Steinberg, "Synarchism: The Fascist Roots of the Wolfowitz Cabal," EIR, May 30, 2003). Particularly relevant to this characterization is Ledeen's work with both "Red" and "Black" terrorists in Italy, and his support, along with Henry Kissinger, of the Propaganda Due (P-2) Freemasonic Lodge of former Nazi collaborator Licio Gelli, which directed the NATO-related "strategy of tension" against former Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro.
Still Promoting Terrorists
On June 23, France's Secret Service launched a crackdown on the Iranian Mujahadeen e-Khalq (MEK, or MKO), an anti-regime group that has been on the U.S. State Department's list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations since 1997. Simultaneous with recent confrontations in Iran, some 150 MEK members were arrested at their "international headquarters" near Paris, and accused of plotting terrorist attacks against Iranian embassies and diplomats throughout Europe. The MEK members arrested by the French authorities were operating under the cover of the National Council for Resistance in Iran, the MEK's international front group. Among those arrested were MEK cult leader Maryam Rajavi and her husband, MEK military chief Massoud Rajavi. Following the arrests, nine members of the group set themselves on fire in protests in Paris. One died.
Rather than applaud the French moves as part of the war against terrorism, Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) is trying to whip up public support for the group. In an open letter, published in the June 24 Washington Times, he called for the "terrorist" designation to be dropped. He had earlier put forward an amendment to a bill that would give $50 million to exile Iranian satellite TV stations, to continue the sort of psy-ops carried out by Radio Farda. Back on March 13, Senator Brownback had joined Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Calif.) to call for a "regime change," in Iran, despite the fact that moderate reformers, notably President Khatami, have become a significant factor in the country. Brownback's website states: "It may seem that our support is not really that important, but in truth, democracy dissidents inside Iran tell me that it is crucial to motivate the opposition and for them to know that there can be a strong future with the U.S. once they have re-claimed their ancient land."
Brownback was joined in the call to arms in defense of the terrorist MEK, by Michael Ledeen's alter-ego Daniel Pipes, who posted an op-ed on his website, demanding not only that the MEK be removed from the State Department terror list; but that the U.S. government adopt the MEK as a "liberation group" to wage guerrilla insurgency against the Iranian government.
Ledeen joined the fray with a raving article in the June 16 National Review Online, "The Iranian Revolution, 2003," in which he proclaims that he can "sniff out" Iranian revolution from "the tell-tale odors coming from the undergarments of its doomed leaders." The article cites six reasons why the Iranian "revolution" is unstoppable now—and why President Bush must embrace it. The article is considered a signal that the neo-con cabal inside the Administration is going into high gear behind the scenes to get war in Iran. Among other objectives, war on Iran would help derail the Road Map negotiations for Israeli-Palestinian peace—a policy the President supports, but the Administration neo-cons despise.
Ledeen's 'Focus on Iran'
Ledeen and company have been putting this operation in place for some time. In 2001, Ledeen founded the Coalition for Democracy in Iran (CDI), with a call for regime change in that country. One of his partners in founding the coalition was Dr. Rob Sobhani, a professor at Georgetown University and president of Caspian Energy Consulting. Support for the CDI also comes from the Center for Security Policy's Frank Gaffney, former Rep. Jack Kemp, Joshua Muravchik of AEI, and former CIA director James Woolsey, who sits on the Defense Policy Board. Woolsey has also worked for the Doug Feith/Abram Shulsky "Office of Special Plans" in the Pentagon, which cooked the intelligence to push through the Iraq War. One of CDI's policies, as spelled out in the June 15 Washington Post, is to support Brownback's call for an Iran Liberation Act, similar to the 1997 one for Iraq.
Ledeen rails against Iranian terrorism in his recent book The Terror Masters: Why It Happened. Where We Are Now. How We'll Win. According to Pacific News Service of May 19, he gave a speech at a JINSA policy forum on April 30, entitled "Time to Focus on Iran—The Mother of Modern Terrorism."
Bernard Lewis Joins In
The next big push came on May 6, when Ledeen moderated a panel at a conference at AEI, on "The Future of Iran: Mullarchy, Democracy, and the War on Terror."
Co-sponsoring the event was the Hudson Institute—funded by the Russian and Jewish Mafia-linked Marc Rich (whose attorneys had included Cheney's "Scooter" Libby) and by British media baron Conrad Black—and the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. Opening the event was Meyrav Wurmser, director of Middle East programs at the Hudson Institute, whose husband, David Wurmser, is an adviser to Assistant Secretary of State John Bolton. Her morning panel was entitled, "Iran Today—A Reality Check," and panelists included Uri Lubrani of the Israeli Defense Ministry.
Ledeen gave the introduction for former British military intelligence operative and Princeton Professor Emeritus Bernard Lewis, who is the inventor of the idea of a "Clash of Civilizations," later popularized in a book by that name by Samuel Huntington. Lewis' thesis, cloaked in phrases of Athenian democracy, is that which President Carter's National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski formerly called "the Arc of Crisis" and today calls "the Zone of Instability." It calls for stopping Eurasian integration through manipulating tribal, ethnic, and religious axioms to destroy nation-states, beginning especially in the Middle East. Ledeen introduced Lewis as "the reigning genius of Middle East studies everywhere."
Lewis openly called for a "revolution" in Iran, to follow the military conquest of Iraq; he compared Iran to Napoleonic France or Stalin's Soviet Union. Lewis said that the most important and dangerous neighbor of Iraq was Iran, adding, "It is, I suppose, in Iran that this fear of a success of democracy in Iraq is most strongly felt, and with the very best of reasons." Pointing to the fact that there are more Shi'ites than Sunnis among Islamic religious denominations in Iraq, Lewis continued, "Shi'ism is [also] the predominant religion in Iran and the one which ... [is] invoked by the current leadership of that country and the theocracy that was established by the revolution in '79."
Lewis presented the pie-in-the-sky view that "democratic ideas and democratic examples from a new Iraq might spread across the border ... and the Muslim Shi'ite divines on both sides may feel—and one can understand this—they feel they have to do something about it. They have to do something to counter this American-sponsored Democratic fright.... What is necessary from the point of view of the Iranian theocracy is that the democratic experiment in Iraq should fail and that the consequences to Americans there should be so awful that they would go away and not come back."
Also speaking at the AEI event was Senator Brownback, who called for support for his Senate Resolution 82, and promoted his Iran Democracy amendment. "It should be the policy of the U.S.," he said, "to seek a genuine democratic government in Iran that will restore freedom to the Iranian people, abandon terrorism, and live in peace and security with the international commuity."
Everyone who knows the first thing about Iran realizes that any American meddling there—such as the actions already being run through Ledeen, Brownback, Woolsey, et al.—is a recipe for chaos and likely mass deaths. The promotion by Ledeen of a "liberation" of Iran is, thus, a drive for the kind of "purgative violence" that is at the heart of his "universal fascism." Which brings us to Ledeen's variety of fascism.
Ledeen's 'Synarchist' Roots
The first important influence on Ledeen's life was George Mosse, a German Jewish emigré, who had been on good terms with such Nazi leaders as Joseph Goebbels and Herman Goering. Mosse was so close that Goering offered to make his father an Aryan, and the family was permitted to leave Germany 15 minutes before the law was changed.
The Cambridge-educated Mosse, who would become Ledeen's teacher at the University of Wisconsin, taught Ledeen that despite its "perversion" by anti-Semitism, Fascism ought to be scientifically studied, because the Geist (soul) of Western countries had been suffocated and could only be revived through Fascism or Nazism. It is reported that while Ledeen was working on his Ph.D., he was blackballed for having joined—under Mosse's influence—a cell of the Israeli intelligence-linked movement associated with Vladimir Ze'ev Jabotinsky, whom Israeli leader David Ben Gurion referred to as "Vladimir Hitler."
It was through Mosse that Ledeen was introduced to later Presidential Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board member David Abshire, who was the founder of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), and who hired Ledeen as a political intelligence operative.
But an even more important mentor to Ledeen was Renzo de Felice, an advocate of the Jacobin Revolution in France which led to the emergence of the first modern Fascist, Napoleon Bonaparte. De Felice did not hide his Fascism, as he wrote in The Illuminati and Revolutionary Mysticism, 1789-1900: "There is something in common between my Jacobins and a certain kind of Fascism.... Fascism wanted to achieve the transformation of society and the individual ... [toward] a new phase in the history of civilization."
After researching in Italy from 1966 to 1967, where he met scions of the Venetian oligarchy who are "magicians" in cultural warfare, Ledeen wrote: Universal Fascism (1972); "Italian Fascism and Youth," Journal of Contemporary History, July 1969; "Fascist Social Policy," in The Use and Abuse of Social Science, ed, Irving Louis Horowitz; and, among others, Fascism, An Informal Introduction to Its Theory and Practice, by Renzo de Felice, which includes an interview with Ledeen.
Ledeen preferred unbridled, Jacobin-style fascism, such as that of Gabrielle D'Annunzio in the early 1900s. In his 1972 Universal Fascism, Ledeen criticized Benito Mussolini as being too rigid: "He never had enough confidence in the Italian people to permit them a genuine participation in Fascism."
Ledeen's Criminal Trail
Ledeen has been associated, throughout the past two decades, with some of the most sordid criminal affairs, implicating government officials, intelligence services, and private "synarchist" networks:
Irangate: It is particularly ironical that Ledeen is today calling for a "regime change" in Iran, since he had been an integral culprit in Project Democracy's covert operations with Iran's regime during the 1980s. He worked closely with Manuchar Ghorbanifar, an Iranian living in France, to whom he had been introduced by top Israeli political intelligence agent David Kimchee. Ledeen brought Ghorbanifar to a meeting on Oct. 8, 1985 with the National Security Council's Lt. Col. Oliver North, at which was also present Israeli arms dealer Ya'acov Nimrodi, a key player in North's "Enterprise." Ledeen had frequent meetings with North in this regard throughout 1985, despite CIA warnings that Ghorbanifar was not to be trusted. It was through Ghorbanifar that 500 TOW missiles were shipped to Iran, and then 19 Hawk SAM missiles, in exchange for the release of American hostages then being held by terrorists in Lebanon. This was the "arms for hostages" deal that was at the heart of the Iran-Contra scandal. The weapons that went to Iran came either directly from the U.S. military stockpiles, or from Israel's massive arms industry, involving top officials of the Israeli government.
Ledeen maintained that he was just involved in a "research program" on Iran, which "by accident," turned into an "action program." However, it is notable that throughout this period, he was involved, by way of a firm called EATSCO, with former CIA Deputy Director for Plans Theodor Shackley, who was another pivotal Iran-Contra figure.
Italy's Propaganda-2 Lodge: According to innumerable sources on both sides of the Atlantic, while working for Kissinger and Alexander Haig at CSIS, Ledeen became a member of the Propaganda Due (P-2) Lodge, which emerged to public light on May 20, 1981. This unmasking occurred just seven days after the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II by Mehmet Ali Agca, in which P-2 was thought to be involved. The exposure of P-2 forced the resignation of 47 Italian Army generals and 6 Navy admirals. Also named was Bruno di Fabio, a naval officer working at NATO headquarters in Brussels, across whose desk passed the reports of the secret services of all of NATO's members. Other prominent Italians revealed to be members of the secret society, who were toppled and were known to be among Ledeen's close associates, were the chief of staff of defense, Giovanni Torrissi; the head of the coordinating body of the secret services, Walter Pelosi; the head of military counterintelligence (SISMI), Giuseppe Santovito; the head of the civilian intelligence service (SISDE), Giuliano Grassini. As for P-2 Grand Master Licio Gelli himself, he was the perfect "Synarchist" or, as Ledeen might put it, "universal Fascist," having been both a Nazi SS liaison officer and, until at least 1956, a Soviet agent.
The Temple Mount conspiracy: Ledeen and his wife Barbara have been part of an "Armaggedon Project" to rebuild Solomon's Third Temple in Jerusalem on al-Haram al-Sharif (a.k.a. "Temple Mount") which is the third most holy site in Islam. The planned destruction of the al-Aqsa Mosque on the Dome of the Rock would unleash unstoppable warfare in the Middle East. Barbara Ledeen was until recently on the editorial masthead of Biblical Archeology Review, which has played a central role in plotting where the Third Temple should be placed, together with the Quatuor Cornati ("Four Crowns") research lodge of British Freemasonry. | | | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Wed Jul 20, 2005 5:30 pm Post subject: America Has Fallen Into The Abyss |
| 19 July 2005
www.MiddleEast.Org
America Has Fallen Into The Abyss
Terror, Assassination, Torture, Disinformation
"Bush and his cohorts are plunging the world into an abyss, an endless
night of murder and terror -- wholesale, retail, state-sponsored, privatized;
of fear and degradation, servility, chaos, and the perversion of all that's best in us.
Now the night has come. Now the United States stands openly --
even proudly -- for terrorism, torture and the Hitlerian principle of aggressive
war. America has fallen into the pit -- and the hopes of the world go with it."
"In their ignorance and arrogance, the Bushists will almost certainly strike at Iran --
despite the fact that even Iranian dissidents support the effort to make their nation
a nuclear power and would join the mullahs in retaliation. The result will be a
conflict far surpassing the horror and magnitude of the Iraq disaster."
MER - MiddleEast.Org - Washington - 19 July: While the Americans denounce so many hither and yon for 'terrorism', even those who are clearly fighting against occupying armies for their own self-determination and freedom, many others around the world are increasingly seeing the Americans themselves as 'terrorists' of an imperial 'New World Order' kind. Publishered earlier this year, this important article simply titled 'American Terror' should be carefully read and contemplated by all serious persons before it is too late. The list of annotated articles at the end is also of considerable interest and was provided by the Moscow Times.
American Terror
By Chris Floyd
01/21/2005 "Moscow Times" -- More than two years ago, we wrote here of a secret Pentagon plan to foment terrorism by sending covert agents to infiltrate terrorist groups and goad them into action -- in other words, committing acts of murder and destruction. The purpose was two-fold: first, to bring the terrorist groups into the open, where they could be counterattacked; and second, to justify U.S. military attacks on the countries where the terrorists were operating -- attacks which, in the Pentagon's words, would put those nations' "sovereignty at risk." It was a plan that countenanced -- indeed, encouraged -- the deliberate murder of innocent people and the imposition of U.S. military rule anywhere in the world that U.S. leaders desired.
This plan is now being activated.
In fact, it's being expanded, as The New Yorker's Seymour Hersh revealed last week. Not only will U.S.-directed agents infiltrate existing terrorist groups and provoke them into action, but the Pentagon itself will create its own terrorist groups and "death squads." After establishing their terrorist "credentials" through various atrocities and crimes, these American-run groups will then be able to ally with -- and ultimately undermine -- existing terrorist groups.
Top-level officials in the Pentagon, the U.S. intelligence services and the Bush administration confirmed to Hersh that the plan is going forward, under the direction of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld -- just as we noted here in November 2002. Through a series of secret executive orders, George W. Bush has given Rumsfeld the authority to turn the entire world into "a global free-fire zone," a top Pentagon adviser says. These secret operations will be carried out with virtually no oversight; in many cases, even the top military commanders in the affected regions will not be told about them. The American people, of course, will never know what's being done in their name.
The covert units -- including the Pentagon-funded terrorist groups and hit squads -- will be operating outside all constraints of law and morality. "We're going to be riding with the bad boys," one insider told Hersh. Another likened it to the palmy days of the Reagan-Bush years: "Do you remember the right-wing execution squads in El Salvador? We founded them and we financed them. The objective now is to recruit locals in any area we want. And we aren't going to tell Congress about it." Indeed, we reported here last summer that Bush has already budgeted $500 million to fund local paramilitaries and guerrilla groups in the most volatile areas of the world, a measure guaranteed to produce needless bloodshed, destruction and suffering for innocent people already ravaged by conflict.
The activation of the Pentagon terrorist operation is part of Bush's second-term expansion of the "war on terror." Despite some obfuscating rhetoric about "diplomacy," the Bush regime is pressing ahead with a hard-line strategy aimed at opening new military fronts in the "global free-fire zone." Any dissenting voices within the government are being ruthlessly purged. The Pentagon's secret forces are set for operations in at least 10 countries, and Bush insiders "repeatedly" told Hersh that "Iran is the next strategic target."
Iran has long been a focus of the small clique of "global dominationists" -- led by Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Dick Cheney and their acolytes -- who engineered the invasion of Iraq. This group is determined to "whack Iran," as one insider put it, and they're not at all discouraged by the debacle in Iraq; indeed, to them it's a rousing success. Their first objective -- openly stated years ago, before Bush took office -- was the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime and the planting of a U.S. "military footprint" in Iraq. This has now been done. The fact that it has plunged the Iraqi people into a hell of violence, chaos, terror and extremism is of no real concern to the clique. Their lofty rhetoric about "freedom" and "liberation" is meaningless sham, shuck and jive for the rubes. By the admission of the clique's own publications, they seek strategic control over the world's energy resources in order to preserve and expand American geopolitical and economic hegemony in the new century. Everything else -- including the security of the American people, put at increasing risk by the clique's reckless policies -- is of secondary importance.
U.S. forces are already conducting military reconnaissance inside Iran in preparation for strikes on alleged nuclear weapons facilities, Hersh reports. The Pentagon is feverishly updating war plans for a "maximum ground and air invasion of Iran," incorporating the new staging areas now available in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, while employing an Iranian terrorist group, MEK, to launch covert ops and terrorist acts against Tehran. MEK was once given sanctuary by Hussein, who used the group as a brutal enforcer against Kurd and Shiite insurgents. Now Bush, "riding with the bad boys," has embraced the MEK murderers as his own.
In their ignorance and arrogance, the Bushists will almost certainly strike at Iran -- despite the fact that even Iranian dissidents support the effort to make their nation a nuclear power and would join the mullahs in retaliation. The result will be a conflict far surpassing the horror and magnitude of the Iraq disaster.
In our original report on the Pentagon's terror scheme, we wrote: "Bush and his cohorts are plunging the world into an abyss, an endless night of murder and terror -- wholesale, retail, state-sponsored, privatized; of fear and degradation, servility, chaos, and the perversion of all that's best in us." Now the night has come. Now the United States stands openly -- even proudly -- for terrorism, torture and the Hitlerian principle of aggressive war. America has fallen into the pit -- and the hopes of the world go with it.
Annotations
The Coming Wars
New Yorker, Jan. 17, 2005
Into the Dark: The Pentagon's Plan to Foment Terrorism
CounterPunch, Nov. 1, 2002 http://www.counterpunch.org/floyd1101.html.
Cry Havoc: Bush's Own Personal Janjaweed
CounterPunch, Sept. 7, 2004
American Dominance
Bergen Record, Feb. 23, 2003
Preparing for an attack on Iran?
Salon.com, Jan. 18, 2005
America's Death Squads
Antiwar.com, Jan. 10, 2005
Deadlier Face of Torture Emerges
The Times, Jan. 16, 2005
Pro-Government Death Squad Surfaces in Irag
Focus News, Jan. 11, 2005
Neocons turn their attention to Iran
Financial Times, Jan. 18, 2005
Bush Planned Iraq 'Regime Change' Before Becoming President
Glasgow Sunday Herald, Sept. 15, 2002
Rebuilding America's Defenses
Project for a New Century, September 2000
Statement of Principles
Project for a New American Century, June 3, 1997
Seymour Hersh: Rumsfeld's Dirty War on Terror
The Guardian, Sept. 13, 2004
Osama: A Texas-Style Republican in Islamic Clothing
Online Journal, Sept. 12, 2004
Bush Team Knew of Abuse at Guantanamo
The Guardian, Sept. 13, 2004
The Hidden History of CIA Torture
TomDispatch.com, Sept. 9, 2004
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