Posted on 06/29/2004 6:13:12 PM PDT by blam
Attack Iran, US chief ordered British
By Michael Smith, Defence Correspondent
(Filed: 30/06/2004)
America's military commander in Iraq ordered British troops to prepare a full-scale ground offensive against Iranian forces that had crossed the border and grabbed disputed territory, a senior officer has disclosed.
An attack would almost certainly have provoked open conflict with Iran. But the British chose instead to resolve the matter through diplomatic channels.
Lt Gen Ricardo Sanchez
"If we had attacked the Iranian positions, all hell would have broken loose," a defence source said yesterday.
"We would have had the Iranians to our front and the Iraqi insurgents picking us off at the rear."
The incident was disclosed by a senior British officer at a conference in London last week and is reported in today's edition of Defence Analysis. The identity of the officer is not given.
"Some Iranian border and observation posts were re-positioned over the border, broadly a kilometre into Iraq," a Ministry of Defence spokesman said.
The incident began last July when Revolutionary Guards pushed about a kilometre into Iraq to the north and east of Basra in an apparent attempt to reoccupy territory which they claimed belonged to Iran.
Lt Gen Ricardo Sanchez then ordered the British to prepare to send in several thousand troops to attack the Revolutionary Guard positions.
The Revolutionary Guard Corps has 125,000 soldiers, making it 25 per cent larger than the entire British Army, and is equipped with 500 tanks, 600 armoured personnel carriers and 360 artillery weapons.
The incident is reminiscent of the exchange during the Kosovo conflict between the American general, Wesley Clark, the supreme allied commander Europe, and Gen Sir Mike Jackson, the British commander.
When Gen Clark told Gen Jackson to send British troops into Pristina airport to prevent Russian troops from taking control Gen Jackson refused. He was reported to have said: "I am not going to start World War Three for you."
The Iran-Iraq incident lasted around a week and was resolved by a telephone conversation between Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, and Kamal Kharrazi, his Iranian counterpart, British officials said.
"It did look rather nasty at the time," one official said. "But we were always confident it was a mistake and could be resolved by diplomatic means. We got in touch with Baghdad and said, 'Don't do anything silly; we are talking to the Iranians.' "
While Mr Straw was trying to resolve the issue peacefully, British military commanders on the ground were calming their Iranian counterparts, the ministry said.
The Revolutionary Guard was believed to be behind the seizure of eight Royal Navy and Royal Marines personnel last week after they strayed across the disputed border between Iraq and Iran.
The eight men, who were delivering patrol boats to the Iraqi riverine patrol service, were released - but not before they were paraded blindfolded on Iranian television.
The headline: Attack Iran, US Chief Ordered British
The first paragraph of the story: America's military commander in Iraq ordered British troops to prepare a full-scale ground offensive against Iranian forces that had crossed the border and grabbed disputed territory, a senior officer has disclosed.
In other words, he ordered them to prepare an attack, and not against Iran, but against Iranian troops which had invaded Iraq.
It's gonna happen sooner or later. Better not to wait til they have their own A-bomb.
should have hit their positions hard with precision munitions, very hard
I'm not at all sure that attacking them would have been a mistake.
And the whole Revolutionary Guard Corps were in position to oppose the Brits? Nice try but total BullS---.
I am so sick of the media corrupting the news, I could spit.
Uh, yeah.
The threat of force makes diplomacy much more effective.
Odd story to be coming out of the Telegraph. What the hell does this piece mean?
Right! The preparation for attack enabled the British diplomatic efforts to succeed. As I recall, this was during a period when our planes were coming back with unexpended ordinance. That must have added to the Iranian's desire to settle things peacefully.
Well, it could be a warning I suppose, via artful press leak.
A little good cop, bad cop with the US and UK in regards to Iran...
What do you make out of this odd piece?
BTTT. Seems odd to me.
This article is likely total bullsheite; but if the above had happened, the "insurgents" being in an open battlefield would have been a mere afterthought; swatted aside with their heads littering the backfield.
As you say ... The "anonymous source" again. I'll wait for evidence before considering this story.
The Telegraph has been printing dubious stories like this for months now, almost always quoting "unnamed British military sources".
The gist is always something like "the Americans are brainless cowboys who want to bomb everything and we Brits are thoughtful diplomats saving the world from being destroyed by the American cowboys"... or something like that.
We need our tactical nuke bunker penetrators
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