A new article by Seymour Hersh in the
New Yorker,
LAST STAND: The military's problem with the President's Iran policy., observes that it's not all
just ducky at the Pentagon, these days. The brass is increasingly at odds with where they see the civilians taking things. But, once again, it seems it's the bean-counters who's grasp of the situation is grossly flawed.
Hersh quotes a number of "senior" military figures (both serving and retired) that "[t]here is a war about the war going on inside the building". And the military have very serious disagreements with the administration's approach to the consideration of hostilites in Iran. They've already won a concession to take "the nuclear option" out of the playbook (or, at least, have it moved to an appendix).
In late April, the military leadership, headed by General Pace, achieved a major victory when the White House dropped its insistence that the plan for a bombing campaign include the possible use of a nuclear device to destroy Iran's uranium-enrichment plant at Natanz, nearly two hundred miles south of Tehran. The huge complex includes large underground facilities built into seventy-five-foot-deep holes in the ground and designed to hold as many as fifty thousand centrifuges. "Bush and Cheney were dead serious about the nuclear planning," the former senior intelligence official told me. "And Pace stood up to them. Then the world came back: `O.K., the nuclear option is politically unacceptable.' " At the time, a number of retired officers, including two Army major generals who served in Iraq, Paul Eaton and Charles Swannack, Jr., had begun speaking out against the Administration's handling of the Iraq war. This period is known to many in the Pentagon as "the April Revolution."
"An event like this doesn't get papered over very quickly," the former official added. "The bad feelings over the nuclear option are still felt. The civilian hierarchy feels extraordinarily betrayed by the brass, and the brass feel they were tricked into it"--the nuclear planning--"by being asked to provide all options in the planning papers."
Yes, that's right: Rumsfeld had the Joint Chiefs furnish him with an array of options. So, of course, there's "the nuclear option" in there somewhere. But they were just doing their jobs and giving Rummy what he asked for. "Sweep it all up. Things related and not." Only this time, instead of railroading the CIA with a wink and a nod, OSP has been busy planning out their nukular strategy. ("Well, it was in the intelligence military strategy report that we were given!") SOP for these weasels. Hopefully, the Chiefs have successfully got that one back in the drawer.
But, given the sober warnings about:
- the difficult task of reaching a target over terrain such as Iran's
- the problem of determining the extent of damage (if any) of these underground targets
- the question of whether the Iranians would pour into Iraq, causing mayhem
- or warm up the tanker war
- the determination that Qatar's gas export facilities are at a very serious risk
Give all that, plus the basic fact that hitting Iran would happily widen the killing zone in that part of the world, one needs to consider whether "the nuclear option" wouldn't be pulled out in a hurry. I think these generals know that. They may have talked the civies back from the dark edge, but there's sure to be some non-trivial strains put upon the military should the Decider get the word from Mr Cheney that it's go.
Because, what i worry about is not that the US will use nukes in a first- (or second- or third-) strike on Irans infrastructure, but that they will become so hopelessly FUBARed that nukes start being hauled out and mounted. And, even then, the US would be required to create a much larger footprint in the region. And where can that lead but to even more death? What do American 14–year-olds have to look forward to facing?
So, which is it going to be? Can we talk about this like adults? What will that region be like in twenty years? Ten? And what sort of conversations are going on, on the QT, between those at the highest levels of the US military?
A retired four-star general, who ran a major command, said, "The system is starting to sense the end of the road, and they don't want to be condemned by history. They want to be able to say, `We stood up.'
Go read the article. There's much more, including:
technical conundrums
One complicating aspect of the multiple-hit tactic, the Pentagon consultant told me, is "the liquefaction problem"--the fact that the soil would lose its consistency owing to the enormous heat generated by the impact of the first bomb. "It will be like bombing water, with its currents and eddies. The bombs would likely be diverted." Intelligence has also shown that for the past two years the Iranians have been shifting their most sensitive nuclear-related materials and production facilities, moving some into urban areas, in anticipation of a bombing raid.
Russia
Leverett told me that, without a change in U.S. policy, the balance of power in the negotiations will shift to Russia. "Russia sees Iran as a beachhead against American interests in the Middle East, and they're playing a very sophisticated game," he said. "Russia is quite comfortable with Iran having nuclear fuel cycles that would be monitored, and they'll support the Iranian position"--in part, because it gives them the opportunity to sell billions of dollars' worth of nuclear fuel and materials to Tehran.
slim intelligence
A former senior intelligence official told me that people in the Pentagon were asking, "What's the evidence? We've got a million tentacles out there, overt and covert, and these guys"--the Iranians--"have been working on this for eighteen years, and we have nothing? We're coming up with jack shit."
and Europe's position
A second European diplomat, speaking of the Iranians, said, "Their tactic is going to be to stall and appear reasonable--to say, `Yes, but . . .' We know what's going on, and the timeline we're under."