Dan Plesch reports in The New Statesman today that U.S. plans for an attack on Iran are now complete and "could be implemented any day."
Planning for an attack on Iran that could "destroy Iran's military, political and economic infrastructure overnight" began immediately after Saddam Hussein was removed from power.
According to this article, the second carrier group that is now headed to the gulf does not even need to be there for the attack to happen!
More below.
I don't know much about The New Statesman, except that it's a left-of-center British weekly. The author of this article, Dan Plesch, has published stories in the Guardian, the Independent, the New York Times, the Washington Post. He has also provided analysis for the BBC and CNN among other broadcast outlets.
Here are some quotes from the story. Please go read the whole thing.
http://www.newstatesman.com/...
The US army, navy, air force and marines have all prepared battle plans and spent four years building bases and training for "Operation Iranian Freedom." Admiral Fallon, the new head of US Central Command, has inherited computerised plans under the name TIRANNT (Theatre Iran Near Term).
Although Bush has made a big deal about sending a second carrier group to the gulf, it's not even needed for an attack to take place, because:
Post 9/11, the US navy can put six carriers into battle at a month's notice. Two carriers in the region, the USS John C Stennis and the USS Dwight D Eisenhower, could quickly be joined by three more now at sea: USS Ronald Reagan, USS Harry S Truman and USS Theodore Roosevelt, as well as by USS Nimitz. Each carrier force includes hundreds of cruise missiles.
In addition, according to Plesch, "several marine forces," with their own aircraft carriers, are preparing for a series of "D-day style landings" that would have the goal of stopping Iranian forces from destroying oil facilities.
The story goes on to provide a great deal of detail about how the marines, who are "not tied down in Iraq," could be used to attack Iran. This is the first I've heard of plans for a ground attack like this. I'm stunned.
I'd really like to know what other Kossacks think about this article. The amount of detail Plesch provides on U.S. preparations is at least enlightening and worth looking into. I had no idea Bush had so many marine forces available.
Another interesting point Plesch makes is that Dick Cheney
has had something of a love affair with the US marines, and this may reach its culmination in the fishing villages along Iran's Gulf coast. Marine generals hold the top jobs at Nato, in the Pentagon and are in charge of all nuclear weapons. No marine has held any of these posts before.
Traditionally, the top nuclear job went either to a commander of the navy's Trident submarines or of the air force's bombers and missiles. Today, all these forces follow the orders of a marine, General James Cartwright, and are integrated into a "Global Strike" plan which places strategic forces on permanent 12-hour readiness.
If this article had appeared out of the blue, without the context of all the things Bush has been saying since the SOTU as well as many other observers who have predicted a U.S. attack on Iran by sometime in March, I'd be more doubtful. See, for example, Craig Unger in Vanity Fair:
http://www.vanityfair.com/...
Seymour Hersch:
http://www.newyorker.com/...
I'm really afraid that Bush is going to order an attack on Iran before Congress gets around to doing something to prevent it. Once we are involved in a conflict with Iran, will the Democrats have the guts to do anything about it?
I'm scared.