Posted on 02/23/2007 5:31:04 PM PST by blam
American armada prepares to take on Iran
By Damien McElroy aboard USS Eisenhower
Last Updated: 1:09am GMT 24/02/2007
It is four and a half acres of US power in the middle of the Arabian Sea but the influence of USS Dwight D Eisenhower stretches hundreds of miles.
The aircraft carrier, backed by its sister vessel, a handful of destroyers and a shoal of support ships, has placed a ring of steel around an increasingly unstable region.
While the Eisenhower is ostensibly assisting US operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, it is increasingly occupied by the looming threat of Iran.
Recent tensions between the US and Iran over Teheran's meddling in Iraq and attempts to build a nuclear bomb have raised the prospect of its third regional war in a decade.
The addition of a second aircraft carrier to its strike groups has fuelled the belief that the US is gearing up for a fight with Iran. Not since the Iraq war in 2003 has America amassed so much fire power around the Persian Gulf.
As flagship of the Fifth Fleet, the Eisenhower welcomed the arrival of the second Nimitz-class nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the USS John C Stennis, and its accompanying destroyers on Tuesday.
Captain Dan Cloyd, the Eisenhower's commanding officer, compared the situation with the international tension of the Cold War.
"There was a time when we had two aircraft carriers in the Mediterranean," he told The Daily Telegraph. "The world changes and we adapt."
The quietly spoken Capt Cloyd embraced the suggestion that the dual deployment is at the forefront of efforts to stop Iran getting a nuclear bomb, pointing out that his maritime assets have been tasked to quash any challenge to global security.
"Our presence here is an affirmation of our resolve to engage with the nations of the region either where we share common goals or where we face challenges."
The Eisenhower has more than 5,000 people on board and its range of missions is virtually limitless.
As it patrols the shipping lanes of the Strait of Hormuz, the Eisenhower ensures the safe passage of oil tankers. It also prevents the trading routes being used to transport materials that would help rogue nations build a nuclear weapon.
Capt Cloyd said: "Our maritime security mission is about denying the use of the seas to any potential spread of weapons of mass destruction."
Iran's belligerent posture has increased the challenges facing the Eisenhower since it was deployed to the Middle East last October. Vice Admiral Patrick Walsh, the commander of the Fifth Fleet, issued a stark warning that Iran risks triggering an "accidental war" during aggressive military manoeuvres.
During the Great Prophet 2 missile test in November, the Islamic Republic fired a Shabab missile into the six-mile corridor of shipping lanes in the Strait of Hormuz. In such a constricted corridor, the results could have been disastrous.
With Teheran's real strategic intentions unclear, the US takes the threats made very seriously. "They threaten to use oil as a weapon. They threaten to close the Straits of Hormuz," Adml Walsh said. "It is the combination of the rhetoric, the tone, and the aggressive exercises in very constrained waters that gives us concern."
US commanders ascribe the increase in instability to increasingly deliberate aggressive actions by Teheran. For that reason the deployment of the carriers is designed to intensify pressure on Iran to step back from the brink.
As impressive as the carrier fleet can be, it doesn't compare to the influence our presence in Iraq has in stabilizing the region. if we were to pull out, one would have to ask, "At what cost would it take to reenter the region? Would we have to land by sea and where, assuming we would no longer have any friends? Those who said it was all about oil were right, since the region can, at their choice, destroy the world economy."
I'm sorry to have to say so but even if everything goes bad in Iraq, we STILL HAVE TO MAINTAIN A PRESENCE, AT WHATEVER THE COST.
I think the task forces are there to react only...
What needs to be done with Iran, the demonrats will torpedo!
Israel is calm before the storm.
Yup. GWB said very deliberately "we're not going to attack Iran". We will react with overwhelming force if attacked though.
A hell of a lot readier than if we wait a couple more years so that Iran can get stronger with Russian ordinance and other "help".....including more Russian "advisors".
Someday, we will have to clean up Russia too. That has been coming for a long time.
(But, shhhhhhhhhhh, it's a secret. We don't want the Iranians to know what we're up t . . . . )
Never mind!! The Brits blabbed the whole secret that we were . . . . . . uh, going to wish Ahmanutjob "Happy Birthday!" (Yeah, that's it!)
Thanks a lot, blabbermouths!!!
I'm not so sure. I think most of the baby boomers are getting a little too old.
It's a JOKE!!!!!
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/BMD_Watch_Trident_Subs_Will_Fight_Terror.html
know some guys working on this one right now
:o)
Why wait? I wouldn't. Let's just say they did fire on us and then annihilate their primitive a**e* -- well, at least seize the oil and otherwise annihilate their government, command and control, nuke sites, army, navy, air force, heavy industry, infrastructure (airports, bridges, electrical, water, sewage, radio and television), and any centers of resistance... All by air. The population we should spare and give it a chance to take its revenge on the mullahs. However, if it stupidly decided to side with the mullahs, then we could really take the gloves off.
Yes, I'm sick of dealing with these backward f'n cavemen.
He's got no more political capital to lose, so he'll go for it.
When he leaves office he will shoulder the responsibility for the "world hating us" and give the new admin a reason to be conciliatory and present a new face to the world.
Israel seeks US green light for Iran attack: report
(AFP)
24 February 2007
LONDON - Israel is seeking permission from the United States to fly its jets over Iraq to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, The Daily Telegraph newspaper said on Saturday, citing sources.
A senior Israeli defence official told the conservative British broadsheet in a dispatch from Tel Aviv that negotiations were taking place for the US-led coalition in Iraq to provide an “air corridor” over Iraq if the Jewish state decided on unilateral action.
“We are planning for every eventuality, and sorting out issues such as these are crucial,” the official said.
“If we don’t sort these issues out we could have a situation where American and Israeli war planes start shooting at each other.”
Iran’s hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has in the past called for Israel to be wiped off the map.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) issued a report Thursday saying that Iran had not halted, and in fact had expanded, its uranium enrichment programme, defying a United Nations Security Council demand to stop by this week.
The United States, France and Britain have called for tougher Security Council sanctions on Tehran, while Germany, China and Russia have taken softer stances. Iran denies US charges that it seeks nuclear weapons.
An Israeli officer involved in the military planning told The Daily Telegraph: “One of the last issues we have to sort out is how we actually get to the targets in Iran. The only way to do this is to fly through US-controlled air space in Iraq.”
A senior Israeli security official who works on the strategic committee set up to deal with the Iran threat, chaired by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, said: “The amount of effort we are putting into this single issue is unprecedented in the history of the State of Israel,” the newspaper reported.
Israel has refused to rule out pre-emptive military action against Iran. Israeli warplanes in 1981 destroyed the Osirak nuclear reactor near Baghdad after suspecting Iraq of aiming to build nuclear weapons.
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/middleeast/2007/February/middleeast_February392.xml§ion=middleeast&col=
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And The Plot Thickens,,,Interesting...
Now What's Gunna Happen ??...
(popcorn time)
LOL! The French would likely agree.
One can only hope. The only thing worse than a war with Iran now, is a war with Iran later.
Erasmus was from Rotterdam.
Had a thought : attack from the caspian sea thru afghanistan. It sounds crazy, yes? And yet NOBODY, not even the iranins, have considered such a seaborne invasion route. Oriental philosophy, attack from the unexpected direction.
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