http://amconmag.com/2006/2006_04_10/cover.html
April 10, 2006 Issue
Copyright © 2006 The American Conservative
Iran: The Logic of Deterrence
Tehran’s quest for nuclear weapons is a rational response to a real threat, which makes diplomacy a more prudent option than regime change.
by Christopher Layne
At this writing it is not known if the United Nations, when it receives the report of the International Atomic Energy Agency on the status of Iran’s compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, will impose sanctions on Tehran or whether a last-minute diplomatic compromise will avert—at least for the time being—the need for punitive measures. Neither outcome, however, will bring about a definitive resolution of the deepening crisis between the U.S. and Iran. Washington and Tehran will remain on a collision course that could eventuate in military conflict.
The main source of conflict—or at least the one that has grabbed the lion’s share of the headlines—is Tehran’s evident determination to develop a nuclear- weapons program. Washington’s policy, as President George W. Bush has stated on several occasions in language that recalls his pre-war stance on Iraq, is that a nuclear-armed Iran is “intolerable.”
Beyond nuclear weapons, however, there are other important issues that are driving the U.S. and Iran toward an armed confrontation. Chief among these is Iraq. Recently, Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, accused Tehran of meddling in Iraqi affairs by providing arms and training to Shi’ite militias and by currying favor with the Shi’ite politicians who will likely dominate Iraq’s new elected government. With Iraq teetering on the brink of a civil war between Shi’ites and Sunnis, concerns about Iranian interference have been magnified. In a real sense, however, Iran’s nuclear program and role in Iraq are merely the tip of the iceberg.
Clashing interests and a tangled history have left the United States and Iran estranged for more than a quarter of a century. Since the 1940s, the U.S. has had important strategic interests in the Persian Gulf and Middle East, a region where Iran sees itself as the dominant power. Iranians remember—and still resent—the 1953 CIA-sponsored coup that overthrew the nationalist prime minister Mohammed Mossadegh because he threatened Anglo-American oil interests in Iran. Following the coup, during the reign of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, Iran aligned with the United States in the Cold War and served as America’s strategic surrogate in the Persian Gulf. While the Shah’s authoritarian regime served the U.S. geopolitically, the close American relationship with him boomeranged when he was overthrown in the 1978 Islamic Revolution. Washington’s association with the Shah fanned widespread Iranian resentment against the U.S.
From the American standpoint, relations with Iran never have recovered from the crisis of 1979-1980, when Iranian militants seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and held its staff hostage. The hostility between the United States and Iran and U.S. fear that Iran would export its Islamic Revolution were underscored during the Iran-Iraq War (1981-1988), when Washington tilted toward Baghdad and covertly aided Saddam Hussein’s regime. From 1987 to 1988, American forces actually waged a low-intensity naval conflict against Iran, a consequence of which was the shoot-down of an Iranian civilian Airbus passenger jet by an American naval vessel, which heightened Iranian ire at the United States. Also contributing to American distrust of Iran are Tehran’s longstanding support for Hamas and Hezbollah and its involvement in the attack on the Khobar Towers.
Since the Shah’s overthrow, there have been several tentative attempts to thaw relations between Washington and Tehran. These have failed because domestic political considerations in both capitals prevented anything approaching détente—much less rapprochement. The rockiness in Washington’s relations with Tehran long predated the Bush administration.
During the 1990s, however, Iran and the U.S. were not drifting toward war. The obvious question, then, is what has changed? The answer is to be found in George W. Bush’s grand strategy, the so-called Bush Doctrine, the three key components of which are rejection of deterrence in favor of preventive/pre-emptive military action; determination to shake up the politics of the Persian Gulf and Middle East; and extension of U.S. dominance over that region. Here, administration officials betrayed a naïveté about international politics. States and the regimes that rule them want to survive, which means they are very sensitive to external threats to their security. The Bush Doctrine heightened Iran’s sense of vulnerability, which resulted in an acceleration of its nuclear program. In this respect, the administration’s policy—particularly President Bush’s “Axis of Evil” speech—had the effect of creating a self-fulfilling prophecy: it made U.S. relations worse than they already were and triggered a self-defensive reaction by Tehran.
Doubtless 9/11 had an impact in shaping the administration’s grand strategy. Whether the terrorist attacks caused that strategy or rather served as a pretext for the administration to pursue a set of pre-existing goals, however, is an open question. The “axis of evil” pronouncement came in January 2002. Its strategic implications became apparent in an address that Bush gave in June 2002 at West Point. In that speech, Bush said that the post-9/11 threat to the U.S. “lies at the crossroads of radicalism and technology”—that is, the ability of rogue states and terrorist groups to obtain weapons of mass destruction. Throwing nearly a half-century of American strategic doctrine out the window, Bush declared, “Containment is not possible when unbalanced dictators with weapons of mass destruction can deliver those weapons on missiles or secretly provide them to terrorist allies.” Henceforth, instead of relying on deterrence and containment, he said, the United States would deal with such threats pre-emptively. “If we wait for threats to fully materialize,” Bush said, “we will have waited too long.”
The administration’s stance with respect to so-called rogue states was amplified in its September 2002 National Security Strategy. Here, the offending characteristics of such regimes were defined with specificity. These states “brutalize their own people”; flout international law and violate the treaties they have signed; are engaged in the acquisition of WMD, which are “to be used as threats or offensively to achieve the aggressive designs of these regimes”; support terrorism; and “hate the United States and everything it stands for.” Given the nature of the threat, the National Security Strategy concluded that the Cold War doctrine of deterrence through the threat of retaliation is inadequate to deal with rogue states because the rulers of these regimes are “more willing to take risks, gambling with the lives of their people and the wealth of their nations.” Moreover, in contrast to the doctrines of the two superpowers during the Cold War, rogue states consider WMD to be the “weapons of choice” rather than weapons of last resort. Consequently, the administration argued, rogue states represent a qualitatively different kind of strategic threat, and the United States “cannot remain idle while threats gather.” The United States, the administration announced, would adopt a new strategic posture: “To forestall or prevent such hostile acts by our adversaries, the United States will, if necessary, act preemptively.” The pre-emptive stance of the U.S. against rogue-state threats provided the impetus for the invasion of Iraq and is also driving American policy toward Iran
Although the administration’s strategy is logical on its own terms, the assumptions on which it is based are dubious. First, the administration conflates two different threats: the threat from terrorist groups and the threat from rogue states. Terrorist groups like al-Qaeda do present a novel set of challenges strategically. Precisely because these groups are shadowy, non-state actors, it is hard to deter them. As is often said, unlike states, rogue or otherwise, terrorist groups have no return address to which retaliation can be directed. On the other hand, the threat of retaliation effectively deters states for several reasons. For one thing, in contrast to terrorist organizations, if a state attacks the U.S., Washington knows where to aim a retaliatory strike. Moreover, states can be deterred because, unlike terrorists, they have a lot to lose: if their actions prompt the U.S. to hit back, a state will suffer devastating damage to its economy, huge loss of life among its citizens, and regime survival will be jeopardized. To put it simply, although there is considerable strategic rationale for pre-empting terrorist threats, there is very little justification for attacking states pre-emptively or preventively.
The very notion that undeterrable rogue states exist is the second questionable assumption on which the administration’s strategy is based. In an important article in the Winter 2004/2005 issue of International Security, Francis Gavin points out that the post-9/11 era is not the only time that American policymakers have believed that the U.S. faced a lethal threat from a rogue state. During the 1950s and early 1960s, for example, the People’s Republic of China was perceived by Washington in very much the same way as the U.S. perceived Saddam Hussein’s Iraq or, currently, Iran. Under the leadership of Chairman Mao Zedong, the Chinese Communist Party imposed harsh repression and killed millions of Chinese citizens, and Beijing—which had entered the Korean War in 1950, menaced Taiwan, gone to war with India in 1962, and seemingly was poised to intervene in Vietnam—was viewed as an aggressor. For Washington, Mao’s China was the epitome of a rogue state, and during the Johnson administration, the United States seriously considered launching a preventive war to destroy China’s embryonic nuclear program.
In many ways, Mao was seen by U.S. policymakers as the Saddam Hussein of his time. Like Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has made outrageous comments denying the Holocaust and threatening Israel’s destruction, Mao also indulged in irresponsible rhetoric, even cavalierly embracing the possibility of nuclear war. “If the worse came to worst and half of mankind died,” Mao said, “the other half would remain while imperialism would be razed to the ground and the whole world would become socialist.” Once China became a nuclear power, however, where nuclear weapons were concerned both its rhetoric and its policy quickly became circumspect. In fact, a mere five years after the Johnson administration pondered the possibility of striking China preventively, the U.S. and China were engaged in secret negotiations that, in 1972, culminated in President Richard Nixon’s trip to Beijing and Sino-American co-operation to contain the Soviet Union.
The U.S. experience with China illustrates an important point: the reasons states acquire nuclear weapons are primarily to gain security and, secondarily, to enhance their prestige. This certainly was true of China, which believed its security was threatened by the United States and by the Soviet Union. It was also true of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and is true of Iran. As Gavin writes, “In some ways, the Kennedy and Johnson administrations’ early analysis of China mirrors the Bush administration’s public portrayal of Iraq in the lead-up to the war. Insofar as Iraq was surrounded by potential nuclear adversaries (Iran and Israel) and threatened by regime change by the most powerful country in the world, Saddam Hussein’s desire to develop nuclear weapons may be seen as understandable.” The same can be said for Iran, which is ringed by U.S. conventional forces in neighboring Afghanistan and Iraq and in the Persian Gulf, and which is a stated target of the Bush administration’s policy of regime change and democratization. Tehran may be paranoid, but in the United States and Israel, it has real enemies. It is Iran’s fear for its security that drives its quest to obtain nuclear weapons.
The same architects of illusion who fulminated for war with Iraq say that if Iran gets nuclear weapons, three bad things could happen: it could trigger a nuclear arms race in the Middle East; it might supply nuclear weapons to terrorists; and Tehran could use its nuclear weapons to blackmail other states in the region or to engage in aggression. Each of these scenarios, however, is improbable in the extreme. During the early 1960s, American policymakers had similar fears that China’s acquisition of nuclear weapons would trigger a proliferation stampede, but these fears did not materialize, and a nuclear Iran is no more likely to start a proliferation snowball in the Middle East. Israel, of course, already is a nuclear power. The other three states that might be tempted to seek nuclear-weapons capability are Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. But as MIT professor Barry Posen points out, each of these three states would be under strong pressure not do to so. Egypt is particularly vulnerable to outside pressure to refrain from going nuclear because its shaky economy depends on foreign—especially U.S.—economic assistance. Saudi Arabia would find it hard to purchase nuclear weapons or material on the black market, which is closely watched by the United States, and, Posen notes, it would take the Saudis years to develop the industrial and engineering capabilities to develop nuclear weapons indigenously.
Notwithstanding the near-hysterical rhetoric of the Bush administration and the neoconservatives, Iran is not going to give nuclear weapons to terrorists. This is not to say that Tehran has not abetted groups like Hezbollah in Lebanon or Hamas in the Palestinian Authority. However, there are good reasons that states—even those that have ties to terrorists—draw the line at giving them nuclear weapons or other WMD: if the terrorists were to use these weapons against the United States or its allies, the weapons could be traced back to the donor state, which would be at risk of annihilation by an American retaliatory strike. Iran’s leaders have too much at stake to run this risk. Even if one believed the administration’s hype about the indifference of rogue-state leaders to the fate of their populations, they care very much about the survival of their regimes, which is why deterrence works.
For the same reason, Iran’s possession of nuclear weapons will not invest Tehran with options to attack or intimidate its neighbors. Just as it did during the Cold War, the U.S. can extend its own deterrence umbrella to protect its clients in the region like Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states, and Turkey. American security guarantees will not only dissuade Iran from acting recklessly but also restrain proliferation by negating the incentives for states like Saudi Arabia and Turkey to build their own nuclear weapons. Given the overwhelming U.S. advantage in both nuclear and conventional military capabilities, Iran is not going to risk national suicide by challenging America’s security commitments in the region. In this sense, dealing with the Iranian “nuclear threat” is actually one of the easier strategic challenges the United States faces. It is a threat that can be handled by an offshore balancing strategy that relies on missile, air, and naval power well away from the volatile Persian Gulf, thus reducing the American poltico-military footprint in the region. In short, while a nuclear-armed Iran is hardly desirable, neither is it “intolerable,” because it could be contained and deterred successfully by the United States.
In the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, the administration and neoconservative hawks argued that the post-1991 policy of containing Iraq was not working and, consequently, it was necessary to overthrow Saddam Hussein. Today, similar arguments are being invoked as a rationale for regime change in Iran. In February, the administration requested that Congress appropriate $75 million to “support the aspirations of the Iranian people for freedom in their own country.” In language eerily reminiscent of that used by the administration during the run-up to the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, President Bush declared, “By supporting democratic change in Iran, we will hasten the day when the people of Iran can determine their own future and be free to choose their own leaders. Freedom in the Middle East requires freedom for the Iranian people, and America looks forward to the day when our nation can be the closest of friends with a free and democratic Iran.” As the administration sees it, the government in Tehran is illegitimate because it is unrepresentative of the Iranian people. As Bush put it, “Iran is a nation held hostage by a small clerical elite that is isolating and repressing its people and denying them basic liberties and human rights.” This is a simplistic view—and a dangerous one if it fosters in American policymakers the expectation that Iranians will welcome U.S.-initiated regime change.
For sure, there are important political divisions among Iranians. In Tehran, especially among the educated and wealthy business elites, many resent the strict Islamic rule imposed by the regime. On the other hand, the regime has deep bases of support among the traditional bazzaris, the working class, and in the rural areas, the segments of society from which the clerics—who have always been politically influential in Iran—traditionally have drawn support. These internal political differences notwithstanding, it is folly to think that the U.S. can exploit them successfully.
Iran experts agree that Tehran’s nuclear aspirations enjoy broad public support. Even more important, Iranians have long memories of foreign—and especially American—interference in their nation’s internal affairs. Nothing could be better calculated to trigger a strong Iranian nationalist backlash against the United States than a serious attempt by the administration to orchestrate regime change in Tehran.
No serious observer doubts that Tehran is inching closer to developing a nuclear-weapons capability. Yet at least some feel that at the end of the day, this crisis—unlike Iraq—will not culminate in war. In part, this is because the U.S.—perhaps having learned from the Iraq War that there are high diplomatic costs of playing the Lone Ranger—is working in concert with Britain, France, Germany, and Russia to bring Iran before the bar of world opinion at the United Nations and ask the international community to impose sanctions on Tehran. Yet if sanctions are imposed they are unlikely to be effective. They seldom are. So the United States will be left with the options of either using military power or accepting a nuclear-armed Iran.
Some believe that the Bush administration has been chastened by its experience in Iraq and will avoid using military force against Iran. It is also commonly argued that the United States has been overstretched by its military commitment in Iraq and lacks the ground forces to go to war with Iran. It would be a mistake, however, to conclude that the administration has abandoned the military option. In January 2005, it was reported that since the summer of 2004 the United States has been mounting reconnaissance missions using both aerial surveillance and on-the-ground Special Forces teams to pinpoint nuclear installations and missile launching sites inside Iran. There have been recent press reports that the U.S. Central Command is preparing war plans for a sustained bombing campaign against Iran’s nuclear installations. Indeed, in a recent talk at Texas A&M University’s Bush School of Government and Public Service, a senior Central Command war-planner stated that all options for dealing with Iran—including the military option—are possible, while implying that Centcom is engaged in serious strategizing for a possible conflict with Iran.
Although these efforts could be written off as either routine contingency planning or as a way of supplementing diplomacy with the threat of military action, we should not dismiss the possibility that the administration really is contemplating war with Iran. After all, this is a notoriously cloistered administration in which power remains tightly concentrated among a small circle of policymakers who remain committed to their pre-existing worldview. President Bush remains at the apex of this decision-making process, imprisoned in his intellectual bubble and impervious to facts that create cognitive dissonance. We have had ample time to observe Bush’s decision-making style, and it seems clear that once his mind is made up he dismisses discrepant facts and stays resolutely on course. Given his oft-stated view that a nuclear-armed Iran is intolerable and that Iran is a rogue state, it would be foolish to think the military option is off the table.
But it should be. Attacking Iran would be a strategic blunder of the first magnitude—far worse than going to war with Iraq. To be sure, while the United States may be short of ground troops, it still possesses more than enough air power to mount a sustained bombing campaign against Iran’s nuclear facilities. The problem, of course, is that the U.S. does not know the location of all of Iran’s nuclear sites. Consequently, a bombing campaign would inflict enough damage to impose some delay on the Iranian nuclear program, but because it is incapable of locating and targeting all of Tehran’s nuclear facilities, this is the best the United States can do. The U.S. ultimately cannot prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
On the other hand, the risks to the United States are higher than any benefit that might be gained by slowing down Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons. Because of its links to the Iraqi Shi’ites, Iran has the capability to intervene in Iraq and put U.S. forces and the entire American project there in serious jeopardy. Tehran can also use its ties to Hezbollah and Hamas to create instability throughout the region. And the Iranians have the capacity to create a good deal of trouble for the U.S. in Afghanistan as well.
The administration has flirted with the idea of farming-out to Israel the task of attacking Iran’s nuclear installations. But this—to recall what one Soviet official said about Nikita Khruschev’s decision to deploy missiles in Cuba—truly would be “harebrained scheming.” To reach targets in Iran, Israeli planes would have to overfly Iraq, which would require not only American consent but active co-ordination between the Israeli air force and the U.S. military. Absolutely no one would be fooled into thinking the U.S. was an innocent bystander. The whole world—and most important, the whole Islamic world—would know that Washington’s hand was the directing force behind an Israeli strike on Iran, which means that the U.S. would be the main target of an Islamic backlash.
War is always a risky proposition—even for states that have impressive military capabilities. As German Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg said during the July 1914 Crisis, war is “a leap into the dark” and a roll of the “iron dice” because there are so many imponderables and so many things that can go wrong. U.S. military and civilian strategists are so enamored with using shock and awe to impose America’s will on its enemies that they forget what strategy is all about: strategy is a two-player game in which America’s adversaries have options of their own. Iran, in fact, has many options because of its links to terrorists, its own military capabilities—which are sufficient to impose high costs should American forces ever launch a ground war against Iran—and the importance of its oil to the global economy.
Iran is in no position to slug it out toe-to-toe against the U.S. in a conventional military conflict, but it has political, economic, and even diplomatic cards that it can use to make it very costly to the United States to employ military force in an attempt to halt or delay Iran’s nuclear-weapons program. If the U.S. does use force against Iran it will be opposed diplomatically by China, Russia, and much of Europe. More important, a military strike against Iran would unleash forces that could trigger a true clash of civilizations, and would make the Persian Gulf and Middle East even more unstable and more anti-American than they already are. Simply put—unpalatable though it may be—the military option is not viable with respect to Iran.
Still, although a nuclear-armed Iran is not a pleasant prospect, neither is it an intolerable one. Tehran won’t be the first distasteful regime to acquire nuclear weapons. The United States has adjusted to similar situations in the past and can do so this time. Rather than preventive war and regime change, the best policies for the U.S. with respect to Iran are the tried and true ones: containment, deterrence, and diplomatic engagement.
_______________________________________________
Christopher Layne is Associate Professor of International Affairs at the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University and a member of the Board of Directors of the Coalition for a Realistic Foreign Policy.
Full Version: War Against Iran in "Final Planning"
Common Ground Common Sense > Issues that Affect Our Lives > Foreign Policy and National Defense > Foreign Policy & National Defense Issues Archive
U.S. Talks of Coalition Pressure on Tehran
--------------------
By Paul Richter and Alissa J. Rubin
Times Staff Writers
April 6 2006, 8:19 PM PDT
WASHINGTON -- With hopes dimming for tough U.N. action against Iran's nuclear program, U.S. officials and allies are talking about forming a smaller "coalition of the willing" to bring pressure on Tehran.
The complete article can be viewed at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/wo...-home-headlines
--------------------
By Paul Richter and Alissa J. Rubin
Times Staff Writers
April 6 2006, 8:19 PM PDT
WASHINGTON -- With hopes dimming for tough U.N. action against Iran's nuclear program, U.S. officials and allies are talking about forming a smaller "coalition of the willing" to bring pressure on Tehran.
The complete article can be viewed at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/wo...-home-headlines
It is time to start organizing 'Coalitions of the UNWILLING.' 
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/04/0...iran_crisis.php
Cooling The Iran Crisis
Dilip Hiro
April 06, 2006
Dilip Hiro is the author of Secrets and Lies: Operation "Iraqi Freedom" and After, and The Iranian Labyrinth, both published by Nation Books, New York.
President George W. Bush’s dogged refusal to rule out a military option to resolving Iran’s nuclear issue along with his thinly disguised attempts to foment “regime change” in Tehran by bankrolling opposition is leading to a dangerous impasse.
It took three weeks of hard bargaining by the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council to hammer out a statement on Iran’s nuclear program. Issued on March 29, it expressed “serious concern” about aspects of the Iranian nuclear program “which could have a military nuclear dimension,” demanded a cessation of uranium enrichment and instructed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to report back in 30 days on Iran’s compliance.
The council did not have to wait that long. The next day Iran’s chief representative at IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, said, “The enrichment matter is not reversible.”
A week earlier the Iranians had informed the IAEA inspectors in Iran that the first set of their pilot project to configure six sets of 164 interconnected uranium-enriching centrifuges at Natanz plant was in place.
So, what next? The council’s permanent members are divided. While the representatives of United States, Britain and France keep mentioning possible sanctions against Iran, Russia and China are strongly opposed.
The IAEA’s Director, Mohamed ElBaradei, also opposes sanctions. He told a forum in the Qatari capital of Doha, “Sanctions are a bad idea. We are not facing an imminent danger. We need to lower the pitch.”
It was against this background that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told a British TV network on April 2 that the United States was “committed to resolving the nuclear issue diplomatically,” and that Iran was not Iraq. “However,” she added ominously, “the president of the United States does not take his options off the table.”
The Bush administration’s options are either military or non-military. Of the former, it has two choices: outright invasion or pinprick strikes against specific nuclear and military targets. However, given a paucity of spare soldiers, the Pentagon is not in a position to invade Iran, which is four times larger than Iraq and three times more populous.
So the only feasible option is surgical strikes. For the Pentagon to do the job thoroughly, it would need to mount nearly 1,000 strike sorties, experts agree. Its targets would include not only scores of factories and workshops that make centrifuge parts as well as uranium oxide conversion equipment scattered all over the vast country but also military plants producing conventional weapons and missiles. It’s likely that some of the suspect sites would turn out to be factories or schools.
The consequences of such strikes would be dire. They would probably make the Iranian nation rally around their hard-line leaders. “Given the Iranians’ fierce nationalism and the Shiites’ tradition of martyrdom, any military move on Iran would receive a response that would engulf the entire region in fire,” wrote Shirin Ebadi, the Iranian Nobel peace laureate, and Muhammad Sahimi, petroleum engineering professor at the University of Southern California, in a recent op-ed in The International Herald Tribune .
Iran’s Foreign Minister Manuchehr Mottaki warned that any military action against Iran would result in an escalating crisis which could further destabilize the Middle East by “intensifying U.S. and British difficulties in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
The Pentagon’s action would raise anti-American feelings in the Shiite world –an important minority in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Kuwait and the oil-bearing eastern region of Saudi Arabia – at a time when anti-U.S sentiment is running high among Sunnis in the region due to the U.S. occupation of Iraq.
Given the infiltration of Iranian agents into a wide variety of Iraqi factions, Iran could activate its covert alliances in Iraq, resulting in attacks on the American forces by Shiite partisans and a further destabilization of Iraq.
In any event, military strikes will merely delay Iran’s nuclear program, not eliminate it. And they would alienate Washington’s allies in the West and the Muslim world, and turn many Iranians, who dislike the theocratic regime, into America’s enemies.
On the other hand, the non-military option still favored by hawks is economic sanctions. Unfortunately, the only sanctions that would hurt Iran concern oil, as it earns 80 per cent of its foreign revenue by exporting oil.
But what would be the consequences of cutting off supplies of the fourth-largest oil producer in the world and the second-largest exporter within OPEC? Oil prices would touch $100 a barrel. “It is dangerous to put restrictions on trade relations that could hurt one’s own side more than the other side,” said Gernot Erler, deputy Foreign Minister of Germany.
The mere testing of a short-range stealth missile with multiple warheads—and a newly developed underwater missile with a speed three times faster than a torpedo, carrying a powerful warhead—by Iran’s military during its ongoing naval exercises in the Persian Gulf pushed the oil prices up, with traders saying that the oil market had entered a more volatile phase fueled by speculative buying.
Given the impasse, it behooves the West to respond to Tehran’s proposal that the negotiating team at the IAEA should be expanded to include such members as South Africa—which voluntarily gave up its six atom bombs in 1993 – and Malaysia, the current chairman of the 117-member Non-Aligned Movement.
While the Bush administration works through a six-nation committee to negotiate with North Korea, surely it can do the same in the case of Iran.
Cooling The Iran Crisis
Dilip Hiro
April 06, 2006
Dilip Hiro is the author of Secrets and Lies: Operation "Iraqi Freedom" and After, and The Iranian Labyrinth, both published by Nation Books, New York.
President George W. Bush’s dogged refusal to rule out a military option to resolving Iran’s nuclear issue along with his thinly disguised attempts to foment “regime change” in Tehran by bankrolling opposition is leading to a dangerous impasse.
It took three weeks of hard bargaining by the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council to hammer out a statement on Iran’s nuclear program. Issued on March 29, it expressed “serious concern” about aspects of the Iranian nuclear program “which could have a military nuclear dimension,” demanded a cessation of uranium enrichment and instructed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to report back in 30 days on Iran’s compliance.
The council did not have to wait that long. The next day Iran’s chief representative at IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, said, “The enrichment matter is not reversible.”
A week earlier the Iranians had informed the IAEA inspectors in Iran that the first set of their pilot project to configure six sets of 164 interconnected uranium-enriching centrifuges at Natanz plant was in place.
So, what next? The council’s permanent members are divided. While the representatives of United States, Britain and France keep mentioning possible sanctions against Iran, Russia and China are strongly opposed.
The IAEA’s Director, Mohamed ElBaradei, also opposes sanctions. He told a forum in the Qatari capital of Doha, “Sanctions are a bad idea. We are not facing an imminent danger. We need to lower the pitch.”
It was against this background that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told a British TV network on April 2 that the United States was “committed to resolving the nuclear issue diplomatically,” and that Iran was not Iraq. “However,” she added ominously, “the president of the United States does not take his options off the table.”
The Bush administration’s options are either military or non-military. Of the former, it has two choices: outright invasion or pinprick strikes against specific nuclear and military targets. However, given a paucity of spare soldiers, the Pentagon is not in a position to invade Iran, which is four times larger than Iraq and three times more populous.
So the only feasible option is surgical strikes. For the Pentagon to do the job thoroughly, it would need to mount nearly 1,000 strike sorties, experts agree. Its targets would include not only scores of factories and workshops that make centrifuge parts as well as uranium oxide conversion equipment scattered all over the vast country but also military plants producing conventional weapons and missiles. It’s likely that some of the suspect sites would turn out to be factories or schools.
The consequences of such strikes would be dire. They would probably make the Iranian nation rally around their hard-line leaders. “Given the Iranians’ fierce nationalism and the Shiites’ tradition of martyrdom, any military move on Iran would receive a response that would engulf the entire region in fire,” wrote Shirin Ebadi, the Iranian Nobel peace laureate, and Muhammad Sahimi, petroleum engineering professor at the University of Southern California, in a recent op-ed in The International Herald Tribune .
Iran’s Foreign Minister Manuchehr Mottaki warned that any military action against Iran would result in an escalating crisis which could further destabilize the Middle East by “intensifying U.S. and British difficulties in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
The Pentagon’s action would raise anti-American feelings in the Shiite world –an important minority in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Kuwait and the oil-bearing eastern region of Saudi Arabia – at a time when anti-U.S sentiment is running high among Sunnis in the region due to the U.S. occupation of Iraq.
Given the infiltration of Iranian agents into a wide variety of Iraqi factions, Iran could activate its covert alliances in Iraq, resulting in attacks on the American forces by Shiite partisans and a further destabilization of Iraq.
In any event, military strikes will merely delay Iran’s nuclear program, not eliminate it. And they would alienate Washington’s allies in the West and the Muslim world, and turn many Iranians, who dislike the theocratic regime, into America’s enemies.
On the other hand, the non-military option still favored by hawks is economic sanctions. Unfortunately, the only sanctions that would hurt Iran concern oil, as it earns 80 per cent of its foreign revenue by exporting oil.
But what would be the consequences of cutting off supplies of the fourth-largest oil producer in the world and the second-largest exporter within OPEC? Oil prices would touch $100 a barrel. “It is dangerous to put restrictions on trade relations that could hurt one’s own side more than the other side,” said Gernot Erler, deputy Foreign Minister of Germany.
The mere testing of a short-range stealth missile with multiple warheads—and a newly developed underwater missile with a speed three times faster than a torpedo, carrying a powerful warhead—by Iran’s military during its ongoing naval exercises in the Persian Gulf pushed the oil prices up, with traders saying that the oil market had entered a more volatile phase fueled by speculative buying.
Given the impasse, it behooves the West to respond to Tehran’s proposal that the negotiating team at the IAEA should be expanded to include such members as South Africa—which voluntarily gave up its six atom bombs in 1993 – and Malaysia, the current chairman of the 117-member Non-Aligned Movement.
While the Bush administration works through a six-nation committee to negotiate with North Korea, surely it can do the same in the case of Iran.
Head of UN watchdog to visit Iran :
Mr ElBaradei will report back to the UN Security Council at the end of April on whether Iran has complied with its demand to suspend uranium enrichment.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4888652.stm
===
ElBaradei: Iran nuclear program not diverted :
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Mohamed ElBaradei said here Thursday night his agency has not seen any indication that nuclear material in Iran has been diverted or is being diverted to develop nuclear weapons.
http://www.payvand.com/news/06/apr/1060.html
===
US, Allies Mull Bypassing UN To Pressure Iran:
U.S. officials and allies are talking about forming a " coalition of the willing" to bring pressure against Iran's nuclear program, citing dimming hopes for tough action from the United Nations, the Los Angeles Times reported Friday.
http://tinyurl.com/p669u
===
U.S. Officials Are Mulling Iran Strikes, Experts Say:
Key players in the Bush administration think a military confrontation with Iran is unavoidable, leading to stepped up military planning for such a prospect, according to several experts and recently departed senior government officials.
http://www.forward.com/articles/7616
===
Why Israel can't wipe out Iran's nuke plants :
IRAN still poses a threat to Israel - as well as the Western and Arab worlds. That was the message conveyed by the former Israeli ambassador to Zimbabwe, Gershon Gan, at a UJIA-arranged talk at Liverpool's Harold House.
http://www.jewishtelegraph.co.uk/liver_2.html
===
Moscow issues West a warning :
Russia's foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, on Thursday warned the West against isolating his country from helping to broker disputes with Iran and other conflicts in the Middle East.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/04/07/news/berlin.php#
Mr ElBaradei will report back to the UN Security Council at the end of April on whether Iran has complied with its demand to suspend uranium enrichment.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4888652.stm
===
ElBaradei: Iran nuclear program not diverted :
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Mohamed ElBaradei said here Thursday night his agency has not seen any indication that nuclear material in Iran has been diverted or is being diverted to develop nuclear weapons.
http://www.payvand.com/news/06/apr/1060.html
===
US, Allies Mull Bypassing UN To Pressure Iran:
U.S. officials and allies are talking about forming a " coalition of the willing" to bring pressure against Iran's nuclear program, citing dimming hopes for tough action from the United Nations, the Los Angeles Times reported Friday.
http://tinyurl.com/p669u
===
U.S. Officials Are Mulling Iran Strikes, Experts Say:
Key players in the Bush administration think a military confrontation with Iran is unavoidable, leading to stepped up military planning for such a prospect, according to several experts and recently departed senior government officials.
http://www.forward.com/articles/7616
===
Why Israel can't wipe out Iran's nuke plants :
IRAN still poses a threat to Israel - as well as the Western and Arab worlds. That was the message conveyed by the former Israeli ambassador to Zimbabwe, Gershon Gan, at a UJIA-arranged talk at Liverpool's Harold House.
http://www.jewishtelegraph.co.uk/liver_2.html
===
Moscow issues West a warning :
Russia's foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, on Thursday warned the West against isolating his country from helping to broker disputes with Iran and other conflicts in the Middle East.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/04/07/news/berlin.php#
http://www.antiwar.com/prather/?articleid=8828
April 8, 2006
Why We're at War
by Gordon Prather
Bonkers Bolton told State Department reporters in Washington this week that if Iran's government doesn't halt enrichment work and somehow prove its nuclear effort is peaceful, the "likely next step" would be a "Chapter VII resolution under the UN Charter."
Article 39 of Chapter VII says –
"The Security Council shall determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression and shall make recommendations, or decide what measures shall be taken in accordance with Articles 41 and 42, to maintain or restore international peace and security."
But Article 40 of Chapter VII says –
In order to prevent an aggravation of the situation, the Security Council may, before making the recommendations or deciding upon the measures provided for in Article 39, call upon the parties concerned to comply with such provisional measures as it deems necessary or desirable.
Article 41 provides for measures "not including the use of armed forces."
Article 42 provides for measures including the use of armed forces.
Bolton told reporters he would seek a Security Council Resolution that doesn't just say "we urge you to comply'' with resolutions of the International Atomic Energy Agency, "but we require you to comply with the IAEA resolutions."
Bolton needs to re-read the Charter. Even if he gets his resolution, it won – t require Iran to comply with IAEA resolutions by a certain date. It will "call on" – under Article 40 – both Iran and the IAEA Board to resolve the issue, diplomatically.
And, as it happens, the IAEA Board is clearly in the wrong in demanding that Iran ratify and continue to adhere to an Additional Protocol.
Furthermore, the IAEA Director-General has repeatedly reported to the IAEA Board that as best he can tell all Iranian materials and activities that should have been declared, have been declared, and there is "no indication" that any declared materials have ever been diverted to a nuclear weapons program.
Nevertheless, Bolton says that at the end of the deadline he hopes a resolution would set, the US would consider seeking a resolution – presumably under Article 41 – that imposes sanctions on Iran.
China and Russia, both members of the IAEA Board and permanent members of the Security Council, might allow an Article 40 resolution, calling on the IAEA Board and Iran to settle their differences. But they would never allow a determination under Article 39 that Iran's failure to indefinitely suspend Safeguarded activities constitutes a "threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression."
That helps explain why Condi and Bolton have urged the other permanent council members and Germany to "take into account" at this next Security Council meeting Iran's "calls for Israel to be wiped off the map," as well as its "support" for Syria and Hizbollah in Lebanon.
But it doesn't quite explain why Congresspersons across the political spectrum parrot back the Condi-Bolton line on the Sunday talk shows.
Even Congressman Ron Paul is puzzled.
"Even with the horrible results of the past three years, Congress is abuzz with plans to change the Iranian government.
"Already the coordinating propaganda has galvanized the American people against Iran for the supposed threat it poses to us with weapons of mass destruction that are no more present than those Saddam Hussein was alleged to have had.
"It's amazing how soon after being thoroughly discredited over the charges levied against Saddam Hussein the neocons are willing to use the same arguments against Iran.
"It's frightening to see how easily Congress, the media, and the people accept many of the same arguments against Iran that were used to justify an invasion of Iraq."
But maybe Congresspersons, the media and the people just appear to accept those arguments.
Maybe it doesn't really matter to them why we invaded Iraq. Or why we're going to gut the nuke proliferation prevention regime in order to establish a "strategic partnership" with India. Or why we're building a zillion-dollar untested antiballistic missile defense system in Alaska to defend against non-existent North Korean nuke-tipped ballistic missiles. Or even why we – re going to attack Iran later this year or next.
Maybe what matters most to all of them are good jobs for Americans.
And as Karen Kwiatkowski remarked to Brian Lamb in her absolutely stunning interview on C-SPAN's Q&A about the making of the documentary "Why We Fight," the only good jobs we have left in this country, that we haven't already exported, are those in the so-called "defense" and aerospace industries.
Maybe.
April 8, 2006
Why We're at War
by Gordon Prather
Bonkers Bolton told State Department reporters in Washington this week that if Iran's government doesn't halt enrichment work and somehow prove its nuclear effort is peaceful, the "likely next step" would be a "Chapter VII resolution under the UN Charter."
Article 39 of Chapter VII says –
"The Security Council shall determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression and shall make recommendations, or decide what measures shall be taken in accordance with Articles 41 and 42, to maintain or restore international peace and security."
But Article 40 of Chapter VII says –
In order to prevent an aggravation of the situation, the Security Council may, before making the recommendations or deciding upon the measures provided for in Article 39, call upon the parties concerned to comply with such provisional measures as it deems necessary or desirable.
Article 41 provides for measures "not including the use of armed forces."
Article 42 provides for measures including the use of armed forces.
Bolton told reporters he would seek a Security Council Resolution that doesn't just say "we urge you to comply'' with resolutions of the International Atomic Energy Agency, "but we require you to comply with the IAEA resolutions."
Bolton needs to re-read the Charter. Even if he gets his resolution, it won – t require Iran to comply with IAEA resolutions by a certain date. It will "call on" – under Article 40 – both Iran and the IAEA Board to resolve the issue, diplomatically.
And, as it happens, the IAEA Board is clearly in the wrong in demanding that Iran ratify and continue to adhere to an Additional Protocol.
Furthermore, the IAEA Director-General has repeatedly reported to the IAEA Board that as best he can tell all Iranian materials and activities that should have been declared, have been declared, and there is "no indication" that any declared materials have ever been diverted to a nuclear weapons program.
Nevertheless, Bolton says that at the end of the deadline he hopes a resolution would set, the US would consider seeking a resolution – presumably under Article 41 – that imposes sanctions on Iran.
China and Russia, both members of the IAEA Board and permanent members of the Security Council, might allow an Article 40 resolution, calling on the IAEA Board and Iran to settle their differences. But they would never allow a determination under Article 39 that Iran's failure to indefinitely suspend Safeguarded activities constitutes a "threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression."
That helps explain why Condi and Bolton have urged the other permanent council members and Germany to "take into account" at this next Security Council meeting Iran's "calls for Israel to be wiped off the map," as well as its "support" for Syria and Hizbollah in Lebanon.
But it doesn't quite explain why Congresspersons across the political spectrum parrot back the Condi-Bolton line on the Sunday talk shows.
Even Congressman Ron Paul is puzzled.
"Even with the horrible results of the past three years, Congress is abuzz with plans to change the Iranian government.
"Already the coordinating propaganda has galvanized the American people against Iran for the supposed threat it poses to us with weapons of mass destruction that are no more present than those Saddam Hussein was alleged to have had.
"It's amazing how soon after being thoroughly discredited over the charges levied against Saddam Hussein the neocons are willing to use the same arguments against Iran.
"It's frightening to see how easily Congress, the media, and the people accept many of the same arguments against Iran that were used to justify an invasion of Iraq."
But maybe Congresspersons, the media and the people just appear to accept those arguments.
Maybe it doesn't really matter to them why we invaded Iraq. Or why we're going to gut the nuke proliferation prevention regime in order to establish a "strategic partnership" with India. Or why we're building a zillion-dollar untested antiballistic missile defense system in Alaska to defend against non-existent North Korean nuke-tipped ballistic missiles. Or even why we – re going to attack Iran later this year or next.
Maybe what matters most to all of them are good jobs for Americans.
And as Karen Kwiatkowski remarked to Brian Lamb in her absolutely stunning interview on C-SPAN's Q&A about the making of the documentary "Why We Fight," the only good jobs we have left in this country, that we haven't already exported, are those in the so-called "defense" and aerospace industries.
Maybe.
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/76a939b6-c5bc-11d...00779e2340.html
Iran ready for high-level talks, US resists
By Guy Dinmore
Published: April 7 2006 01:35 | Last updated: April 7 2006 01:35
Iran has prepared a high-level delegation to hold wide-ranging talks with the US, but the Bush administration is resisting the agenda suggested by Tehran despite pressure from European allies to engage the Islamic republic, Iranian politicians have told the Financial Times.
A senior Iranian official, Mohammad Nahavandian, has flown to Washington to “lobby” over the issue, aaccording to a top Iranian adviser outside the US. However, the Iranian mission to the United Nations insisted he was in Washington on private business.
Iran’s willingness to engage the US on Iraq, regional security and the nuclear issue, is believed to have the approval of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. It represents the most serious attempt by the Islamic republic to reach out to the US since the 1979 Islamic revolution.
But the White House insisted on Thursday that its own offer of talks with Iran, extended several months ago by Zalmay Khalilzad, the US ambassador to Baghdad, was limited to the subject of Iraq.
“There are none and none are scheduled,” Stephen Hadley, national security adviser, was quoted by a spokesman as saying about the prospect of talks with the Iranian delegation in Baghdad next week.
A senior Iranian adviser said the Iranian delegation was headed by Ali Hossein-Tash, the main deputy to Ali Larijani who is secretary of the Supreme National Security Council and the chief official dealing with the nuclear issue. Three other negotiators, all attached to the Council, include a deputy intelligence minister who was previously based in Baghdad, a former Revolutionary Guards member and Kurdish expert, and a political specialist.
Mr Nahavandian, a deputy for economic affairs to Mr Larijani, is in Washington, several Iranian sources told the FT, revealing the rare presence of a senior Iranian in the US capital. White House and State Department officials denied all knowledge of his presence.
The Bush administration is resisting pressure from its European allies to engage Iran directly over its alleged nuclear weapons programme rather than leave negotiations to the EU3 of France, Germany and the UK. Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the German foreign minister, raised this issue with Mr Hadley this week, and Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, is understood to have spoken about it with President George W. Bush.
Javad Zarif, the Iranian ambassador to the United Nations, stressed Iran’s willingness to talk in an opinion piece published by the New York Times on Thursday. He denied US claims that Iran had a covert nuclear weapons programme and said Iran was ready for intrusive international inspections.
“Pressure and threats do not resolve problems. Finding solutions requires political will and a readiness to engage in serious negotiations. Iran is ready. We hope the rest of the world will join us,” he said.
One US insider suggested the Bush administration might agree to broaden the agenda after an initial meeting restricted to Iraq.
Meanwhile, the US rhetoric is sounding tougher by the week. Nicholas Burns, under secretary of state, yesterday accused Iran of being “expansionist”, “a central banker of terrorism” and directing attacks on US citizens.
Last week, the UN Security Council issued a mildly worded presidential statement calling on Iran to resume its suspension of fuel cycle development. Russia blocked tougher language. John Bolton, US ambassador to the UN, told reporters yesterday the next diplomatic step was to pass a legally binding “chapter seven” resolution requiring Iran to suspend its nuclear programme.
Additional reporting by Negar Roshanzamir in Tehran
Iran ready for high-level talks, US resists
By Guy Dinmore
Published: April 7 2006 01:35 | Last updated: April 7 2006 01:35
Iran has prepared a high-level delegation to hold wide-ranging talks with the US, but the Bush administration is resisting the agenda suggested by Tehran despite pressure from European allies to engage the Islamic republic, Iranian politicians have told the Financial Times.
A senior Iranian official, Mohammad Nahavandian, has flown to Washington to “lobby” over the issue, aaccording to a top Iranian adviser outside the US. However, the Iranian mission to the United Nations insisted he was in Washington on private business.
Iran’s willingness to engage the US on Iraq, regional security and the nuclear issue, is believed to have the approval of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. It represents the most serious attempt by the Islamic republic to reach out to the US since the 1979 Islamic revolution.
But the White House insisted on Thursday that its own offer of talks with Iran, extended several months ago by Zalmay Khalilzad, the US ambassador to Baghdad, was limited to the subject of Iraq.
“There are none and none are scheduled,” Stephen Hadley, national security adviser, was quoted by a spokesman as saying about the prospect of talks with the Iranian delegation in Baghdad next week.
A senior Iranian adviser said the Iranian delegation was headed by Ali Hossein-Tash, the main deputy to Ali Larijani who is secretary of the Supreme National Security Council and the chief official dealing with the nuclear issue. Three other negotiators, all attached to the Council, include a deputy intelligence minister who was previously based in Baghdad, a former Revolutionary Guards member and Kurdish expert, and a political specialist.
Mr Nahavandian, a deputy for economic affairs to Mr Larijani, is in Washington, several Iranian sources told the FT, revealing the rare presence of a senior Iranian in the US capital. White House and State Department officials denied all knowledge of his presence.
The Bush administration is resisting pressure from its European allies to engage Iran directly over its alleged nuclear weapons programme rather than leave negotiations to the EU3 of France, Germany and the UK. Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the German foreign minister, raised this issue with Mr Hadley this week, and Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, is understood to have spoken about it with President George W. Bush.
Javad Zarif, the Iranian ambassador to the United Nations, stressed Iran’s willingness to talk in an opinion piece published by the New York Times on Thursday. He denied US claims that Iran had a covert nuclear weapons programme and said Iran was ready for intrusive international inspections.
“Pressure and threats do not resolve problems. Finding solutions requires political will and a readiness to engage in serious negotiations. Iran is ready. We hope the rest of the world will join us,” he said.
One US insider suggested the Bush administration might agree to broaden the agenda after an initial meeting restricted to Iraq.
Meanwhile, the US rhetoric is sounding tougher by the week. Nicholas Burns, under secretary of state, yesterday accused Iran of being “expansionist”, “a central banker of terrorism” and directing attacks on US citizens.
Last week, the UN Security Council issued a mildly worded presidential statement calling on Iran to resume its suspension of fuel cycle development. Russia blocked tougher language. John Bolton, US ambassador to the UN, told reporters yesterday the next diplomatic step was to pass a legally binding “chapter seven” resolution requiring Iran to suspend its nuclear programme.
Additional reporting by Negar Roshanzamir in Tehran
Bush 'planning nuclear Iran strike':
Article in New Yorker says that U.S. government is preparing a massive campaign to neutralize Iranian nuclear sites. Iranian President Ahmadinejad is compared in the White House to Hitler
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3237583,00.html
===
In case you missed it:
Philip Giraldi: Deep Background :
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.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article9639.htm
Article in New Yorker says that U.S. government is preparing a massive campaign to neutralize Iranian nuclear sites. Iranian President Ahmadinejad is compared in the White House to Hitler
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3237583,00.html
===
In case you missed it:
Philip Giraldi: Deep Background :
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.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article9639.htm
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml...xportaltop.html
Bush 'is planning nuclear strikes on Iran's secret sites'
By Philip Sherwell in Washington
(Filed: 09/04/2006)
The Bush administration is planning to use nuclear weapons against Iran, to prevent it acquiring its own atomic warheads, claims an investigative writer with high-level Pentagon and intelligence contacts.
President George W Bush is said to be so alarmed by the threat of Iran's hard-line leader, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, 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.
Mahmoud Ahmedinejad: 'The new Hitler'
Some US military chiefs have unsuccessfully urged the White House to drop the nuclear option from its war plans, Hersh writes in The New Yorker magazine. The conviction that Mr Ahmedinejad would attack Israel or US forces in the Middle East, if Iran obtains atomic weapons, is what drives American planning for the destruction of Teheran's nuclear programme.
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, 200 miles south of Teheran.
Although Iran claims that its nuclear programme is peaceful, US and European intelligence agencies are certain that Teheran is trying to develop atomic weapons. In contrast to the run-up to the Iraq invasion, there are no disagreements within Western intelligence about Iran's plans.
This newspaper disclosed recently that senior Pentagon strategists are updating plans to strike Iran's nuclear sites with long-distance B2 bombers and submarine-launched missiles. And last week, the Sunday Telegraph reported a secret meeting at the Ministry of Defence where military chiefs and officials from Downing Street and the Foreign Office discussed the consequences of an American-led attack on Iran, and Britain's role in any such action.
The military option is opposed by London and other European capitals. But there are growing fears in No 10 and the Foreign Office that the British-led push for a diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear stand-off, will be swept aside by hawks in Washington. Hersh says that within the Bush administration, there are concerns that even a pummelling by conventional strikes, may not sufficiently damage Iran's buried nuclear plants.
Click to enlarge
Iran has been developing a series of bunkers and facilities to provide hidden command centres for its leaders and to protect its nuclear infrastructure. The lack of reliable intelligence about these subterranean facilities, is fuelling pressure for tactical nuclear weapons to be included in the strike plans as the only guaranteed means to destroy all the sites simultaneously.
The attention given to the nuclear option has created serious misgivings among the joint chiefs of staff, and some officers have talked about resigning, Hersh has been told. The military chiefs sought to remove the nuclear option from the evolving war plans for Iran, without success, a former senior intelligence officer said.
The Pentagon consultant on the war on terror confirmed that some in the administration were looking seriously at this option, which he linked to a resurgence of interest in tactical nuclear weapons among defence department political appointees.
The election of Mr Ahmedinejad last year, has hardened attitudes within the Bush Administration. The Iranian president has said that Israel should be "wiped off the map". He has drafted in former fellow Revolutionary Guards commanders to run the nuclear programme, in further signs that he is preparing to back his threats with action.
Mr Bush and others in the White House view him as a potential Adolf Hitler, a former senior intelligence official told Hersh. "That's the name they're using. They say, 'Will Iran get a strategic weapon and threaten another world war?' "
Despite America's public commitment to diplomacy, there is a growing belief in Washington that the only solution to the crisis is regime change. A senior Pentagon consultant said that Mr Bush believes that he must do "what no Democrat or Republican, if elected in the future, would have the courage to do," and "that saving Iran is going to be his legacy".
Publicly, the US insists it remains committed to diplomacy to solve the crisis. But with Russia apparently intent on vetoing any threat of punitive action at the UN, the Bush administration is also planning for unilateral military action. Hersh repeated his claims that the US has intensified clandestine activities inside Iran, using special forces to identify targets and establish contact with anti-Teheran ethnic-minority groups.
The senior defence officials said that Mr Bush is "determined to deny Iran the opportunity to begin a pilot programme, planned for this spring, to enrich uranium".
Bush 'is planning nuclear strikes on Iran's secret sites'
By Philip Sherwell in Washington
(Filed: 09/04/2006)
The Bush administration is planning to use nuclear weapons against Iran, to prevent it acquiring its own atomic warheads, claims an investigative writer with high-level Pentagon and intelligence contacts.
President George W Bush is said to be so alarmed by the threat of Iran's hard-line leader, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, 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.
Mahmoud Ahmedinejad: 'The new Hitler'
Some US military chiefs have unsuccessfully urged the White House to drop the nuclear option from its war plans, Hersh writes in The New Yorker magazine. The conviction that Mr Ahmedinejad would attack Israel or US forces in the Middle East, if Iran obtains atomic weapons, is what drives American planning for the destruction of Teheran's nuclear programme.
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, 200 miles south of Teheran.
Although Iran claims that its nuclear programme is peaceful, US and European intelligence agencies are certain that Teheran is trying to develop atomic weapons. In contrast to the run-up to the Iraq invasion, there are no disagreements within Western intelligence about Iran's plans.
This newspaper disclosed recently that senior Pentagon strategists are updating plans to strike Iran's nuclear sites with long-distance B2 bombers and submarine-launched missiles. And last week, the Sunday Telegraph reported a secret meeting at the Ministry of Defence where military chiefs and officials from Downing Street and the Foreign Office discussed the consequences of an American-led attack on Iran, and Britain's role in any such action.
The military option is opposed by London and other European capitals. But there are growing fears in No 10 and the Foreign Office that the British-led push for a diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear stand-off, will be swept aside by hawks in Washington. Hersh says that within the Bush administration, there are concerns that even a pummelling by conventional strikes, may not sufficiently damage Iran's buried nuclear plants.
Click to enlarge
Iran has been developing a series of bunkers and facilities to provide hidden command centres for its leaders and to protect its nuclear infrastructure. The lack of reliable intelligence about these subterranean facilities, is fuelling pressure for tactical nuclear weapons to be included in the strike plans as the only guaranteed means to destroy all the sites simultaneously.
The attention given to the nuclear option has created serious misgivings among the joint chiefs of staff, and some officers have talked about resigning, Hersh has been told. The military chiefs sought to remove the nuclear option from the evolving war plans for Iran, without success, a former senior intelligence officer said.
The Pentagon consultant on the war on terror confirmed that some in the administration were looking seriously at this option, which he linked to a resurgence of interest in tactical nuclear weapons among defence department political appointees.
The election of Mr Ahmedinejad last year, has hardened attitudes within the Bush Administration. The Iranian president has said that Israel should be "wiped off the map". He has drafted in former fellow Revolutionary Guards commanders to run the nuclear programme, in further signs that he is preparing to back his threats with action.
Mr Bush and others in the White House view him as a potential Adolf Hitler, a former senior intelligence official told Hersh. "That's the name they're using. They say, 'Will Iran get a strategic weapon and threaten another world war?' "
Despite America's public commitment to diplomacy, there is a growing belief in Washington that the only solution to the crisis is regime change. A senior Pentagon consultant said that Mr Bush believes that he must do "what no Democrat or Republican, if elected in the future, would have the courage to do," and "that saving Iran is going to be his legacy".
Publicly, the US insists it remains committed to diplomacy to solve the crisis. But with Russia apparently intent on vetoing any threat of punitive action at the UN, the Bush administration is also planning for unilateral military action. Hersh repeated his claims that the US has intensified clandestine activities inside Iran, using special forces to identify targets and establish contact with anti-Teheran ethnic-minority groups.
The senior defence officials said that Mr Bush is "determined to deny Iran the opportunity to begin a pilot programme, planned for this spring, to enrich uranium".
http://www.middleeast.org/read.cgi?categor...6&function=text
OCTOBER SURPRISE 2006 - IRAN!
Thus a pre-emptive war on Iran, while a political triumph
for the president this fall, could, like the invasion of Iraq,
prove a long-term disaster.
MER - MiddleEast.Org - Washington - 8 April As the mid-term election approaches and the Bush/Cheney Administration faces potential melt-down and if things really go bad for them possible impeachment, Washington insiders remember the pre-election gambits and surprises of the past. For the old Washington hands this term 'October Surprise' is most associated with Republican conservative Presidents Reagan and Bush I. Back in 1980 in fact Iran was again at the center of intrique, this time relating to the political fallout over Tehran 'the hostage crisis' that had begun back in 1979 -- a book with the title 'October Surprise' from a former Carter White House-military-agency official was soon to explain the dealings and double-dealings of that day. Now once again with the stakes bigger than ever it's Iran again in 2006 -- this time in the crosshairs.
The American Conservative - April 10, 2006 Issue
An October Surprise?
by Patrick J. Buchanan
President Bush says Iranians are behind the more lethal IEDs, the roadside bombs killing our troops in Iraq. Rumsfeld warns the Iranian Revolutionary Guard may now be in Iraq. Cheney says Iran will not be allowed to have a nuclear weapon. McCain says, “the military option is on the table.”
And Israel is getting impatient. Writes Yaakov Katz in the March 10 Jerusalem Post, “The United States has until now not done enough to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, a senior Defense Ministry official has told the Jerusalem Post ...”
Katz quotes the senior man directly: “America needs to get its act together. Until now the [Bush] administration has just been talking tough but the time has come for the Americans to begin to take some tough action.” Only one person is quoted by name in Katz’s piece, the hawkish Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz. This tells me Mofaz is using Katz to send Bush a message: “Stop dithering and get off your duff on Iran.”
The official wants Bush to impose severe sanctions to shut down Iran’s economy to convince Iranians to get rid of their regime. But if sanctions do not work, bombs away. “This option may be needed but it should only be used as a last resort,” said the “senior official.”
But while Bush is pushing for Security Council sanctions, Russia and China are balking. France, Britain, and Germany may go along with diplomatic and mild economic sanctions, but there is no stomach there for air strikes. Thus, if Iran’s nuclear program is to be dismantled, the Americans will have to go it alone with Stealth and B-2 bomber strikes.
Or Bush will have to answer to the Israeli Defense Ministry.
While there seems no sense of urgency in Washington, the Bush Doctrine and Cheney ultimatum have painted us into a corner. Either Iran’s nuclear program is shut down, or the Bush Doctrine will have been defied by Tehran and Pyongyang, leaving Iraq as the Bush legacy.
All this has led to speculation that this summer or fall, Bush, his options having been exhausted, will order the air strikes.
What would be the benefits of such an October surprise?
Rather than appearing a retreat, Bush’s pullout from Iraq would look like that of a defiant gunfighter backing through the swinging doors of a Tombstone saloon with both guns blazing.
Bush’s rating could soar 20 points. Republicans would rally at the return of the 9/11 president. Democrats would be loath to attack a president who acted forcefully to remove what they themselves say is an intolerable threat. The neocons and Christian Right would hail Bush as the new Churchill. Bush would hold onto both houses in November, costing Democrats their best chance in a decade of recouping power.
What would Hillary do? Nothing but wait and see what the fallout was from Bush’s newest pre-emptive war.
And the risks? Iran could push its Shia allies to attack British and U.S. troops and send Revolutionary Guard “volunteers” in, which could mean a U.S. debacle, unless we responded with more American troops. Tehran could make us pay a price in blood in Afghanistan. Tehran could also send its agents into the emirates, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia to attack U.S. installations, setting the Near East ablaze and oil prices soaring to $200 a barrel, plunging the West into recession.
Thus a pre-emptive war on Iran, while a political triumph for the president this fall, could, like the invasion of Iraq, prove a long-term disaster.
To some of us, this would be another unnecessary war. For, according to the New York Times, Iran’s nuclear program is plagued by failures and Tehran could be five or ten years away from mastering the technology even to produce fissile material for one bomb.
According to the Washington Times, Iran’s clerical and political elites want no war with America and are moving to curb the power of President Ahmadinejad. As one Tehran editor told the Washington Times, “if they [the Bushites] keep piling on the pressure, Ahmadinejad will become a national hero. … Let the Iranians deal with him. If you leave him alone he will become a bankrupt politician within a year.”
Cal Coolidge counseled that when you see ten troubles coming up the road, sometimes the best thing to do is nothing because nine of them will fall into the ditch before they get to you.
Bush is the commander in chief, not King George. He has no power to launch U.S. air strikes on Iran, an act of war, unless Congress authorizes war. Before we wake up to an October surprise, Congress should do its duty and Rumsfeld and Rice should appear and make the case for a war some of us believe Iran neither wants nor threatens.
Forget the Feingold Resolution. Undeclared presidential wars are the real stuff of impeachment.
OCTOBER SURPRISE 2006 - IRAN!
Thus a pre-emptive war on Iran, while a political triumph
for the president this fall, could, like the invasion of Iraq,
prove a long-term disaster.
MER - MiddleEast.Org - Washington - 8 April As the mid-term election approaches and the Bush/Cheney Administration faces potential melt-down and if things really go bad for them possible impeachment, Washington insiders remember the pre-election gambits and surprises of the past. For the old Washington hands this term 'October Surprise' is most associated with Republican conservative Presidents Reagan and Bush I. Back in 1980 in fact Iran was again at the center of intrique, this time relating to the political fallout over Tehran 'the hostage crisis' that had begun back in 1979 -- a book with the title 'October Surprise' from a former Carter White House-military-agency official was soon to explain the dealings and double-dealings of that day. Now once again with the stakes bigger than ever it's Iran again in 2006 -- this time in the crosshairs.
The American Conservative - April 10, 2006 Issue
An October Surprise?
by Patrick J. Buchanan
President Bush says Iranians are behind the more lethal IEDs, the roadside bombs killing our troops in Iraq. Rumsfeld warns the Iranian Revolutionary Guard may now be in Iraq. Cheney says Iran will not be allowed to have a nuclear weapon. McCain says, “the military option is on the table.”
And Israel is getting impatient. Writes Yaakov Katz in the March 10 Jerusalem Post, “The United States has until now not done enough to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, a senior Defense Ministry official has told the Jerusalem Post ...”
Katz quotes the senior man directly: “America needs to get its act together. Until now the [Bush] administration has just been talking tough but the time has come for the Americans to begin to take some tough action.” Only one person is quoted by name in Katz’s piece, the hawkish Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz. This tells me Mofaz is using Katz to send Bush a message: “Stop dithering and get off your duff on Iran.”
The official wants Bush to impose severe sanctions to shut down Iran’s economy to convince Iranians to get rid of their regime. But if sanctions do not work, bombs away. “This option may be needed but it should only be used as a last resort,” said the “senior official.”
But while Bush is pushing for Security Council sanctions, Russia and China are balking. France, Britain, and Germany may go along with diplomatic and mild economic sanctions, but there is no stomach there for air strikes. Thus, if Iran’s nuclear program is to be dismantled, the Americans will have to go it alone with Stealth and B-2 bomber strikes.
Or Bush will have to answer to the Israeli Defense Ministry.
While there seems no sense of urgency in Washington, the Bush Doctrine and Cheney ultimatum have painted us into a corner. Either Iran’s nuclear program is shut down, or the Bush Doctrine will have been defied by Tehran and Pyongyang, leaving Iraq as the Bush legacy.
All this has led to speculation that this summer or fall, Bush, his options having been exhausted, will order the air strikes.
What would be the benefits of such an October surprise?
Rather than appearing a retreat, Bush’s pullout from Iraq would look like that of a defiant gunfighter backing through the swinging doors of a Tombstone saloon with both guns blazing.
Bush’s rating could soar 20 points. Republicans would rally at the return of the 9/11 president. Democrats would be loath to attack a president who acted forcefully to remove what they themselves say is an intolerable threat. The neocons and Christian Right would hail Bush as the new Churchill. Bush would hold onto both houses in November, costing Democrats their best chance in a decade of recouping power.
What would Hillary do? Nothing but wait and see what the fallout was from Bush’s newest pre-emptive war.
And the risks? Iran could push its Shia allies to attack British and U.S. troops and send Revolutionary Guard “volunteers” in, which could mean a U.S. debacle, unless we responded with more American troops. Tehran could make us pay a price in blood in Afghanistan. Tehran could also send its agents into the emirates, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia to attack U.S. installations, setting the Near East ablaze and oil prices soaring to $200 a barrel, plunging the West into recession.
Thus a pre-emptive war on Iran, while a political triumph for the president this fall, could, like the invasion of Iraq, prove a long-term disaster.
To some of us, this would be another unnecessary war. For, according to the New York Times, Iran’s nuclear program is plagued by failures and Tehran could be five or ten years away from mastering the technology even to produce fissile material for one bomb.
According to the Washington Times, Iran’s clerical and political elites want no war with America and are moving to curb the power of President Ahmadinejad. As one Tehran editor told the Washington Times, “if they [the Bushites] keep piling on the pressure, Ahmadinejad will become a national hero. … Let the Iranians deal with him. If you leave him alone he will become a bankrupt politician within a year.”
Cal Coolidge counseled that when you see ten troubles coming up the road, sometimes the best thing to do is nothing because nine of them will fall into the ditch before they get to you.
Bush is the commander in chief, not King George. He has no power to launch U.S. air strikes on Iran, an act of war, unless Congress authorizes war. Before we wake up to an October surprise, Congress should do its duty and Rumsfeld and Rice should appear and make the case for a war some of us believe Iran neither wants nor threatens.
Forget the Feingold Resolution. Undeclared presidential wars are the real stuff of impeachment.
http://www.islam-online.net/English/News/2...article02.shtml
US "Seriously" Considering Nuclear Attack on Iran: Report
A US satellite photograph of the centrifuge plant at Natanz.
CAIRO, April 9, 2006 (IslamOnline.net) – The administration of US President George W. Bush is looking "seriously" at striking Iran with tactical nuclear weapons, an option that has created misgivings inside the offices of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and prompted some officers to consider resigning, investigative journalist Seymour Hersh says in a new report.
One of the Pentagon's initial option plans, as presented to the White House, calls for the use of a bunker-buster tactical nuclear weapon, such as the B61-11, against underground nuclear sites in Iran, Hersh writes in the April 17 issue of the New Yorker magazine.
One target is Iran’s main centrifuge plant at Natanz, nearly two hundred miles south of Tehran.
The tactical nuclear option has gained support from the Defense Science Board, an advisory panel whose members are selected by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, a Pentagon adviser told Hersh.
"Nuclear planners go through extensive training and learn the technical details of damage and fallout—we’re talking about mushroom clouds, radiation, mass casualties, and contamination over years," said a former high-level Defense Department official.
"This is not an underground nuclear test, where all you see is the earth raised a little bit. These politicians don’t have a clue, and whenever anybody tries to get it out—remove the nuclear option—they’re shouted down," he said.
Another former defense official, who still deals with sensitive issues for the Bush administration, said that some operations, apparently aimed in part at intimidating Iran, are already under way.
American Naval tactical aircraft, operating from carriers in the Arabian Sea, have been flying simulated nuclear-weapons delivery missions—rapid ascending maneuvers known as “over the shoulder” bombing—since last summer within range of Iranian coastal radars, he noted.
Hersh won a Pulitzer prize in 1970 for uncovering the My Lai massacre of hundreds of unarmed Vietnamese civilians, mostly women and children, on March 16, 1968 by US troops.
His reporting on abuses by American troops at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison helped expose one of the worst scandals to hit the Bush administration.
Resignation
The attention given to the nuclear option has created serious misgivings inside the offices of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and some officers have talked about resigning, a former senior intelligence official said.
Late this winter, he added, the Joint Chiefs of Staff sought to remove the nuclear option from the evolving war plans for Iran—without success.
"There are very strong sentiments within the military against brandishing nuclear weapons against other countries," the Pentagon adviser told Hersh.
"This goes to high levels."
The matter may soon reach a decisive point, he said, because the Joint Chiefs had agreed to give President Bush a formal recommendation stating that they are strongly opposed to considering the nuclear option for Iran.
"The internal debate on this has hardened in recent weeks," the adviser noted.
"And, if senior Pentagon officers express their opposition to the use of offensive nuclear weapons, then it will never happen."
"Adolf Hitler"
There is a growing conviction among members of the US military, and in the international community, that President Bush’s ultimate goal in the nuclear confrontation with Iran is regime change, Hersh concludes.
According to the former senior intelligence official Bush and others in the White House view Mahmud Ahmadinejad as a potential Adolf Hitler.
"That’s the name they’re using. They say, ‘Will Iran get a strategic weapon and threaten another world war?’ "
A government consultant with close ties to the civilian leadership in the Pentagon said Bush believes that he must do "what no Democrat or Republican, if elected in the future, would have the courage to do" and "that saving Iran is going to be his legacy."
A US congressman said the president has quietly initiated a series of talks on plans for Iran with a few key senators and members of Congress, including at least one Democrat, with no one in the meetings "really objecting" to the talk of war.
"The people they’re briefing are the same ones who led the charge on Iraq. At most, questions are raised: How are you going to hit all the sites at once? How are you going to get deep enough?"
The first former defense official told Hersh that the military planning was premised on a belief that "a sustained bombing campaign in Iran will humiliate the religious leadership and lead the public to rise up and overthrow the government."
"I was shocked when I heard it, and asked myself, What are they smoking?" he said.
Click to Read Hersh's The Iran Plans report.
US "Seriously" Considering Nuclear Attack on Iran: Report
A US satellite photograph of the centrifuge plant at Natanz.
CAIRO, April 9, 2006 (IslamOnline.net) – The administration of US President George W. Bush is looking "seriously" at striking Iran with tactical nuclear weapons, an option that has created misgivings inside the offices of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and prompted some officers to consider resigning, investigative journalist Seymour Hersh says in a new report.
One of the Pentagon's initial option plans, as presented to the White House, calls for the use of a bunker-buster tactical nuclear weapon, such as the B61-11, against underground nuclear sites in Iran, Hersh writes in the April 17 issue of the New Yorker magazine.
One target is Iran’s main centrifuge plant at Natanz, nearly two hundred miles south of Tehran.
The tactical nuclear option has gained support from the Defense Science Board, an advisory panel whose members are selected by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, a Pentagon adviser told Hersh.
"Nuclear planners go through extensive training and learn the technical details of damage and fallout—we’re talking about mushroom clouds, radiation, mass casualties, and contamination over years," said a former high-level Defense Department official.
"This is not an underground nuclear test, where all you see is the earth raised a little bit. These politicians don’t have a clue, and whenever anybody tries to get it out—remove the nuclear option—they’re shouted down," he said.
Another former defense official, who still deals with sensitive issues for the Bush administration, said that some operations, apparently aimed in part at intimidating Iran, are already under way.
American Naval tactical aircraft, operating from carriers in the Arabian Sea, have been flying simulated nuclear-weapons delivery missions—rapid ascending maneuvers known as “over the shoulder” bombing—since last summer within range of Iranian coastal radars, he noted.
Hersh won a Pulitzer prize in 1970 for uncovering the My Lai massacre of hundreds of unarmed Vietnamese civilians, mostly women and children, on March 16, 1968 by US troops.
His reporting on abuses by American troops at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison helped expose one of the worst scandals to hit the Bush administration.
Resignation
The attention given to the nuclear option has created serious misgivings inside the offices of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and some officers have talked about resigning, a former senior intelligence official said.
Late this winter, he added, the Joint Chiefs of Staff sought to remove the nuclear option from the evolving war plans for Iran—without success.
"There are very strong sentiments within the military against brandishing nuclear weapons against other countries," the Pentagon adviser told Hersh.
"This goes to high levels."
The matter may soon reach a decisive point, he said, because the Joint Chiefs had agreed to give President Bush a formal recommendation stating that they are strongly opposed to considering the nuclear option for Iran.
"The internal debate on this has hardened in recent weeks," the adviser noted.
"And, if senior Pentagon officers express their opposition to the use of offensive nuclear weapons, then it will never happen."
"Adolf Hitler"
There is a growing conviction among members of the US military, and in the international community, that President Bush’s ultimate goal in the nuclear confrontation with Iran is regime change, Hersh concludes.
According to the former senior intelligence official Bush and others in the White House view Mahmud Ahmadinejad as a potential Adolf Hitler.
"That’s the name they’re using. They say, ‘Will Iran get a strategic weapon and threaten another world war?’ "
A government consultant with close ties to the civilian leadership in the Pentagon said Bush believes that he must do "what no Democrat or Republican, if elected in the future, would have the courage to do" and "that saving Iran is going to be his legacy."
A US congressman said the president has quietly initiated a series of talks on plans for Iran with a few key senators and members of Congress, including at least one Democrat, with no one in the meetings "really objecting" to the talk of war.
"The people they’re briefing are the same ones who led the charge on Iraq. At most, questions are raised: How are you going to hit all the sites at once? How are you going to get deep enough?"
The first former defense official told Hersh that the military planning was premised on a belief that "a sustained bombing campaign in Iran will humiliate the religious leadership and lead the public to rise up and overthrow the government."
"I was shocked when I heard it, and asked myself, What are they smoking?" he said.
Click to Read Hersh's The Iran Plans report.
- Alarm Over Reports Of Possible US Strike On Iran
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Alarm_Over...ke_On_Iran.html
Washington (AFP) Apr 10, 2006 - Critics of the George W. Bush administration expressed alarm Sunday about explosive new reports that the president is mulling military options to knock out Iran's nuclear program.
- Iran Says US Military Strike Talk 'Psychological Warfare'
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Iran_Says_...al_Warfare.html
- Moscow's Move In Iran Crisis
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Moscows_Mo...ran_Crisis.html
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Alarm_Over...ke_On_Iran.html
Washington (AFP) Apr 10, 2006 - Critics of the George W. Bush administration expressed alarm Sunday about explosive new reports that the president is mulling military options to knock out Iran's nuclear program.
- Iran Says US Military Strike Talk 'Psychological Warfare'
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Iran_Says_...al_Warfare.html
- Moscow's Move In Iran Crisis
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Moscows_Mo...ran_Crisis.html
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle...ticle356854.ece
Target Iran: US hints at a new battlefront
Tensions are rising over Tehran's alleged nuclear weapons programme as the Pentagon considers its military options. Anne Penketh reports
Published: 10 April 2006
They are the human shields. Every time there is the sound of sabre-rattling from the West over Iran's suspected nuclear weapons programme, the protesters are back in the picture.
Some have been deployed in a human chain outside sensitive sites in remote areas of Iran. Others rally outside the embassies of the United States and Britain in Tehran.
In the West, public opinion is hardening against the prospect of a nuclear-armed Islamic republic. Inside Iran, the public has been galvanised by its leaders into mobilising in support of the country's nuclear programme.
The Iranian demonstrators are likely to be needed again in the light of a shock report by the authoritative journalist Seymour Hersh that the Bush administration is considering possible strikes by tactical "bunker-buster'' nuclear missiles able to destroy facilities deep underground.
According to his article in The New Yorker, the plans aimed at engineering regime change in Tehran have split the Pentagon top brass to such an extent that some officers have threatened to resign their posts.
Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, yesterday dismissed the claim of a nuclear strike being used to prevent Iran from obtaining its own atomic weapon as "completely nuts". The Iranians described the article as the part of the "psychological war" launched by the US to frighten Tehran into abandoning what it believes is its treaty right to develop nuclear technology.
But President George Bush has been careful to keep the military option on the table throughout the stand-off with Iran over its nuclear programme, which intensified last June with the election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Mr Ahmadinejad, a former member of the fanatical Revolutionary Guards, set alarm bells ringing throughout the West - and even in his own country - by threatening to "wipe Israel off the map".
Even though it is the country's spiritual leader, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who calls the shots in Iran, according to The New Yorker, it is Mr Bush's deep distrust of Mr Ahmadinejad that has strengthened his determination to confront Iran.
But time is running out. Diplomatic moves are at a standstill because of the reluctance from Russia and China to impose sanctions against Iran, which has important support from developing countries where nuclear power is seen as a legitimate right.
In the West, arms control experts - as well as European governments - are convinced that Iran wants to pursue uranium enrichment at its underground facility at Natanz with the intention of keeping open the option of building a bomb. The difference between enriched uranium for a nuclear power plant and for a weapon lies in the level of enrichment. Fuel for a civilian reactor requires 2 to 3 per cent uranium-235, while a nuclear bomb needs 90 per cent or more, a range known as highly enriched uranium.
The Iranians will have mastered the technology that can allow its centrifuges to enrich uranium without exploding or breaking down in a matter of months, according to Western experts. When that happens, the world will be hurtling towards a nuclear nightmare. Israel's arch foe will have obtained a powerful tool with which to threaten its neighbours.
Estimates vary as to how long it would take Iran to reach the break-out capability. The generally cautious director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Mohamed ElBaradei, who is to visit Iran this week, believes that it could take up to two years for Natanz to be up and running. At that point, he says, an Iranian nuclear bomb could be "a few months away".
The estimate of the Egyptian IAEA chief echoes Israeli thinking. United States estimates range from five to 10 years for weapons-grade fuel to be successfully manufactured.
According to a study by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, with 1,000 working centrifuges at Natanz, it would take just over two years to produce enough highly enriched uranium for a bomb - without the IAEA safeguards which are currently in place. With 3,000 centrifuges, the number Iran has told the Europeans it wants to install at Natanz, it would take 271 days to produce the same amount of weapons-grade fuel. According to one expert, such a fuel cycle would be a clear indication that the Iranians are bent on building a bomb.
There are two ways of making a nuclear bomb: a relatively simple way which results in a plutonium bomb and a harder way using enriched uranium. But whichever route is followed, step one in making the fuel for a nuclear bomb - or a civilian reactor - is to mine uranium.
In step two, the uranium ore is ground into a powder and reconstituted into a solid known as yellowcake, which is radioactive. Step three involves the conversion of yellowcake into uranium hexafluoride gas.
In step four, the gas is fed into centrifuges, measuring one and a half metres tall, where the uranium enrichment takes place. This process increases the percentage of uranium-235 to the levels needed to be used as fuel in a civilian reactor, or a weapon, by separating the uranium isotopes in the rapidly spinning rotor tubes.
But there are well known problems with gas centrifuges. If they do not operate in a vacuum, rust and corrosion sets in. The spinning at enormous speeds can cause uncontrollable vibrations which can send shrapnel flying and cause explosions. The Iranians lost one third of their centrifuges when they agreed to halt uranium enrichment in November 2003 under an agreement with the European Union. That agreement was shattered last January when Iran reopened Natanz, where it tested an array of 20 centrifuges in vacuum conditions.
The method involving plutonium has a clear advantage because it needs much smaller quantities - 4kg rather than the 25kg of enriched uranium required to produce a bomb. Plutonium does not exist in a natural state, and is the product of reprocessed spent reactor fuel, after yellowcake has been reduced to uranium metal.
The extraction of plutonium is a serious engineering challenge as spent fuel is highly radioactive and toxic, and a very dangerous process.
The main worry for the West is that Iran has dabbled in all aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle, on both the enriched uranium route and the plutonium route.
It has a uranium mine, it has a conversion facility just outside the city of Isfahan, which was reopened last summer in violation of its agreement with the European Union, and it has the Natanz enrichment plant.
Although work has been suspended at Arak, 150 miles south of Tehran, Iran is in the early stages of constructing a heavy water plant that is to supply a research reactor which could eventually produce enough weapons-grade plutonium for one or two weapons per year.
Although nuclear experts say that the international community has been distracted by the crisis triggered over Iran's uranium enrichment programme, the plutonium experiments have the potential for creating a far more worrying situation. "With uranium, it's much easier to put in safeguards to monitor the atmosphere and instruments," said Paul Ingram, a senior analyst with the British American Security Information Council, which specialises in nuclear issues.
Nuclear reprocessing is more difficult for inspectors to verify, in terms of possible diversion for military purposes. And reprocessing can take place in a very small area. "It could be done in a plant the size of a house, in the middle of a mountain," if Iran decided to carry on with a clandestine programme, Mr Ingram said. "If the Iranians succeed in producing a heavy-water plant plus a reactor at Arak, then we are in a very difficult situation."
The Russians are helping Iran build a "safe" light-water reactor at Bushehr in the south of the country. Under an agreement with the Russians, the fuel rods for the reactor, which has not yet come on stream, are to come from Russia and will be sent back there for reprocessing to avoid any possible diversion.
The main nuclear powers, including Britain, followed the reprocessing route to build their modern arsenal. The US, in the early days, experimented with the fuel cycle of both enriched uranium and plutonium: the bomb that flattened Hiroshima in August 1945 was a uranium bomb, while the bomb that blasted Nagasaki three days later was plutonium.
Iraq went down the centrifuge route, although after 10 years of efforts, Saddam Hussein had still not produced a weapon when the UN inspectors belatedly discovered, and dismantled, its clandestine programme in the 1990s.
Pakistan also took the enrichment route, most probably because the father of the Muslim world's atom bomb, AQ Khan, worked in the 1970s for a Dutch uranium enrichment plant, Urenco, which supplied European reactors. He used a centrifuge design stolen from Urenco to build facilities in Pakistan for weapons-grade uranium.
So why did Iran decide to put its major effort into travelling along the bumpy road towards uranium enrichment?
In fact the Iranians were following both routes from the beginning. They bought their first nuclear reactor from the US, during the rule of the Shah. But the breakthrough came in the 1980s when Iran bought a blueprint for a P1 centrifuge from the AQ Khan network, which operated like a nuclear supermarket.
United Nations inspectors with the IAEA are still trying to unravel the history of Iran's nuclear know-how and have not proved without a doubt that the Iranians are working on a bomb.
Iran is meanwhile being asked by the UN Security Council to suspend all uranium enrichment work. Tehran has refused.
In the next few weeks, the West will have to decide what carrot, or what stick, to use next.
"In terms of strategy, the West needs to think more clearly about the need to work with the Iranians and the IAEA to keep the inspectors inside Iran. The key to all this is to ensure the IAEA is on the ground and with the Iranians co-operating," said Mr Ingram.
They are the human shields. Every time there is the sound of sabre-rattling from the West over Iran's suspected nuclear weapons programme, the protesters are back in the picture.
Some have been deployed in a human chain outside sensitive sites in remote areas of Iran. Others rally outside the embassies of the United States and Britain in Tehran.
In the West, public opinion is hardening against the prospect of a nuclear-armed Islamic republic. Inside Iran, the public has been galvanised by its leaders into mobilising in support of the country's nuclear programme.
The Iranian demonstrators are likely to be needed again in the light of a shock report by the authoritative journalist Seymour Hersh that the Bush administration is considering possible strikes by tactical "bunker-buster'' nuclear missiles able to destroy facilities deep underground.
According to his article in The New Yorker, the plans aimed at engineering regime change in Tehran have split the Pentagon top brass to such an extent that some officers have threatened to resign their posts.
Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, yesterday dismissed the claim of a nuclear strike being used to prevent Iran from obtaining its own atomic weapon as "completely nuts". The Iranians described the article as the part of the "psychological war" launched by the US to frighten Tehran into abandoning what it believes is its treaty right to develop nuclear technology.
But President George Bush has been careful to keep the military option on the table throughout the stand-off with Iran over its nuclear programme, which intensified last June with the election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Mr Ahmadinejad, a former member of the fanatical Revolutionary Guards, set alarm bells ringing throughout the West - and even in his own country - by threatening to "wipe Israel off the map".
Even though it is the country's spiritual leader, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who calls the shots in Iran, according to The New Yorker, it is Mr Bush's deep distrust of Mr Ahmadinejad that has strengthened his determination to confront Iran.
But time is running out. Diplomatic moves are at a standstill because of the reluctance from Russia and China to impose sanctions against Iran, which has important support from developing countries where nuclear power is seen as a legitimate right.
In the West, arms control experts - as well as European governments - are convinced that Iran wants to pursue uranium enrichment at its underground facility at Natanz with the intention of keeping open the option of building a bomb. The difference between enriched uranium for a nuclear power plant and for a weapon lies in the level of enrichment. Fuel for a civilian reactor requires 2 to 3 per cent uranium-235, while a nuclear bomb needs 90 per cent or more, a range known as highly enriched uranium.
The Iranians will have mastered the technology that can allow its centrifuges to enrich uranium without exploding or breaking down in a matter of months, according to Western experts. When that happens, the world will be hurtling towards a nuclear nightmare. Israel's arch foe will have obtained a powerful tool with which to threaten its neighbours.
Estimates vary as to how long it would take Iran to reach the break-out capability. The generally cautious director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Mohamed ElBaradei, who is to visit Iran this week, believes that it could take up to two years for Natanz to be up and running. At that point, he says, an Iranian nuclear bomb could be "a few months away".
The estimate of the Egyptian IAEA chief echoes Israeli thinking. United States estimates range from five to 10 years for weapons-grade fuel to be successfully manufactured.
According to a study by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, with 1,000 working centrifuges at Natanz, it would take just over two years to produce enough highly enriched uranium for a bomb - without the IAEA safeguards which are currently in place. With 3,000 centrifuges, the number Iran has told the Europeans it wants to install at Natanz, it would take 271 days to produce the same amount of weapons-grade fuel. According to one expert, such a fuel cycle would be a clear indication that the Iranians are bent on building a bomb.
There are two ways of making a nuclear bomb: a relatively simple way which results in a plutonium bomb and a harder way using enriched uranium. But whichever route is followed, step one in making the fuel for a nuclear bomb - or a civilian reactor - is to mine uranium.
In step two, the uranium ore is ground into a powder and reconstituted into a solid known as yellowcake, which is radioactive. Step three involves the conversion of yellowcake into uranium hexafluoride gas.
In step four, the gas is fed into centrifuges, measuring one and a half metres tall, where the uranium enrichment takes place. This process increases the percentage of uranium-235 to the levels needed to be used as fuel in a civilian reactor, or a weapon, by separating the uranium isotopes in the rapidly spinning rotor tubes.
But there are well known problems with gas centrifuges. If they do not operate in a vacuum, rust and corrosion sets in. The spinning at enormous speeds can cause uncontrollable vibrations which can send shrapnel flying and cause explosions. The Iranians lost one third of their centrifuges when they agreed to halt uranium enrichment in November 2003 under an agreement with the European Union. That agreement was shattered last January when Iran reopened Natanz, where it tested an array of 20 centrifuges in vacuum conditions.
The method involving plutonium has a clear advantage because it needs much smaller quantities - 4kg rather than the 25kg of enriched uranium required to produce a bomb. Plutonium does not exist in a natural state, and is the product of reprocessed spent reactor fuel, after yellowcake has been reduced to uranium metal.
The extraction of plutonium is a serious engineering challenge as spent fuel is highly radioactive and toxic, and a very dangerous process.
The main worry for the West is that Iran has dabbled in all aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle, on both the enriched uranium route and the plutonium route.
It has a uranium mine, it has a conversion facility just outside the city of Isfahan, which was reopened last summer in violation of its agreement with the European Union, and it has the Natanz enrichment plant.
Although work has been suspended at Arak, 150 miles south of Tehran, Iran is in the early stages of constructing a heavy water plant that is to supply a research reactor which could eventually produce enough weapons-grade plutonium for one or two weapons per year.
Although nuclear experts say that the international community has been distracted by the crisis triggered over Iran's uranium enrichment programme, the plutonium experiments have the potential for creating a far more worrying situation. "With uranium, it's much easier to put in safeguards to monitor the atmosphere and instruments," said Paul Ingram, a senior analyst with the British American Security Information Council, which specialises in nuclear issues.
Nuclear reprocessing is more difficult for inspectors to verify, in terms of possible diversion for military purposes. And reprocessing can take place in a very small area. "It could be done in a plant the size of a house, in the middle of a mountain," if Iran decided to carry on with a clandestine programme, Mr Ingram said. "If the Iranians succeed in producing a heavy-water plant plus a reactor at Arak, then we are in a very difficult situation."
The Russians are helping Iran build a "safe" light-water reactor at Bushehr in the south of the country. Under an agreement with the Russians, the fuel rods for the reactor, which has not yet come on stream, are to come from Russia and will be sent back there for reprocessing to avoid any possible diversion.
The main nuclear powers, including Britain, followed the reprocessing route to build their modern arsenal. The US, in the early days, experimented with the fuel cycle of both enriched uranium and plutonium: the bomb that flattened Hiroshima in August 1945 was a uranium bomb, while the bomb that blasted Nagasaki three days later was plutonium.
Iraq went down the centrifuge route, although after 10 years of efforts, Saddam Hussein had still not produced a weapon when the UN inspectors belatedly discovered, and dismantled, its clandestine programme in the 1990s.
Pakistan also took the enrichment route, most probably because the father of the Muslim world's atom bomb, AQ Khan, worked in the 1970s for a Dutch uranium enrichment plant, Urenco, which supplied European reactors. He used a centrifuge design stolen from Urenco to build facilities in Pakistan for weapons-grade uranium.
So why did Iran decide to put its major effort into travelling along the bumpy road towards uranium enrichment?
In fact the Iranians were following both routes from the beginning. They bought their first nuclear reactor from the US, during the rule of the Shah. But the breakthrough came in the 1980s when Iran bought a blueprint for a P1 centrifuge from the AQ Khan network, which operated like a nuclear supermarket.
United Nations inspectors with the IAEA are still trying to unravel the history of Iran's nuclear know-how and have not proved without a doubt that the Iranians are working on a bomb.
Iran is meanwhile being asked by the UN Security Council to suspend all uranium enrichment work. Tehran has refused.
In the next few weeks, the West will have to decide what carrot, or what stick, to use next.
"In terms of strategy, the West needs to think more clearly about the need to work with the Iranians and the IAEA to keep the inspectors inside Iran. The key to all this is to ensure the IAEA is on the ground and with the Iranians co-operating," said Mr Ingram.
Target Iran: US hints at a new battlefront
Tensions are rising over Tehran's alleged nuclear weapons programme as the Pentagon considers its military options. Anne Penketh reports
Published: 10 April 2006
They are the human shields. Every time there is the sound of sabre-rattling from the West over Iran's suspected nuclear weapons programme, the protesters are back in the picture.
Some have been deployed in a human chain outside sensitive sites in remote areas of Iran. Others rally outside the embassies of the United States and Britain in Tehran.
In the West, public opinion is hardening against the prospect of a nuclear-armed Islamic republic. Inside Iran, the public has been galvanised by its leaders into mobilising in support of the country's nuclear programme.
The Iranian demonstrators are likely to be needed again in the light of a shock report by the authoritative journalist Seymour Hersh that the Bush administration is considering possible strikes by tactical "bunker-buster'' nuclear missiles able to destroy facilities deep underground.
According to his article in The New Yorker, the plans aimed at engineering regime change in Tehran have split the Pentagon top brass to such an extent that some officers have threatened to resign their posts.
Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, yesterday dismissed the claim of a nuclear strike being used to prevent Iran from obtaining its own atomic weapon as "completely nuts". The Iranians described the article as the part of the "psychological war" launched by the US to frighten Tehran into abandoning what it believes is its treaty right to develop nuclear technology.
But President George Bush has been careful to keep the military option on the table throughout the stand-off with Iran over its nuclear programme, which intensified last June with the election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Mr Ahmadinejad, a former member of the fanatical Revolutionary Guards, set alarm bells ringing throughout the West - and even in his own country - by threatening to "wipe Israel off the map".
Even though it is the country's spiritual leader, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who calls the shots in Iran, according to The New Yorker, it is Mr Bush's deep distrust of Mr Ahmadinejad that has strengthened his determination to confront Iran.
But time is running out. Diplomatic moves are at a standstill because of the reluctance from Russia and China to impose sanctions against Iran, which has important support from developing countries where nuclear power is seen as a legitimate right.
In the West, arms control experts - as well as European governments - are convinced that Iran wants to pursue uranium enrichment at its underground facility at Natanz with the intention of keeping open the option of building a bomb. The difference between enriched uranium for a nuclear power plant and for a weapon lies in the level of enrichment. Fuel for a civilian reactor requires 2 to 3 per cent uranium-235, while a nuclear bomb needs 90 per cent or more, a range known as highly enriched uranium.
The Iranians will have mastered the technology that can allow its centrifuges to enrich uranium without exploding or breaking down in a matter of months, according to Western experts. When that happens, the world will be hurtling towards a nuclear nightmare. Israel's arch foe will have obtained a powerful tool with which to threaten its neighbours.
Estimates vary as to how long it would take Iran to reach the break-out capability. The generally cautious director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Mohamed ElBaradei, who is to visit Iran this week, believes that it could take up to two years for Natanz to be up and running. At that point, he says, an Iranian nuclear bomb could be "a few months away".
The estimate of the Egyptian IAEA chief echoes Israeli thinking. United States estimates range from five to 10 years for weapons-grade fuel to be successfully manufactured.
According to a study by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, with 1,000 working centrifuges at Natanz, it would take just over two years to produce enough highly enriched uranium for a bomb - without the IAEA safeguards which are currently in place. With 3,000 centrifuges, the number Iran has told the Europeans it wants to install at Natanz, it would take 271 days to produce the same amount of weapons-grade fuel. According to one expert, such a fuel cycle would be a clear indication that the Iranians are bent on building a bomb.
There are two ways of making a nuclear bomb: a relatively simple way which results in a plutonium bomb and a harder way using enriched uranium. But whichever route is followed, step one in making the fuel for a nuclear bomb - or a civilian reactor - is to mine uranium.
In step two, the uranium ore is ground into a powder and reconstituted into a solid known as yellowcake, which is radioactive. Step three involves the conversion of yellowcake into uranium hexafluoride gas.
In step four, the gas is fed into centrifuges, measuring one and a half metres tall, where the uranium enrichment takes place. This process increases the percentage of uranium-235 to the levels needed to be used as fuel in a civilian reactor, or a weapon, by separating the uranium isotopes in the rapidly spinning rotor tubes.
But there are well known problems with gas centrifuges. If they do not operate in a vacuum, rust and corrosion sets in. The spinning at enormous speeds can cause uncontrollable vibrations which can send shrapnel flying and cause explosions. The Iranians lost one third of their centrifuges when they agreed to halt uranium enrichment in November 2003 under an agreement with the European Union. That agreement was shattered last January when Iran reopened Natanz, where it tested an array of 20 centrifuges in vacuum conditions.
The method involving plutonium has a clear advantage because it needs much smaller quantities - 4kg rather than the 25kg of enriched uranium required to produce a bomb. Plutonium does not exist in a natural state, and is the product of reprocessed spent reactor fuel, after yellowcake has been reduced to uranium metal.
The extraction of plutonium is a serious engineering challenge as spent fuel is highly radioactive and toxic, and a very dangerous process.
The main worry for the West is that Iran has dabbled in all aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle, on both the enriched uranium route and the plutonium route.
It has a uranium mine, it has a conversion facility just outside the city of Isfahan, which was reopened last summer in violation of its agreement with the European Union, and it has the Natanz enrichment plant.
Although work has been suspended at Arak, 150 miles south of Tehran, Iran is in the early stages of constructing a heavy water plant that is to supply a research reactor which could eventually produce enough weapons-grade plutonium for one or two weapons per year.
Although nuclear experts say that the international community has been distracted by the crisis triggered over Iran's uranium enrichment programme, the plutonium experiments have the potential for creating a far more worrying situation. "With uranium, it's much easier to put in safeguards to monitor the atmosphere and instruments," said Paul Ingram, a senior analyst with the British American Security Information Council, which specialises in nuclear issues.
Nuclear reprocessing is more difficult for inspectors to verify, in terms of possible diversion for military purposes. And reprocessing can take place in a very small area. "It could be done in a plant the size of a house, in the middle of a mountain," if Iran decided to carry on with a clandestine programme, Mr Ingram said. "If the Iranians succeed in producing a heavy-water plant plus a reactor at Arak, then we are in a very difficult situation."
The Russians are helping Iran build a "safe" light-water reactor at Bushehr in the south of the country. Under an agreement with the Russians, the fuel rods for the reactor, which has not yet come on stream, are to come from Russia and will be sent back there for reprocessing to avoid any possible diversion.
The main nuclear powers, including Britain, followed the reprocessing route to build their modern arsenal. The US, in the early days, experimented with the fuel cycle of both enriched uranium and plutonium: the bomb that flattened Hiroshima in August 1945 was a uranium bomb, while the bomb that blasted Nagasaki three days later was plutonium.
Iraq went down the centrifuge route, although after 10 years of efforts, Saddam Hussein had still not produced a weapon when the UN inspectors belatedly discovered, and dismantled, its clandestine programme in the 1990s.
Pakistan also took the enrichment route, most probably because the father of the Muslim world's atom bomb, AQ Khan, worked in the 1970s for a Dutch uranium enrichment plant, Urenco, which supplied European reactors. He used a centrifuge design stolen from Urenco to build facilities in Pakistan for weapons-grade uranium.
So why did Iran decide to put its major effort into travelling along the bumpy road towards uranium enrichment?
In fact the Iranians were following both routes from the beginning. They bought their first nuclear reactor from the US, during the rule of the Shah. But the breakthrough came in the 1980s when Iran bought a blueprint for a P1 centrifuge from the AQ Khan network, which operated like a nuclear supermarket.
United Nations inspectors with the IAEA are still trying to unravel the history of Iran's nuclear know-how and have not proved without a doubt that the Iranians are working on a bomb.
Iran is meanwhile being asked by the UN Security Council to suspend all uranium enrichment work. Tehran has refused.
In the next few weeks, the West will have to decide what carrot, or what stick, to use next.
"In terms of strategy, the West needs to think more clearly about the need to work with the Iranians and the IAEA to keep the inspectors inside Iran. The key to all this is to ensure the IAEA is on the ground and with the Iranians co-operating," said Mr Ingram.
They are the human shields. Every time there is the sound of sabre-rattling from the West over Iran's suspected nuclear weapons programme, the protesters are back in the picture.
Some have been deployed in a human chain outside sensitive sites in remote areas of Iran. Others rally outside the embassies of the United States and Britain in Tehran.
In the West, public opinion is hardening against the prospect of a nuclear-armed Islamic republic. Inside Iran, the public has been galvanised by its leaders into mobilising in support of the country's nuclear programme.
The Iranian demonstrators are likely to be needed again in the light of a shock report by the authoritative journalist Seymour Hersh that the Bush administration is considering possible strikes by tactical "bunker-buster'' nuclear missiles able to destroy facilities deep underground.
According to his article in The New Yorker, the plans aimed at engineering regime change in Tehran have split the Pentagon top brass to such an extent that some officers have threatened to resign their posts.
Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, yesterday dismissed the claim of a nuclear strike being used to prevent Iran from obtaining its own atomic weapon as "completely nuts". The Iranians described the article as the part of the "psychological war" launched by the US to frighten Tehran into abandoning what it believes is its treaty right to develop nuclear technology.
But President George Bush has been careful to keep the military option on the table throughout the stand-off with Iran over its nuclear programme, which intensified last June with the election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Mr Ahmadinejad, a former member of the fanatical Revolutionary Guards, set alarm bells ringing throughout the West - and even in his own country - by threatening to "wipe Israel off the map".
Even though it is the country's spiritual leader, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who calls the shots in Iran, according to The New Yorker, it is Mr Bush's deep distrust of Mr Ahmadinejad that has strengthened his determination to confront Iran.
But time is running out. Diplomatic moves are at a standstill because of the reluctance from Russia and China to impose sanctions against Iran, which has important support from developing countries where nuclear power is seen as a legitimate right.
In the West, arms control experts - as well as European governments - are convinced that Iran wants to pursue uranium enrichment at its underground facility at Natanz with the intention of keeping open the option of building a bomb. The difference between enriched uranium for a nuclear power plant and for a weapon lies in the level of enrichment. Fuel for a civilian reactor requires 2 to 3 per cent uranium-235, while a nuclear bomb needs 90 per cent or more, a range known as highly enriched uranium.
The Iranians will have mastered the technology that can allow its centrifuges to enrich uranium without exploding or breaking down in a matter of months, according to Western experts. When that happens, the world will be hurtling towards a nuclear nightmare. Israel's arch foe will have obtained a powerful tool with which to threaten its neighbours.
Estimates vary as to how long it would take Iran to reach the break-out capability. The generally cautious director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Mohamed ElBaradei, who is to visit Iran this week, believes that it could take up to two years for Natanz to be up and running. At that point, he says, an Iranian nuclear bomb could be "a few months away".
The estimate of the Egyptian IAEA chief echoes Israeli thinking. United States estimates range from five to 10 years for weapons-grade fuel to be successfully manufactured.
According to a study by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, with 1,000 working centrifuges at Natanz, it would take just over two years to produce enough highly enriched uranium for a bomb - without the IAEA safeguards which are currently in place. With 3,000 centrifuges, the number Iran has told the Europeans it wants to install at Natanz, it would take 271 days to produce the same amount of weapons-grade fuel. According to one expert, such a fuel cycle would be a clear indication that the Iranians are bent on building a bomb.
There are two ways of making a nuclear bomb: a relatively simple way which results in a plutonium bomb and a harder way using enriched uranium. But whichever route is followed, step one in making the fuel for a nuclear bomb - or a civilian reactor - is to mine uranium.
In step two, the uranium ore is ground into a powder and reconstituted into a solid known as yellowcake, which is radioactive. Step three involves the conversion of yellowcake into uranium hexafluoride gas.
In step four, the gas is fed into centrifuges, measuring one and a half metres tall, where the uranium enrichment takes place. This process increases the percentage of uranium-235 to the levels needed to be used as fuel in a civilian reactor, or a weapon, by separating the uranium isotopes in the rapidly spinning rotor tubes.
But there are well known problems with gas centrifuges. If they do not operate in a vacuum, rust and corrosion sets in. The spinning at enormous speeds can cause uncontrollable vibrations which can send shrapnel flying and cause explosions. The Iranians lost one third of their centrifuges when they agreed to halt uranium enrichment in November 2003 under an agreement with the European Union. That agreement was shattered last January when Iran reopened Natanz, where it tested an array of 20 centrifuges in vacuum conditions.
The method involving plutonium has a clear advantage because it needs much smaller quantities - 4kg rather than the 25kg of enriched uranium required to produce a bomb. Plutonium does not exist in a natural state, and is the product of reprocessed spent reactor fuel, after yellowcake has been reduced to uranium metal.
The extraction of plutonium is a serious engineering challenge as spent fuel is highly radioactive and toxic, and a very dangerous process.
The main worry for the West is that Iran has dabbled in all aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle, on both the enriched uranium route and the plutonium route.
It has a uranium mine, it has a conversion facility just outside the city of Isfahan, which was reopened last summer in violation of its agreement with the European Union, and it has the Natanz enrichment plant.
Although work has been suspended at Arak, 150 miles south of Tehran, Iran is in the early stages of constructing a heavy water plant that is to supply a research reactor which could eventually produce enough weapons-grade plutonium for one or two weapons per year.
Although nuclear experts say that the international community has been distracted by the crisis triggered over Iran's uranium enrichment programme, the plutonium experiments have the potential for creating a far more worrying situation. "With uranium, it's much easier to put in safeguards to monitor the atmosphere and instruments," said Paul Ingram, a senior analyst with the British American Security Information Council, which specialises in nuclear issues.
Nuclear reprocessing is more difficult for inspectors to verify, in terms of possible diversion for military purposes. And reprocessing can take place in a very small area. "It could be done in a plant the size of a house, in the middle of a mountain," if Iran decided to carry on with a clandestine programme, Mr Ingram said. "If the Iranians succeed in producing a heavy-water plant plus a reactor at Arak, then we are in a very difficult situation."
The Russians are helping Iran build a "safe" light-water reactor at Bushehr in the south of the country. Under an agreement with the Russians, the fuel rods for the reactor, which has not yet come on stream, are to come from Russia and will be sent back there for reprocessing to avoid any possible diversion.
The main nuclear powers, including Britain, followed the reprocessing route to build their modern arsenal. The US, in the early days, experimented with the fuel cycle of both enriched uranium and plutonium: the bomb that flattened Hiroshima in August 1945 was a uranium bomb, while the bomb that blasted Nagasaki three days later was plutonium.
Iraq went down the centrifuge route, although after 10 years of efforts, Saddam Hussein had still not produced a weapon when the UN inspectors belatedly discovered, and dismantled, its clandestine programme in the 1990s.
Pakistan also took the enrichment route, most probably because the father of the Muslim world's atom bomb, AQ Khan, worked in the 1970s for a Dutch uranium enrichment plant, Urenco, which supplied European reactors. He used a centrifuge design stolen from Urenco to build facilities in Pakistan for weapons-grade uranium.
So why did Iran decide to put its major effort into travelling along the bumpy road towards uranium enrichment?
In fact the Iranians were following both routes from the beginning. They bought their first nuclear reactor from the US, during the rule of the Shah. But the breakthrough came in the 1980s when Iran bought a blueprint for a P1 centrifuge from the AQ Khan network, which operated like a nuclear supermarket.
United Nations inspectors with the IAEA are still trying to unravel the history of Iran's nuclear know-how and have not proved without a doubt that the Iranians are working on a bomb.
Iran is meanwhile being asked by the UN Security Council to suspend all uranium enrichment work. Tehran has refused.
In the next few weeks, the West will have to decide what carrot, or what stick, to use next.
"In terms of strategy, the West needs to think more clearly about the need to work with the Iranians and the IAEA to keep the inspectors inside Iran. The key to all this is to ensure the IAEA is on the ground and with the Iranians co-operating," said Mr Ingram.
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/hirsch.php?articleid=8678
Gen. Pace to Troops: Don't Nuke Iran
Illegal, immoral orders should be disobeyed by Jorge Hirsch
At the luncheon of the National Press Club on Feb. 17, 2006, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Peter Pace, was asked by his interviewer, John Donnelly: "Should people in the U.S. military disobey orders that they believe are illegal?" Pace's response:
"It is the absolute responsibility of everybody in uniform to disobey an order that is either illegal or immoral."
Thank you, Gen. Pace. Donnelly didn't follow up on his question, so I will, trusting that your answers to my questions will represent your core beliefs, stated on earlier occasions. Gen. Pace, how does your Feb. 17 statement apply to a situation in which troops are ordered to use certain weapons?
Pace: "[T]hey will be held accountable for the decisions they make. So they should in fact not obey the illegal and immoral orders to use weapons of mass destruction."
Now what about the commanders that receive orders from their superiors?
Pace: "I believe that a lot of the commanders, in fact, do recognize that they do have a free choice in this, that they should not execute orders that are illegal and immoral, such as any order to use any kind of a weapon of mass destruction."
But aren't commanders supposed to follow orders from their superiors, including the president and the secretary of defense?
Pace: "They can still not commit crimes against humanity. They can still not execute any kinds of orders that might tell them to use weapons of mass destruction."
And will these choices affect their future?
Pace: "[T]hey still have very clear choices to make, and their choices will have major impact, both on the troops who look to them for leadership right now and on their own personal fate when this is all over."
And Gen. Pace, do you trust U.S. servicemen and women to do the right thing?
Pace: "I think that there are Iraqi soldiers out there who know what is right and who will in fact disobey illegal and immoral orders."
Oops, wrong soldiers. Nonetheless, no one should doubt that if Pace trusts Iraqi soldiers to do the right thing, he will trust American soldiers to do the right thing.
Conclusion: The chairman of the Joints Chief of Staff has warned everybody in uniform that if they execute an illegal or immoral order or they instruct their subordinates to execute an illegal and immoral order involving the use of any kind of weapon of mass destruction, they are derelict in their "absolute responsibility," and consequently fully responsible for the "crimes against humanity" resulting from their choice. You obey your orders at your own risk. This includes every soldier and commander in the U.S. armed forces. It includes you, Gen. John Abizaid. Thank you, Gen. Pace.
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Pace is one of the good ones. He has a clear moral compass that tells him what is right and what is criminal. That is the good news. The bad news is, Pace has no executive authority over combatant forces, as established in the Goldwater-Nichols Act: he merely plays an advisory role.
Operational control flows from the president and the secretary of defense directly to the commanders of the Unified Combatant Commands. Gen. Abizaid is CENTCOM's (Central Command's) commander, with jurisdiction over the Middle East region. Abizaid is one of the bad ones.
I don't know Abizaid personally. He may be a good family man and care for his pets. But he has stated, "Why the Iranians would want to move against us in an overt manner that would cause us to use our air or naval power against them would be beyond me," and in the same breath, "If you ever even contemplate our nuclear capability, it should give everybody the clear understanding that there is no power that can match the United States militarily."
Abizaid is bad not necessarily because he is evil but because he is ignorant. He was born six years after Hiroshima, and in his purely military education and rapidly rising military career there may have been little or no time to get educated on the great dangers of nuclear war. As geographic combatant commander in the Persian Gulf region, he is the designated commander to "request presidential approval for use of nuclear weapons for a variety of conditions" that are likely to apply to the Iran scenario.
Gen. James E. Cartwright, head of U.S. Strategic Command, is another bad one. He is in charge of "combating weapons of mass destruction" with our "weapons of mass destruction," whose scope "broadened considerably" following the 2001 Nuclear Posture Review. Cartwright promises to "provide a range of options, both nuclear and non-nuclear, relevant to the threat and military operations" [.pdf] and to "offer the combatant commander greater situational awareness and more options than originally thought available." There is no indication that he fathoms that there is a difference between nuclear and non-nuclear weapons.
Abizaid and Cartwright will get their orders from the ugly ones at the top: Bush [1], [2], Cheney [1], [2], Rumsfeld [1], [2], [3], with the advice of the other "nuclear warriors" [1], [2]. Cartwright, Abizaid, and everyone below them should listen to Pace: "It is the absolute responsibility of everybody in uniform to disobey an order that is either illegal or immoral."
Are Nuclear Weapons Illegal or Immoral?
There should be no doubt in anyone's mind that nuclear weapons are the WMD par excellence [1], [2], [3]. What about low-yield nuclear weapons used against underground facilities [.pdf]? Nuclear-weapons advocates tout the benefits of such weapons as being militarily effective, causing "reduced collateral damage" (RCD), and increasing the "flexibility of nuclear strike forces." There is, however, no sharp line dividing small nuclear weapons from large ones, or RCD from non-RCD. Once any nuclear weapon is used, the door is wide open for the use of all nuclear weapons.
Addressing the legal status of the threat and use of nuclear weapons, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) determined in 1996 that "the threat or use of nuclear weapons would generally be contrary to the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, and in particular the principles and rules of humanitarian law." The United States submitted a dissenting opinion, arguing that "there is no general prohibition in conventional or customary international law on the threat or use of nuclear weapons [.pdf]." However, the U.S. is just one of the 191 member states of the United Nations, while the ICJ is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations. It has delivered 92 judgments, 21 of which involved the United States, and the U.S. as a member state of the United Nations recognizes its jurisdiction and judgments.
Respected legal scholars [1], [2] argue that the ICJ statement, which was issued at the request of the UN General Assembly, has legal validity [1] [.pdf], [2]. Furthermore, the U.S. issued a "negative security assurance" [.pdf] to the UN in 1995 promising not to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear-weapon signatories of the NPT, which it can be argued is independently legally binding [1], [2]. Robert McNamara, U.S. secretary of state 1961-1968, states that the U.S. reliance on nuclear weapons as a foreign-policy tool is "immoral, illegal and dreadfully dangerous."
The conviction that nuclear weapons are immoral is shared by most human beings [1], [2], [3], because such weapons cause an immense amount of indiscriminate destruction. It is obvious to most rational people that once the nuclear genie is out of the bottle, there is no return. No matter how small the next nuclear weapon used is, there is no line dividing small nuclear weapons from large ones, and escalation can rapidly lead to loss of life in the millions. Therefore the fact that a small nuclear weapon would cause a limited amount of destruction does not exclude "low-yield" or earth-penetrating nuclear weapons directed against facilities from the category of WMD, and hence from the category of illegal and immoral weapons.
There should be no doubt in anybody's mind that when Pace refers to "any kind of a weapon of mass destruction" as being illegal and immoral, he includes all nuclear weapons, and that if American servicemen and women consider orders regarding nuclear weapons illegal or immoral and act accordingly, the vast majority of the country will stand behind them and support them.
What Are Service Members' Responsibilities?
If you believe that nuclear weapons are illegal or immoral or both, which orders concerning nuclear weapons are illegal or immoral and should be disobeyed?
A natural answer is that any order that could lead with reasonable probability to the use of nuclear weapons should be disobeyed. Here it becomes important to consider the context: there is a set of conditions in place that makes the use of nuclear weapons highly likely if a military confrontation with Iran erupts [1], [2], [3]. Given those conditions, it can be argued that any order involving an attack on Iran, even with conventional weapons, is immoral because it is likely to lead to the use of nuclear weapons, and, that any order concerning deployment of tactical nuclear weapons [.pdf] in the Persian Gulf region is illegal and immoral because it makes preparations for the purpose of committing an illegal and immoral act. The aircraft pilot who actually pushes the bomb-release button that drops the B61-11 on an Iranian facility is not the only one who will have obeyed illegal and immoral orders.
Beyond the service member's absolute responsibility to disobey illegal or immoral orders, it is also arguably his/her responsibility to discourage and even prevent others from following illegal or immoral orders. In connection with prisoner abuse, Pace stated, "It is absolutely the responsibility of every U.S. service member, if they see inhumane treatment being conducted, to intervene to stop it." When his own boss, Donald Rumsfeld, contradicted him, "But I don't think you mean they have an obligation to physically stop it; it's to report it," Pace stuck to his guns, responding, "If they are physically present when inhumane treatment is taking place, sir, they have an obligation to try to stop it." And indeed, the Pentagon later confirmed that Pace's statement, not Rumsfeld's, was the correct one.
Similarly, it is a logical conclusion that if a U.S. service member has an absolute responsibility to disobey illegal or immoral orders concerning weapons of mass destruction, he/she would also have an obligation to try to stop others from following such orders. For example, a service member witnessing the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons [.pdf], even if he/she is not directly involved in the action, would have a moral responsibility to act to try to stop it. Actions that one should contemplate to stop others from following illegal or immoral orders could involve persuasion, whistleblowing, and even physical intervention.
Even Rumsfeld has urged men and women in uniform (albeit Iraqi ones) to disobey orders to use weapons of mass destruction, and has stated that "it will be no excuse to say: I was just following orders." Take these urgings to heart.
Consequences for People in Uniform
Deciding whether an order is illegal and/or immoral can be difficult. Yet that is not an argument in favor of obeying orders, because obeying illegal or immoral orders is a choice that has consequences. The following principles of the Nuremberg tribunal are relevant:
"I. Any person who commits an act which constitutes a crime under international law is responsible therefor and liable to punishment."
"IV. The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him."
"VII. Complicity in the commission of a crime against peace, a war crime, or a crime against humanity as set forth in Principles VI is a crime under international law."
In the Nuremberg trials, 207 defendants were tried and 161 found guilty of at least one charge. Among the charges listed in Principle VI are "waging of a war of aggression," "wanton destruction not justified by military necessity," "committing acts of devastation," and "violations of the laws or customs of war." High- and low-ranking government officials, senior and junior commanding officers were tried and convicted.
Could American service members face such charges in the aftermath of nuclear attack on Iran? You be the judge. The B61-11 nuclear earth penetrator is deployed [.pdf] but has never been tested. Its effect could be much larger than predicted, as has happened in other cases. Predictions of the level of radioactive fallout are highly uncertain, as they depend on weather conditions and wind patterns. According to a 2005 study by the National Academy of Sciences, "the estimated number of casualties ranges over four orders of magnitude – from hundreds to over a million – depending on the combination of assumptions used." And the long-term health effects over periods of years or decades are even more difficult to estimate.
Let us not forget that the German government in the period 1933-1945 did not consider illegal many actions, which brings us to Principle II:
"The fact that internal law does not impose a penalty for an act which constitutes a crime under international law does not relieve the person who committed the act from responsibility under international law."
Consequences for Civilian Officials
Principle III of the Nuremberg tribunal states:
"The fact that a person who committed an act which constitutes a crime under international law acted as Head of State or responsible Government official does not relieve him from responsibility under international law."
Many high-ranking government officials were indicted and found guilty in the Nuremberg trials. These included the deputy head of state, the minister of armaments, the minister of foreign affairs, the chief of the High Command of the Armed Forces (OKW) (who translated the head of state's ideas into military orders), the state secretary in the Foreign Office, the chief of intelligence, the state secretary in the Ministry of Interior, the chief of the Planning Office in the Armaments Ministry, members of the Ministry of Justice, and many others.
Could Cheney, Rumsfeld, Hadley, Joseph, Cambone, Brooks, Crouch, Bolton, and others in the administration face a similar fate? Principle VI of the Nuremberg tribunal includes as a punishable crime "participation in a common plan or conspiracy" to commit proscribed acts. Those government officials have in common that they advocate aggressive nuclear policies and promote the development of new and more usable nuclear weapons. In their role as decision-makers, planners, and advisers to decision-makers, they will be culpable if the U.S. uses nuclear weapons against Iran.
The United States' use of nuclear weapons against Iran, even small ones, could easily lead to escalation of the conflict and to the use of larger nuclear weapons, and even to the possible involvement of other nuclear weapon states. It could result in hundreds of thousands, even millions, of deaths. The American people have not been asked whether they support courses of action with such potential consequences. They will hold government officials that play a role in these events responsible for their actions. So will the rest of the world.
The Morning After
Judgment and punishment may not come immediately. Depending on how events unfold, it may take a while until the enormous significance of what was done sinks in.
Initially, it will seem that the use of tactical nuclear weapons was required by military necessity. Slowly, evidence will accumulate that the use of nuclear weapons against Iran was a premeditated act, following many years of planning [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6]. No matter how careful planners were in erasing their tracks, evidence will slowly surface. Classified information will become declassified. Leaks will occur.
Nuclear terrorism against the U.S. will become enormously more likely after the U.S. used nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear country in a war of aggression. Arguments to justify the U.S. action, invoking the necessity of preemption, will ring hollow. There are many "loose nukes" around, and one of them may well find its way into an American city, well before Iran or any other "rogue" country manages to enrich enough uranium. Recall that no "chemical terrorism" against the U.S. has ever occurred, despite the fact that there are plenty of chemicals around. Terrorists seem to have a twisted logic that only weapons used by the U.S. are worthy of being used against the U.S.
Whether or not nuclear terrorism occurs against the U.S., there will be a general sense in America that "we have it coming" if the U.S. nukes Iran. Sooner or later there will be a sea change in the American political landscape and in the public mindset, as there was in Germany after 1945. The pendulum will swing, and a new pacifist administration will abhor these events and seek to punish the perpetrators, if only to restore some furbish to America's image in the world.
Nuremberg sentences ranged from 10 years in prison to death.
Moral Choices
"They still have very clear choices to make, and their choices will have major impact," said Gen. Pace. Listen to him. Disobey illegal or immoral orders. Ask Congress to intervene.
There are whistleblower protection acts that protect military personnel [.pdf] and federal employees [.pdf] who disclose information concerning "a substantial or specific danger to public health or safety," specifically to members of Congress. The National Security Whistleblowers Coalition aids whistleblowers that reveal facts that "compromise the national security of the United States."
The deployment of tactical nuclear weapons in the Persian Gulf is likely to be authorized by NSPD 35 of 2004. A similar, top-secret "Nuclear Weapons Deployment Authorization" was issued by Nixon in 1974, giving presidential approval for deployment in many locations worldwide, unbeknownst to the public for many years. Deployment in the Persian Gulf is probably being carried out at this very moment, with the specific intent of keeping it secret as regulated by the just announced Navy Order OPNAVINST 5721.1F [.pdf]. Such an order was also issued by the Navy in 1974 [.pdf]. However, at that time, unlike today, there was a powerful deterrent to the use of nuclear weapons: mutually assured destruction. This is no longer true today, and deployment of tactical nuclear weapons is likely to precipitate events leading to the loss of many lives. Those carrying out the deployment are making a choice.
There are also choices to be made by every American. Where are the good Americans? Don't sit by and let this happen! Ask Congress to ask Rumsfeld whether tactical nuclear weapons are being deployed. Ask Congress to limit the authority of the executive to order the use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear countries. Do whatever you can do to protect yourself and your country.
A global nuclear war can lead to the death of every human being on this planet. World War I and World War II killed 10 million and 60 million human beings respectively, many more than anybody had anticipated before the wars started. Nuclear weapons are a million times more powerful than the weapons used in WWI and WWII. We have a National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction, so let us also combat our own WMD!
Using a single small nuclear weapon against Iran will start the ball rolling, a snowball that will roll downhill, gathering more mass and speed and momentum as it races toward the abyss, engulfing every human being in its path of unimaginable destruction, culminating in darkness, death, and extinction.
Make your moral choices now while you still can.
Gen. Pace to Troops: Don't Nuke Iran
Illegal, immoral orders should be disobeyed by Jorge Hirsch
At the luncheon of the National Press Club on Feb. 17, 2006, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Peter Pace, was asked by his interviewer, John Donnelly: "Should people in the U.S. military disobey orders that they believe are illegal?" Pace's response:
"It is the absolute responsibility of everybody in uniform to disobey an order that is either illegal or immoral."
Thank you, Gen. Pace. Donnelly didn't follow up on his question, so I will, trusting that your answers to my questions will represent your core beliefs, stated on earlier occasions. Gen. Pace, how does your Feb. 17 statement apply to a situation in which troops are ordered to use certain weapons?
Pace: "[T]hey will be held accountable for the decisions they make. So they should in fact not obey the illegal and immoral orders to use weapons of mass destruction."
Now what about the commanders that receive orders from their superiors?
Pace: "I believe that a lot of the commanders, in fact, do recognize that they do have a free choice in this, that they should not execute orders that are illegal and immoral, such as any order to use any kind of a weapon of mass destruction."
But aren't commanders supposed to follow orders from their superiors, including the president and the secretary of defense?
Pace: "They can still not commit crimes against humanity. They can still not execute any kinds of orders that might tell them to use weapons of mass destruction."
And will these choices affect their future?
Pace: "[T]hey still have very clear choices to make, and their choices will have major impact, both on the troops who look to them for leadership right now and on their own personal fate when this is all over."
And Gen. Pace, do you trust U.S. servicemen and women to do the right thing?
Pace: "I think that there are Iraqi soldiers out there who know what is right and who will in fact disobey illegal and immoral orders."
Oops, wrong soldiers. Nonetheless, no one should doubt that if Pace trusts Iraqi soldiers to do the right thing, he will trust American soldiers to do the right thing.
Conclusion: The chairman of the Joints Chief of Staff has warned everybody in uniform that if they execute an illegal or immoral order or they instruct their subordinates to execute an illegal and immoral order involving the use of any kind of weapon of mass destruction, they are derelict in their "absolute responsibility," and consequently fully responsible for the "crimes against humanity" resulting from their choice. You obey your orders at your own risk. This includes every soldier and commander in the U.S. armed forces. It includes you, Gen. John Abizaid. Thank you, Gen. Pace.
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Pace is one of the good ones. He has a clear moral compass that tells him what is right and what is criminal. That is the good news. The bad news is, Pace has no executive authority over combatant forces, as established in the Goldwater-Nichols Act: he merely plays an advisory role.
Operational control flows from the president and the secretary of defense directly to the commanders of the Unified Combatant Commands. Gen. Abizaid is CENTCOM's (Central Command's) commander, with jurisdiction over the Middle East region. Abizaid is one of the bad ones.
I don't know Abizaid personally. He may be a good family man and care for his pets. But he has stated, "Why the Iranians would want to move against us in an overt manner that would cause us to use our air or naval power against them would be beyond me," and in the same breath, "If you ever even contemplate our nuclear capability, it should give everybody the clear understanding that there is no power that can match the United States militarily."
Abizaid is bad not necessarily because he is evil but because he is ignorant. He was born six years after Hiroshima, and in his purely military education and rapidly rising military career there may have been little or no time to get educated on the great dangers of nuclear war. As geographic combatant commander in the Persian Gulf region, he is the designated commander to "request presidential approval for use of nuclear weapons for a variety of conditions" that are likely to apply to the Iran scenario.
Gen. James E. Cartwright, head of U.S. Strategic Command, is another bad one. He is in charge of "combating weapons of mass destruction" with our "weapons of mass destruction," whose scope "broadened considerably" following the 2001 Nuclear Posture Review. Cartwright promises to "provide a range of options, both nuclear and non-nuclear, relevant to the threat and military operations" [.pdf] and to "offer the combatant commander greater situational awareness and more options than originally thought available." There is no indication that he fathoms that there is a difference between nuclear and non-nuclear weapons.
Abizaid and Cartwright will get their orders from the ugly ones at the top: Bush [1], [2], Cheney [1], [2], Rumsfeld [1], [2], [3], with the advice of the other "nuclear warriors" [1], [2]. Cartwright, Abizaid, and everyone below them should listen to Pace: "It is the absolute responsibility of everybody in uniform to disobey an order that is either illegal or immoral."
Are Nuclear Weapons Illegal or Immoral?
There should be no doubt in anyone's mind that nuclear weapons are the WMD par excellence [1], [2], [3]. What about low-yield nuclear weapons used against underground facilities [.pdf]? Nuclear-weapons advocates tout the benefits of such weapons as being militarily effective, causing "reduced collateral damage" (RCD), and increasing the "flexibility of nuclear strike forces." There is, however, no sharp line dividing small nuclear weapons from large ones, or RCD from non-RCD. Once any nuclear weapon is used, the door is wide open for the use of all nuclear weapons.
Addressing the legal status of the threat and use of nuclear weapons, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) determined in 1996 that "the threat or use of nuclear weapons would generally be contrary to the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, and in particular the principles and rules of humanitarian law." The United States submitted a dissenting opinion, arguing that "there is no general prohibition in conventional or customary international law on the threat or use of nuclear weapons [.pdf]." However, the U.S. is just one of the 191 member states of the United Nations, while the ICJ is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations. It has delivered 92 judgments, 21 of which involved the United States, and the U.S. as a member state of the United Nations recognizes its jurisdiction and judgments.
Respected legal scholars [1], [2] argue that the ICJ statement, which was issued at the request of the UN General Assembly, has legal validity [1] [.pdf], [2]. Furthermore, the U.S. issued a "negative security assurance" [.pdf] to the UN in 1995 promising not to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear-weapon signatories of the NPT, which it can be argued is independently legally binding [1], [2]. Robert McNamara, U.S. secretary of state 1961-1968, states that the U.S. reliance on nuclear weapons as a foreign-policy tool is "immoral, illegal and dreadfully dangerous."
The conviction that nuclear weapons are immoral is shared by most human beings [1], [2], [3], because such weapons cause an immense amount of indiscriminate destruction. It is obvious to most rational people that once the nuclear genie is out of the bottle, there is no return. No matter how small the next nuclear weapon used is, there is no line dividing small nuclear weapons from large ones, and escalation can rapidly lead to loss of life in the millions. Therefore the fact that a small nuclear weapon would cause a limited amount of destruction does not exclude "low-yield" or earth-penetrating nuclear weapons directed against facilities from the category of WMD, and hence from the category of illegal and immoral weapons.
There should be no doubt in anybody's mind that when Pace refers to "any kind of a weapon of mass destruction" as being illegal and immoral, he includes all nuclear weapons, and that if American servicemen and women consider orders regarding nuclear weapons illegal or immoral and act accordingly, the vast majority of the country will stand behind them and support them.
What Are Service Members' Responsibilities?
If you believe that nuclear weapons are illegal or immoral or both, which orders concerning nuclear weapons are illegal or immoral and should be disobeyed?
A natural answer is that any order that could lead with reasonable probability to the use of nuclear weapons should be disobeyed. Here it becomes important to consider the context: there is a set of conditions in place that makes the use of nuclear weapons highly likely if a military confrontation with Iran erupts [1], [2], [3]. Given those conditions, it can be argued that any order involving an attack on Iran, even with conventional weapons, is immoral because it is likely to lead to the use of nuclear weapons, and, that any order concerning deployment of tactical nuclear weapons [.pdf] in the Persian Gulf region is illegal and immoral because it makes preparations for the purpose of committing an illegal and immoral act. The aircraft pilot who actually pushes the bomb-release button that drops the B61-11 on an Iranian facility is not the only one who will have obeyed illegal and immoral orders.
Beyond the service member's absolute responsibility to disobey illegal or immoral orders, it is also arguably his/her responsibility to discourage and even prevent others from following illegal or immoral orders. In connection with prisoner abuse, Pace stated, "It is absolutely the responsibility of every U.S. service member, if they see inhumane treatment being conducted, to intervene to stop it." When his own boss, Donald Rumsfeld, contradicted him, "But I don't think you mean they have an obligation to physically stop it; it's to report it," Pace stuck to his guns, responding, "If they are physically present when inhumane treatment is taking place, sir, they have an obligation to try to stop it." And indeed, the Pentagon later confirmed that Pace's statement, not Rumsfeld's, was the correct one.
Similarly, it is a logical conclusion that if a U.S. service member has an absolute responsibility to disobey illegal or immoral orders concerning weapons of mass destruction, he/she would also have an obligation to try to stop others from following such orders. For example, a service member witnessing the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons [.pdf], even if he/she is not directly involved in the action, would have a moral responsibility to act to try to stop it. Actions that one should contemplate to stop others from following illegal or immoral orders could involve persuasion, whistleblowing, and even physical intervention.
Even Rumsfeld has urged men and women in uniform (albeit Iraqi ones) to disobey orders to use weapons of mass destruction, and has stated that "it will be no excuse to say: I was just following orders." Take these urgings to heart.
Consequences for People in Uniform
Deciding whether an order is illegal and/or immoral can be difficult. Yet that is not an argument in favor of obeying orders, because obeying illegal or immoral orders is a choice that has consequences. The following principles of the Nuremberg tribunal are relevant:
"I. Any person who commits an act which constitutes a crime under international law is responsible therefor and liable to punishment."
"IV. The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him."
"VII. Complicity in the commission of a crime against peace, a war crime, or a crime against humanity as set forth in Principles VI is a crime under international law."
In the Nuremberg trials, 207 defendants were tried and 161 found guilty of at least one charge. Among the charges listed in Principle VI are "waging of a war of aggression," "wanton destruction not justified by military necessity," "committing acts of devastation," and "violations of the laws or customs of war." High- and low-ranking government officials, senior and junior commanding officers were tried and convicted.
Could American service members face such charges in the aftermath of nuclear attack on Iran? You be the judge. The B61-11 nuclear earth penetrator is deployed [.pdf] but has never been tested. Its effect could be much larger than predicted, as has happened in other cases. Predictions of the level of radioactive fallout are highly uncertain, as they depend on weather conditions and wind patterns. According to a 2005 study by the National Academy of Sciences, "the estimated number of casualties ranges over four orders of magnitude – from hundreds to over a million – depending on the combination of assumptions used." And the long-term health effects over periods of years or decades are even more difficult to estimate.
Let us not forget that the German government in the period 1933-1945 did not consider illegal many actions, which brings us to Principle II:
"The fact that internal law does not impose a penalty for an act which constitutes a crime under international law does not relieve the person who committed the act from responsibility under international law."
Consequences for Civilian Officials
Principle III of the Nuremberg tribunal states:
"The fact that a person who committed an act which constitutes a crime under international law acted as Head of State or responsible Government official does not relieve him from responsibility under international law."
Many high-ranking government officials were indicted and found guilty in the Nuremberg trials. These included the deputy head of state, the minister of armaments, the minister of foreign affairs, the chief of the High Command of the Armed Forces (OKW) (who translated the head of state's ideas into military orders), the state secretary in the Foreign Office, the chief of intelligence, the state secretary in the Ministry of Interior, the chief of the Planning Office in the Armaments Ministry, members of the Ministry of Justice, and many others.
Could Cheney, Rumsfeld, Hadley, Joseph, Cambone, Brooks, Crouch, Bolton, and others in the administration face a similar fate? Principle VI of the Nuremberg tribunal includes as a punishable crime "participation in a common plan or conspiracy" to commit proscribed acts. Those government officials have in common that they advocate aggressive nuclear policies and promote the development of new and more usable nuclear weapons. In their role as decision-makers, planners, and advisers to decision-makers, they will be culpable if the U.S. uses nuclear weapons against Iran.
The United States' use of nuclear weapons against Iran, even small ones, could easily lead to escalation of the conflict and to the use of larger nuclear weapons, and even to the possible involvement of other nuclear weapon states. It could result in hundreds of thousands, even millions, of deaths. The American people have not been asked whether they support courses of action with such potential consequences. They will hold government officials that play a role in these events responsible for their actions. So will the rest of the world.
The Morning After
Judgment and punishment may not come immediately. Depending on how events unfold, it may take a while until the enormous significance of what was done sinks in.
Initially, it will seem that the use of tactical nuclear weapons was required by military necessity. Slowly, evidence will accumulate that the use of nuclear weapons against Iran was a premeditated act, following many years of planning [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6]. No matter how careful planners were in erasing their tracks, evidence will slowly surface. Classified information will become declassified. Leaks will occur.
Nuclear terrorism against the U.S. will become enormously more likely after the U.S. used nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear country in a war of aggression. Arguments to justify the U.S. action, invoking the necessity of preemption, will ring hollow. There are many "loose nukes" around, and one of them may well find its way into an American city, well before Iran or any other "rogue" country manages to enrich enough uranium. Recall that no "chemical terrorism" against the U.S. has ever occurred, despite the fact that there are plenty of chemicals around. Terrorists seem to have a twisted logic that only weapons used by the U.S. are worthy of being used against the U.S.
Whether or not nuclear terrorism occurs against the U.S., there will be a general sense in America that "we have it coming" if the U.S. nukes Iran. Sooner or later there will be a sea change in the American political landscape and in the public mindset, as there was in Germany after 1945. The pendulum will swing, and a new pacifist administration will abhor these events and seek to punish the perpetrators, if only to restore some furbish to America's image in the world.
Nuremberg sentences ranged from 10 years in prison to death.
Moral Choices
"They still have very clear choices to make, and their choices will have major impact," said Gen. Pace. Listen to him. Disobey illegal or immoral orders. Ask Congress to intervene.
There are whistleblower protection acts that protect military personnel [.pdf] and federal employees [.pdf] who disclose information concerning "a substantial or specific danger to public health or safety," specifically to members of Congress. The National Security Whistleblowers Coalition aids whistleblowers that reveal facts that "compromise the national security of the United States."
The deployment of tactical nuclear weapons in the Persian Gulf is likely to be authorized by NSPD 35 of 2004. A similar, top-secret "Nuclear Weapons Deployment Authorization" was issued by Nixon in 1974, giving presidential approval for deployment in many locations worldwide, unbeknownst to the public for many years. Deployment in the Persian Gulf is probably being carried out at this very moment, with the specific intent of keeping it secret as regulated by the just announced Navy Order OPNAVINST 5721.1F [.pdf]. Such an order was also issued by the Navy in 1974 [.pdf]. However, at that time, unlike today, there was a powerful deterrent to the use of nuclear weapons: mutually assured destruction. This is no longer true today, and deployment of tactical nuclear weapons is likely to precipitate events leading to the loss of many lives. Those carrying out the deployment are making a choice.
There are also choices to be made by every American. Where are the good Americans? Don't sit by and let this happen! Ask Congress to ask Rumsfeld whether tactical nuclear weapons are being deployed. Ask Congress to limit the authority of the executive to order the use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear countries. Do whatever you can do to protect yourself and your country.
A global nuclear war can lead to the death of every human being on this planet. World War I and World War II killed 10 million and 60 million human beings respectively, many more than anybody had anticipated before the wars started. Nuclear weapons are a million times more powerful than the weapons used in WWI and WWII. We have a National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction, so let us also combat our own WMD!
Using a single small nuclear weapon against Iran will start the ball rolling, a snowball that will roll downhill, gathering more mass and speed and momentum as it races toward the abyss, engulfing every human being in its path of unimaginable destruction, culminating in darkness, death, and extinction.
Make your moral choices now while you still can.
Animation on the possible effects of nuclear 'bunker-buster' bombs, from the Union of Concerned Scientists:
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_security/nucl...-animation.html
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_security/nucl...-animation.html
http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/200...unning-iran.htm
Focus: Gunning for Iran
Against the odds, America is said to be planning a military strike on Iran. Sarah Baxter reports from Washington
In-Depth Coverage
It is seven o’clock in the morning eastern standard time when the news comes through to Americans at their breakfast tables. President George W Bush will shortly be addressing the nation live from the Oval Office. Moments later he is on air, announcing in a sombre drawl that Iran’s nuclear sites have been struck during the night by American bombers.
“You can see the shape of the speech the president will give,” said Richard Perle, a leading American neo-conservative. “He will cite the Iranians’ past pattern of deception, their support for terrorism and the unacceptable menace the nation would present if it had nuclear weapons.
“The attack would be over before anybody knew what had happened. The only question would be what the Iranians might do in retaliation.”
Sounds far-fetched? Think again. The unthinkable, or what Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, described only a few weeks ago as “inconceivable”, is now being actively planned in the Pentagon.
White House insiders say that Bush and Dick Cheney, his hawkish vice-president, have made up their minds to resolve the Iranian crisis before they leave office in three years’ time.
They say that military intervention — in the form of a massive strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities — is being planned and that Bush is prepared to order the raid unless Iran scraps its nuclear programme.
“This White House believes that the only way to solve the problem is to change the power structure in Iran, and that means war,” a senior unnamed Pentagon adviser is quoted as saying in an article by Seymour Hersh, the respected American investigative journalist, in tomorrow’s New Yorker magazine.
The Sunday Times was last week given the same message. A senior White House source said Bush and Cheney were determined not to bequeath the problem of a nuclear Iran to their successors. “It’s not in their nature,” he said.
White House insiders scoff that Bill Clinton left Al-Qaeda unchecked. A nuclear-armed Iran, they believe, is too dangerous to be left to a potential Democrat president.
One date is said to be etched in the minds of military planners: 2008. Word has gone out that the Iranian nuclear crisis must be resolved by then or the regime of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, with its Israel-baiting rhetoric, will face military consequences.
Hersh reports that one option involves the use of a bunker-buster tactical nuclear weapon, such as the B61-11, to ensure the destruction of Iran’s main centrifuge plant at Natanz.
The Sunday Times understands that a strike with a conventional weapon is much more likely. By 2008 a new bunker-busting missile called the Big Blu should be available to the US air force. The 30,000lb behemoth is being designed for dispatch by the B-series stealth bombers and can penetrate 100ft under the ground before exploding.
Trident ballistic missiles, newly converted to carry conventional warheads, may also be on hand by 2008, providing Bush with further options.
What is going on at the White House? Is Bush really contemplating a strike against Iran or might his officials simply be talking up the possibility to strengthen their negotiating hand with Iran? If military action were to be launched, what would be the consequences for America, the Middle East and Britain?
UNTIL Ahmadinejad won the Iranian presidency on a tide of popular support that caught the West by surprise last June, Iran had been seen by many commentators as being on the mend.
American neo-cons had hoped the invasion of Iraq would set in train a domino effect across the region, with the people of Iran and other oil-rich states rising up to demand western-style freedoms and democracy.
Unfortunately the reverse has been true, in Iran at least. Since taking power, Ahmadinejad has openly embraced a tide of nationalism and anti-Israeli and American sentiment.
The rhetoric has been matched with action. He has restarted Iran’s nuclear enrichment programme, placing the country in breach of its international obligations and on a collision course with the West.
Seemingly emboldened by America’s problems in Iraq, last week Ahmadinejad continued his baiting of the West by staging ostentatious war games in the Gulf.
The hardware on display — flashy missiles, torpedoes and rockets — may be no match for US weaponry, but it served as a warning of the disruption that the regime could cause to the global economy by blocking the Straits of Hormuz, the corridor through which much of the Middle East’s oil flows.
“The importance of the ‘Great Prophet’ manoeuvre lies in the time and geographical place as well as the arms used,” General Yahya Rahim Safavi, head of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards, said pointedly.
Revelling in the international spotlight and apparently oblivious to his growing pariah status, Ahmadinejad will this week up the anti by hosting an international conference focused on Palestine and “the Holocaust myth”.
IT IS against this backdrop and in the context of the race to find a diplomatic solution at the United Nations that the White House is briefing on military action against Iran.
Some observers will interpret it as more posturing than reality.
Nevertheless, the US administration is nothing if not tenacious and there was a growing feeling in Washington last week that Bush really has put a military option on the table. While the British and Europeans are still placing faith in diplomacy, the Americans are actively preparing for the worst case scenario, it is said.
Furthermore, while it is true that setbacks in Iraq have diminished American enthusiasm for military intervention, it would be a mistake to conclude that the American public, with its horror of the ayatollahs and memory of the 1979 embassy siege in Tehran, would not stomach a strike, Bush officials believe.
“The American people are not looking for new fights but they understand the nature of the Iranian threat very clearly,” said a senior American defence official. “I don’t see anyone out there saying, ‘Oh, we have to be nice to Iran’.”
Senior military planners at the Pentagon met recently to assess such an attack’s chances of success. They told the White House that they had yet to map all of Iran’s nuclear enrichment sites and that several were buried under deep granite mountains. A strike now could set the mullahs’ programme back only a couple of years at most.
Fast-forward to 2008 and the picture changes. By then more intelligence will have been gathered on the location of sites. And, crucially, Big Blu should be ready.
The damage, if not total, say experts, would be considerable. “The Iranians need 100% of their programme to build nuclear bombs,” the American defence analyst John Pike, of globalsecurity.org, pointed out. “We don’t have to destroy 100% of their facilities to deny the ayatollahs a nuclear capability.”
Edward Luttwak, a Pentagon adviser and expert on military strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, is a leading advocate of the theory that Iran’s nuclear installations could be bombed “in a single night”.
Inside the Pentagon, top officials have been citing Luttwak’s views. Air strikes by a handful of B2 bombers, flying out of the British dependency of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, would be enough to demolish the most critical Iranian nuclear sites such as Natanz, Arak and Isfahan.
“You don’t need to solve the problem of Iran, you just need to delay the mullahs for a few years, expose their vainglory and hope that the Iranians, most of whom hate this regime, will get rid of them,” Luttwak said.
It is a tempting prospect for Bush, who is determined to leave his mark on history as a “consequential president”, as Karl Rove, his adviser and guru, once put it. However, there is considerable nervousness among administration officials about the Iranians’ potential reaction.
“We’re in a state of flux about military action,” said a White House insider. “We can bomb the sites, but what then?” Will America hold its nerve if events take a sharp turn for the worse?
IF attacked, there is no doubt that Iran could unleash a wave of terrorism in the West and Israel and destabilise its all-too-fragile Iraqi neighbour. An attack would almost certainly also encourage Iranians to rally behind Ahmadinejad.
Luttwak admits that it would be disastrous if military action were to alienate pro-western Iranians, whom he regards as America’s “once and future allies” in the Middle East.
It is a view shared by many neo-conservatives, including Perle, who would prefer to see internal regime change in Iran rather than bombs raining down.
To this end the State Department has been awarded $75m to promote democracy in Iran. “It’s a safe bet the CIA has been given a budget 10 times that size,” observed Pike.
Last week there were reports that British ministers were to hold secret talks with defence chiefs to consider the consequences of a possible American-led attack on Iran.
The report was denied by Downing Street but there can be little doubt that the apparent change in American thinking must now be occupying minds throughout Whitehall.
Until recently it was assumed that any strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities would be left to the Israelis, who are the most interested party. That, say American defence sources, has changed on the grounds that only the US has the weaponry to perform the job in one night — presenting the world with a fait accompli.
More worrying for Labour perhaps is that under the American plans Britain would be expected to play a supporting role, perhaps by sending surveillance aircraft or ships and submarines to the Gulf or by allowing the Americans to fly from Diego Garcia.
Will Tony Blair still be in Downing Street by 2008 and, if not, would Gordon Brown as prime minister be willing to play ball on yet another military adventure in the Middle East? As public opinion stands, such a move could spell political suicide.
Larry Wilkerson, Colin Powell’s former chief of staff, believes Bush is compounding the mistakes he made in the run-up to the war in Iraq. “If you get to the point where you have to use your military, you’ll want everybody on board with you and we haven’t even tried,” he said.
Such considerations have failed to sway Bush and Cheney before. If their approval ratings remain in the doldrums, there may be an upside to a strike on Iran. “Regardless of how bad Bush’s poll numbers are, Americans love a display of firepower,” said Pike.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
© Copyright 2006, Times Newspapers Ltd.
Focus: Gunning for Iran
Against the odds, America is said to be planning a military strike on Iran. Sarah Baxter reports from Washington
In-Depth Coverage
It is seven o’clock in the morning eastern standard time when the news comes through to Americans at their breakfast tables. President George W Bush will shortly be addressing the nation live from the Oval Office. Moments later he is on air, announcing in a sombre drawl that Iran’s nuclear sites have been struck during the night by American bombers.
“You can see the shape of the speech the president will give,” said Richard Perle, a leading American neo-conservative. “He will cite the Iranians’ past pattern of deception, their support for terrorism and the unacceptable menace the nation would present if it had nuclear weapons.
“The attack would be over before anybody knew what had happened. The only question would be what the Iranians might do in retaliation.”
Sounds far-fetched? Think again. The unthinkable, or what Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, described only a few weeks ago as “inconceivable”, is now being actively planned in the Pentagon.
White House insiders say that Bush and Dick Cheney, his hawkish vice-president, have made up their minds to resolve the Iranian crisis before they leave office in three years’ time.
They say that military intervention — in the form of a massive strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities — is being planned and that Bush is prepared to order the raid unless Iran scraps its nuclear programme.
“This White House believes that the only way to solve the problem is to change the power structure in Iran, and that means war,” a senior unnamed Pentagon adviser is quoted as saying in an article by Seymour Hersh, the respected American investigative journalist, in tomorrow’s New Yorker magazine.
The Sunday Times was last week given the same message. A senior White House source said Bush and Cheney were determined not to bequeath the problem of a nuclear Iran to their successors. “It’s not in their nature,” he said.
White House insiders scoff that Bill Clinton left Al-Qaeda unchecked. A nuclear-armed Iran, they believe, is too dangerous to be left to a potential Democrat president.
One date is said to be etched in the minds of military planners: 2008. Word has gone out that the Iranian nuclear crisis must be resolved by then or the regime of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, with its Israel-baiting rhetoric, will face military consequences.
Hersh reports that one option involves the use of a bunker-buster tactical nuclear weapon, such as the B61-11, to ensure the destruction of Iran’s main centrifuge plant at Natanz.
The Sunday Times understands that a strike with a conventional weapon is much more likely. By 2008 a new bunker-busting missile called the Big Blu should be available to the US air force. The 30,000lb behemoth is being designed for dispatch by the B-series stealth bombers and can penetrate 100ft under the ground before exploding.
Trident ballistic missiles, newly converted to carry conventional warheads, may also be on hand by 2008, providing Bush with further options.
What is going on at the White House? Is Bush really contemplating a strike against Iran or might his officials simply be talking up the possibility to strengthen their negotiating hand with Iran? If military action were to be launched, what would be the consequences for America, the Middle East and Britain?
UNTIL Ahmadinejad won the Iranian presidency on a tide of popular support that caught the West by surprise last June, Iran had been seen by many commentators as being on the mend.
American neo-cons had hoped the invasion of Iraq would set in train a domino effect across the region, with the people of Iran and other oil-rich states rising up to demand western-style freedoms and democracy.
Unfortunately the reverse has been true, in Iran at least. Since taking power, Ahmadinejad has openly embraced a tide of nationalism and anti-Israeli and American sentiment.
The rhetoric has been matched with action. He has restarted Iran’s nuclear enrichment programme, placing the country in breach of its international obligations and on a collision course with the West.
Seemingly emboldened by America’s problems in Iraq, last week Ahmadinejad continued his baiting of the West by staging ostentatious war games in the Gulf.
The hardware on display — flashy missiles, torpedoes and rockets — may be no match for US weaponry, but it served as a warning of the disruption that the regime could cause to the global economy by blocking the Straits of Hormuz, the corridor through which much of the Middle East’s oil flows.
“The importance of the ‘Great Prophet’ manoeuvre lies in the time and geographical place as well as the arms used,” General Yahya Rahim Safavi, head of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards, said pointedly.
Revelling in the international spotlight and apparently oblivious to his growing pariah status, Ahmadinejad will this week up the anti by hosting an international conference focused on Palestine and “the Holocaust myth”.
IT IS against this backdrop and in the context of the race to find a diplomatic solution at the United Nations that the White House is briefing on military action against Iran.
Some observers will interpret it as more posturing than reality.
Nevertheless, the US administration is nothing if not tenacious and there was a growing feeling in Washington last week that Bush really has put a military option on the table. While the British and Europeans are still placing faith in diplomacy, the Americans are actively preparing for the worst case scenario, it is said.
Furthermore, while it is true that setbacks in Iraq have diminished American enthusiasm for military intervention, it would be a mistake to conclude that the American public, with its horror of the ayatollahs and memory of the 1979 embassy siege in Tehran, would not stomach a strike, Bush officials believe.
“The American people are not looking for new fights but they understand the nature of the Iranian threat very clearly,” said a senior American defence official. “I don’t see anyone out there saying, ‘Oh, we have to be nice to Iran’.”
Senior military planners at the Pentagon met recently to assess such an attack’s chances of success. They told the White House that they had yet to map all of Iran’s nuclear enrichment sites and that several were buried under deep granite mountains. A strike now could set the mullahs’ programme back only a couple of years at most.
Fast-forward to 2008 and the picture changes. By then more intelligence will have been gathered on the location of sites. And, crucially, Big Blu should be ready.
The damage, if not total, say experts, would be considerable. “The Iranians need 100% of their programme to build nuclear bombs,” the American defence analyst John Pike, of globalsecurity.org, pointed out. “We don’t have to destroy 100% of their facilities to deny the ayatollahs a nuclear capability.”
Edward Luttwak, a Pentagon adviser and expert on military strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, is a leading advocate of the theory that Iran’s nuclear installations could be bombed “in a single night”.
Inside the Pentagon, top officials have been citing Luttwak’s views. Air strikes by a handful of B2 bombers, flying out of the British dependency of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, would be enough to demolish the most critical Iranian nuclear sites such as Natanz, Arak and Isfahan.
“You don’t need to solve the problem of Iran, you just need to delay the mullahs for a few years, expose their vainglory and hope that the Iranians, most of whom hate this regime, will get rid of them,” Luttwak said.
It is a tempting prospect for Bush, who is determined to leave his mark on history as a “consequential president”, as Karl Rove, his adviser and guru, once put it. However, there is considerable nervousness among administration officials about the Iranians’ potential reaction.
“We’re in a state of flux about military action,” said a White House insider. “We can bomb the sites, but what then?” Will America hold its nerve if events take a sharp turn for the worse?
IF attacked, there is no doubt that Iran could unleash a wave of terrorism in the West and Israel and destabilise its all-too-fragile Iraqi neighbour. An attack would almost certainly also encourage Iranians to rally behind Ahmadinejad.
Luttwak admits that it would be disastrous if military action were to alienate pro-western Iranians, whom he regards as America’s “once and future allies” in the Middle East.
It is a view shared by many neo-conservatives, including Perle, who would prefer to see internal regime change in Iran rather than bombs raining down.
To this end the State Department has been awarded $75m to promote democracy in Iran. “It’s a safe bet the CIA has been given a budget 10 times that size,” observed Pike.
Last week there were reports that British ministers were to hold secret talks with defence chiefs to consider the consequences of a possible American-led attack on Iran.
The report was denied by Downing Street but there can be little doubt that the apparent change in American thinking must now be occupying minds throughout Whitehall.
Until recently it was assumed that any strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities would be left to the Israelis, who are the most interested party. That, say American defence sources, has changed on the grounds that only the US has the weaponry to perform the job in one night — presenting the world with a fait accompli.
More worrying for Labour perhaps is that under the American plans Britain would be expected to play a supporting role, perhaps by sending surveillance aircraft or ships and submarines to the Gulf or by allowing the Americans to fly from Diego Garcia.
Will Tony Blair still be in Downing Street by 2008 and, if not, would Gordon Brown as prime minister be willing to play ball on yet another military adventure in the Middle East? As public opinion stands, such a move could spell political suicide.
Larry Wilkerson, Colin Powell’s former chief of staff, believes Bush is compounding the mistakes he made in the run-up to the war in Iraq. “If you get to the point where you have to use your military, you’ll want everybody on board with you and we haven’t even tried,” he said.
Such considerations have failed to sway Bush and Cheney before. If their approval ratings remain in the doldrums, there may be an upside to a strike on Iran. “Regardless of how bad Bush’s poll numbers are, Americans love a display of firepower,” said Pike.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
© Copyright 2006, Times Newspapers Ltd.
http://today.reuters.com/news/NewsArticle....CENTRIFUGES.xml
Rafsanjani says Iran producing atomic fuel
Tue Apr 11, 2006 12:15 PM ET
By Christian Oliver
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran is producing enriched uranium from 164 centrifuges, influential former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said on Tuesday, a major step toward its goal of making nuclear fuel for power stations.
Rafsanjani's comments to Kuwait's KUNA new agency came ahead of a planned announcement by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad about progress in Iran's nuclear program, which media had speculated would be to say that Iran had produced low-grade uranium.
The announcement is a serious setback to U.N. Security Council efforts to have Iran halt enrichment work. It could escalate a confrontation with Western powers leading to consideration of sanctions against the Islamic Republic.
The West fears Iran is using its power station program as a smokescreen to build atomic bombs, a charge Tehran denies.
"We operated the first unit which comprises of 164 centrifuges, gas was injected, and we got the industrial output," Rafsanjani said in his interview with KUNA.
"There needs to be an expansion of operations if we are to have a complete industrial unit; tens of units are required to set up a uranium enrichment plant," said Rafsanjani, who was Ahmadinejad's rival in last year's presidential race.
Ahmadinejad had said he would announce "good news" on atomic progress on Tuesday night, but had not given details.
Rafsanjani's announcement may have been aimed at trumping his rival and taking credit for progress in the nuclear program, which has broad support in Iran, analysts said.
"They are competing with each other for who will be the first person," political analyst Saeed Laylaz said.
The United Nations Security Council has demanded Iran shelve enrichment activity and on March 29 asked the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to report on its compliance in 30 days.
IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei is expected to visit Iran later this week to seek full Iranian cooperation with the Council and IAEA inquiries. The announcement of advances in enrichment work by Iran will cast an embarrassing cloud over ElBaradei's trip.
Iran was referred by the IAEA to the Council in February for failing to convince much of the international community that its nuclear work aims to generate only electricity, not weaponry, and will not pose a threat to international peace and security.
Reflecting anxiety about the nuclear dispute, investors shifted into the safe-haven Swiss franc after Rafsanjani made his comments, traders said. The nuclear dispute has also been a factor helping to push up oil prices to record levels.
'LOGICAL EXTENT OF PROGRESS'
Two weeks ago IAEA diplomats said Iran had set up a "cascade" of 164 centrifuges at its Natanz plant but no uranium hexafluoride gas (UF6), the feedstock for enriched fuel, had yet been fed into them. It had tested 20 centrifuges, they added.
Iranian nuclear officials have previously said purifying uranium to 3.5 percent -- the level needed for fuel for power stations -- would require the operation of 164 centrifuges, which spin it at supersonic speeds to heighten the concentration of its most radioactive isotope, U-235.
The level of enrichment needed to trigger the nuclear chain reaction that detonates bombs is far higher, around 90 percent. But even word that low-level enrichment is under way will be unacceptable to Western powers, diplomats say.
Iran has only one nuclear power plant under construction but plans to build more and says it wants to make its own fuel.
"It may be that they have begun feeding the 164. That might be the logical extent of progress since late March. It wouldn't be surprising," a European Union diplomat accredited to the IAEA said when asked about Ahmadinejad's teaser.
"164 centrifuges is still well short of producing enriched uranium in significant quantity over a sustained period. But the more they do it, the more they learn the technology. So any form of enrichment is a red line for us," the diplomat said.
A special team of IAEA inspectors went to Iran on Friday to gather fresh information at nuclear sites for ElBaradei's pending report to the Security Council. IAEA officials have declined to divulge any findings so far.
It would take Iran years to yield enough highly enriched uranium for one bomb with such a small cascade. But Iran has told the IAEA it will start installing 3,000 centrifuges later this year, enough to produce material for a warhead in a year.
Washington has said repeatedly it wants to resolve the nuclear standoff by diplomatic means. But analysts say advances in uranium enrichment technology by Iran may be the tripwire for the United States or Israel to take military action.
President George W. Bush on Monday dismissed reports of plans for military strikes on Iran as "wild speculation".
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
© Reuters 2006. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by caching, framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters and the Reuters sphere logo are registered trademarks and trademarks of the Reuters group of companies around the world.
Rafsanjani says Iran producing atomic fuel
Tue Apr 11, 2006 12:15 PM ET
By Christian Oliver
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran is producing enriched uranium from 164 centrifuges, influential former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said on Tuesday, a major step toward its goal of making nuclear fuel for power stations.
Rafsanjani's comments to Kuwait's KUNA new agency came ahead of a planned announcement by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad about progress in Iran's nuclear program, which media had speculated would be to say that Iran had produced low-grade uranium.
The announcement is a serious setback to U.N. Security Council efforts to have Iran halt enrichment work. It could escalate a confrontation with Western powers leading to consideration of sanctions against the Islamic Republic.
The West fears Iran is using its power station program as a smokescreen to build atomic bombs, a charge Tehran denies.
"We operated the first unit which comprises of 164 centrifuges, gas was injected, and we got the industrial output," Rafsanjani said in his interview with KUNA.
"There needs to be an expansion of operations if we are to have a complete industrial unit; tens of units are required to set up a uranium enrichment plant," said Rafsanjani, who was Ahmadinejad's rival in last year's presidential race.
Ahmadinejad had said he would announce "good news" on atomic progress on Tuesday night, but had not given details.
Rafsanjani's announcement may have been aimed at trumping his rival and taking credit for progress in the nuclear program, which has broad support in Iran, analysts said.
"They are competing with each other for who will be the first person," political analyst Saeed Laylaz said.
The United Nations Security Council has demanded Iran shelve enrichment activity and on March 29 asked the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to report on its compliance in 30 days.
IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei is expected to visit Iran later this week to seek full Iranian cooperation with the Council and IAEA inquiries. The announcement of advances in enrichment work by Iran will cast an embarrassing cloud over ElBaradei's trip.
Iran was referred by the IAEA to the Council in February for failing to convince much of the international community that its nuclear work aims to generate only electricity, not weaponry, and will not pose a threat to international peace and security.
Reflecting anxiety about the nuclear dispute, investors shifted into the safe-haven Swiss franc after Rafsanjani made his comments, traders said. The nuclear dispute has also been a factor helping to push up oil prices to record levels.
'LOGICAL EXTENT OF PROGRESS'
Two weeks ago IAEA diplomats said Iran had set up a "cascade" of 164 centrifuges at its Natanz plant but no uranium hexafluoride gas (UF6), the feedstock for enriched fuel, had yet been fed into them. It had tested 20 centrifuges, they added.
Iranian nuclear officials have previously said purifying uranium to 3.5 percent -- the level needed for fuel for power stations -- would require the operation of 164 centrifuges, which spin it at supersonic speeds to heighten the concentration of its most radioactive isotope, U-235.
The level of enrichment needed to trigger the nuclear chain reaction that detonates bombs is far higher, around 90 percent. But even word that low-level enrichment is under way will be unacceptable to Western powers, diplomats say.
Iran has only one nuclear power plant under construction but plans to build more and says it wants to make its own fuel.
"It may be that they have begun feeding the 164. That might be the logical extent of progress since late March. It wouldn't be surprising," a European Union diplomat accredited to the IAEA said when asked about Ahmadinejad's teaser.
"164 centrifuges is still well short of producing enriched uranium in significant quantity over a sustained period. But the more they do it, the more they learn the technology. So any form of enrichment is a red line for us," the diplomat said.
A special team of IAEA inspectors went to Iran on Friday to gather fresh information at nuclear sites for ElBaradei's pending report to the Security Council. IAEA officials have declined to divulge any findings so far.
It would take Iran years to yield enough highly enriched uranium for one bomb with such a small cascade. But Iran has told the IAEA it will start installing 3,000 centrifuges later this year, enough to produce material for a warhead in a year.
Washington has said repeatedly it wants to resolve the nuclear standoff by diplomatic means. But analysts say advances in uranium enrichment technology by Iran may be the tripwire for the United States or Israel to take military action.
President George W. Bush on Monday dismissed reports of plans for military strikes on Iran as "wild speculation".
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
© Reuters 2006. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by caching, framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters and the Reuters sphere logo are registered trademarks and trademarks of the Reuters group of companies around the world.
Congressman Murtha confirms that Congress has been asked to consider the possiblility of nuking Iran.