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Ready for war
Telegraph.co.uk ^ | 25 February, 2007 | Con Coughlin

Posted on 02/25/2007 8:33:02 AM PST by Salem

Ready for war


By Con Coughlin
Last Updated: 12:29am GMT 25/02/2007

There may not yet be gas masks in the street in Tel Aviv but no one should underestimate Israel's determination to prevent a nuclear Iran

Down on the seafront in Tel Aviv, where crowds of young Israelis are to be found taking advantage of the unseasonably warm spring sunshine this weekend, it is hard to imagine that Israel is confronting what is arguably the gravest threat to its survival since it emerged from the ashes of the Holocaust 59 years ago.

 
A banner carried during demonstrations in Tehran - Holocaust
Statement of intent? A banner carried during demonstrations in Tehran

The apocalyptic rantings of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the menace posed by the ayatollahs' outlawed nuclear programme are a million miles from the minds of the couples lounging in the sun sipping cold beers, or engaged in vigorously competitive games of beach volleyball.

Apart from the occasional noisy interruption as a patrol of Cobra military helicopters passes overhead on its way to Gaza, or the sullen presence of the naval patrol vessels anchored offshore on the lookout for waterborne suicide bombers, these carefree souls seem blissfully unaware of the storm clouds of war gathering over the political horizon.

"We have nothing to fear from the Iranians," Amiram Levi told me. "If they become too much of a threat we can deal with them just as we dealt with the Iraqis when they tried to build a nuclear bomb."

Amiram, a 20-year-old computer science student at Tel Aviv University, was of course referring to the daredevil raid made by Israeli fighter jets against Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981, which destroyed at a stroke Saddam Hussein's dreams of turning his country into a nuclear superpower.

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Most Israelis believe their country will do the same again if the outside world fails to call a halt to Iran's controversial uranium enrichment programme, which few in Israel doubt is ultimately aimed at giving the ayatollahs a nuclear weapons arsenal to fulfil Ahmadinejad's pledge to erase the Jewish state from the map.

Having already suffered a near-apocalypse in the form of the Holocaust, the Jewish people have no intention of being the hapless victims of Ahmadinejad's genocidal designs. Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister, last month gave his most explicit warning to date that Israel was prepared to use military force to prevent Teheran from obtaining a nuclear weapon: "The Jewish people, with the scars of the Holocaust fresh on its body, cannot afford to allow itself to face threats of annihilation once again."

That single sentence sums up the consensus among most of the Israeli people. If the wider world is not prepared to take pre-emptive action to stop Iran from fulfilling its nuclear ambitions, then Israel is ready to act alone.

Normally, in times of national emergency, such as the build-up to the 2003 Iraq War, Israel is bustling with precautionary activity - civil defence organisers handing out gas masks and ensuring the bomb shelters are ready.

But today there is scant evidence of anyone preparing for a potential war. The only gas masks on display are those used by children for fancy dress, while recent press reports that the super-rich residents of Herzliya were building their own state-of-the-art nuclear bunkers were greeted with derision by less well-off citizens.

In contrast, the country's political, military and intelligence-gathering infrastructure has thrown all the resources it can muster at the challenge of neutralising Iran's nuclear capability.

"The amount of effort we are putting into this single issue is unprecedented in the history of the State of Israel," said a senior Israeli security official who works on the strategic committee that has been set up to deal with the Iran threat, which is personally chaired by Olmert.

The committee's main function is to ensure the closest possible liaison on the latest intelligence and military developments. It is also responsible for maintaining a close dialogue with countries supportive of Israel's concerns, particularly the United States, which has seconded officials to work alongside the Israelis.

The committee has yet to have any contact with Britain, although it is hoped that a dialogue will begin "in the not-too-distant future".

Nor should anyone be in any doubt as to the extreme sense of urgency that is driving the Israeli government's activity. To ensure that the country has the best available resources at its disposal, Olmert announced last week that Meir Dagan, the head of Mossad, Israel's overseas intelligence service, had been asked to postpone his retirement until at least the end of 2008.

Dagan, the son of Holocaust survivors, has already served six years in the post, during which time he has become Israel's leading expert on Iran's nuclear programme. "The last thing I want is to have to change horses at a time like this," Olmert remarked after Dagan agreed to serve the extra term.

On the military side, Olmert has also taken the significant step of handing responsibility for preparing Israel's response to the Iranian challenge to the commander of the Israeli Air Force, Eliezer Shkedi.

Shkedi, a former F-16 fighter pilot who saw active service in Lebanon during the 1982 invasion and shot down two Syrian MiG fighters, is in charge of Iran Command, the unit responsible for dealing with any possible threat the Iranians might pose to Israel's security.

As part of the defensive preparations for a missile attack, the Israelis recently conducted a successful test-firing of the new Arrow anti-missile defence system, a development that has mainly been funded by the Pentagon.

The Arrow is the successor to the American Patriot missile system used to shoot down Saddam's Scuds during the 1991 Gulf War. But where the Patriot attacks the incoming missile as it nears its target, the Arrow is designed to intercept a hostile missile much earlier, in the upper atmosphere.

From Israel's perspective this is a crucial advance, especially if the Iranians were to attempt to fire missiles armed with nuclear warheads. "There's no point shooting down a nuclear missile once it's over Israel - the devastation would be just the same," an Israeli military officer explained this week. "The idea is to take it out long before it hits Israel."

That would mean such a missile exploding somewhere over Iraq or Jordan, thereby potentially causing widespread devastation in those countries.

"No one has done much thinking about what might happen if you exploded a nuclear weapon in the upper atmosphere," added the officer. "It's probably something people should look at."

But ensuring Israel has an effective defence against an Iranian missile attack is crucial. Iran has made it clear it will respond to any attack against its nuclear facilities, and its Shahab-3 ballistic missiles have the range to strike throughout Israel.

As for Israel's offensive plans against Iran, the Iran Command team's task is to demonstrate that Israel has the capability to act unilaterally.

"No one is going to take this threat seriously until the State of Israel can demonstrate to the outside world that we have the ability to deal with this menace on our own," said a senior security official who serves on Iran Command.

"The only way we can put pressure on the outside world to deal effectively with Iran's nuclear programme is to demonstrate that we can do this ourselves.

''Of course, we hope it doesn't come to a military solution, and we hope that this can be resolved through diplomacy. But Iran's track record is not good."

For the Israelis, taking out Iran's nuclear facilities is a very different proposition to the 1981 attack on Iraq's nuclear reactor. Back then, the Israelis had the element of surprise - the last thing the Iraqis expected to see was a squadron of Israeli warplanes in their airspace.

Iraq's nuclear programme also posed a relatively straightforward target in that all the facilities were concentrated at the Osirak complex, south of Baghdad. A few well-targeted bombs released in a single air raid were sufficient to do the job.

The Iranians, on the other hand, learning the lessons of the Osirak debacle, have scattered their resources around the country. Obvious targets, such as the controversial uranium enrichment complex at Natanz, are set in specially constructed bomb proof bunkers that would require high-precision, bunker-busting bombs to inflict any serious damage.

Yet another challenge is presented by the recent arrival of the Russian-made Tor M1 anti-aircraft missile system as part of an arms deal signed between Moscow and Teheran last year.

"Of course, attacking Iran is not going to be easy, but we cannot just sit here and let the ayatollahs develop a nuclear weapons arsenal," said a senior Israeli defence official. "Doing nothing is just not an option."

Israeli defence officials are understandably coy about revealing precisely how far advanced their plans are for launching air strikes against Iran in light of the current diplomatic offensive at the United Nations to halt Teheran's enrichment programme ending in failure.

But that the Israeli Air Force, as The Daily Telegraph exclusively discloses today, is negotiating with US coalition commanders in Iraq for permission to fly through US-controlled air space suggests Israeli military planners have overcome most of the key technical hurdles, such as in-flight refuelling and target selection.

"One of the last issues we have to sort out is how we actually get to targets in Iran," an Israeli officer involved in the military planning told me. "The only way to do this is to fly through US-controlled air space in Iraq. If we don't sort these issues out now we could have a situation where American and Israeli war planes are shooting at each other."

The pace of military planning in Israel, which has markedly accelerated since the start of the year, is being driven by Mossad's stark intelligence assessment that Iran, given the rate of progress on uranium enrichment at Natanz, could have enough fissile material for a nuclear warhead by 2009.

This is, it should be stressed, only an assessment as opposed to hard fact, and the Israeli assessment is starkly at odds with those made by other Western intelligence agencies, and by the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN-sponsored body responsible for monitoring nuclear development activities worldwide.

Last week, Dr Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the IAEA, said his assessment was that Iran was still five to ten years away from developing a nuclear warhead, a view that is generally supported by the British and American intelligence communities.

But the Israelis are insistent that their assessments are more realistic. "The problem is that no one really knows what is going on in Iran," said a senior Israeli security official working on Iran's nuclear brief. "Iran has consistently lied to the outside world about what its true intentions really are, and we can't allow a situation to develop where the Iranians, like North Korea, announce they have an atomic bomb, when all the so-called experts said they didn't have the capability or expertise to do it."

Israeli officials point out that IAEA inspectors are not allowed access to the main underground chamber at Natanz where uranium enrichment will soon be taking place on an industrial scale. They are also convinced that the evidence so far accumulated by IAEA officials shows that Iran has a clandestine nuclear weapons programme.

"No one who knows about this - and this includes the experts in London and Washington - is in any doubt that Iran is secretly trying to build a bomb," said the security official. "The only issue at stake is how long it will be before they get one."

If that is the case, then the only question that remains is how much longer the Israelis are prepared to wait before they take matters into their own hands.

For the moment, the Olmert government seems prepared to let the United Nations process play out, even though Israeli officials make no secret of their disdain for the way ElBaradei is handling the crisis. "He doesn't seem to care one way or another whether the Iranians get a bomb. All he wants is a quiet life," said one senior government adviser.

And there is no doubt that the Israelis would prefer their superpower protector, the United States, to do their dirty work for them if the UN-sponsored diplomacy fails to bring Teheran to its senses. But the bottom line is that if, within the next two years, the Iranians are still maintaining their rate of progress on the nuclear front, the Israelis are ready and able to act on their own if need be.

"After the September 11 attacks, we now live in an age of pre-emption," said a senior Olmert adviser. "The Jewish people have not forgotten the last time the world watched and did nothing. We are determined that shall never happen again."



TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: iran; israel; terror; wot
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
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To: Salem

Thank you for the ping.

"Israel is ready to act alone".

I hope they are and do soon. I think many of us would help Israel but will our country agree to that if Democrats are in the majority?


21 posted on 02/25/2007 9:02:47 AM PST by Ping-Pong
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To: RightWhale
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=BAX20070225&articleId=4929

February 25, 2007

US generals ‘will quit’ if Bush orders Iran Attack

by Sarah Baxter and Michael Smith

Global Research, February 26, 2007

The Times (London) - 2007-02-25

Some of America’s most senior military commanders are prepared to resign if the White House orders a military strike against Iran, according to highly placed defence and intelligence sources.

Tension in the Gulf region has raised fears that an attack on Iran is becoming increasingly likely before President George Bush leaves office. The Sunday Times has learnt that up to five generals and admirals are willing to resign rather than approve what they consider would be a reckless attack.

“There are four or five generals and admirals we know of who would resign if Bush ordered an attack on Iran,” a source with close ties to British intelligence said. “There is simply no stomach for it in the Pentagon, and a lot of people question whether such an attack would be effective or even possible.”

A British defence source confirmed that there were deep misgivings inside the Pentagon about a military strike. “All the generals are perfectly clear that they don’t have the military capacity to take Iran on in any meaningful fashion. Nobody wants to do it and it would be a matter of conscience for them.

“There are enough people who feel this would be an error of judgment too far for there to be resignations.”

A generals’ revolt on such a scale would be unprecedented. “American generals usually stay and fight until they get fired,” said a Pentagon source. Robert Gates, the defence secretary, has repeatedly warned against striking Iran and is believed to represent the view of his senior commanders.

The threat of a wave of resignations coincided with a warning by Vice-President Dick Cheney that all options, including military action, remained on the table. He was responding to a comment by Tony Blair that it would not “be right to take military action against Iran”.

Iran ignored a United Nations deadline to suspend its uranium enrichment programme last week. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad insisted that his country “will not withdraw from its nuclear stances even one single step”.

The International Atomic Energy Agency reported that Iran could soon produce enough enriched uranium for two nuclear bombs a year, although Tehran claims its programme is purely for civilian energy purposes.

Nicholas Burns, the top US negotiator, is to meet British, French, German, Chinese and Russian officials in London tomorrow to discuss additional penalties against Iran. But UN diplomats cautioned that further measures would take weeks to agree and would be mild at best.

A second US navy aircraft carrier strike group led by the USS John C Stennis arrived in the Gulf last week, doubling the US presence there. Vice Admiral Patrick Walsh, the commander of the US Fifth Fleet, warned: “The US will take military action if ships are attacked or if countries in the region are targeted or US troops come under direct attack.”

But General Peter Pace, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, said recently there was “zero chance” of a war with Iran. He played down claims by US intelligence that the Iranian government was responsible for supplying insurgents in Iraq, forcing Bush on the defensive.

Pace’s view was backed up by British intelligence officials who said the extent of the Iranian government’s involvement in activities inside Iraq by a small number of Revolutionary Guards was “far from clear”.

Hillary Mann, the National Security Council’s main Iran expert until 2004, said Pace’s repudiation of the administration’s claims was a sign of grave discontent at the top.

“He is a very serious and a very loyal soldier,” she said. “It is extraordinary for him to have made these comments publicly, and it suggests there are serious problems between the White House, the National Security Council and the Pentagon.”

Mann fears the administration is seeking to provoke Iran into a reaction that could be used as an excuse for an attack. A British official said the US navy was well aware of the risks of confrontation and was being “seriously careful” in the Gulf.

The US air force is regarded as being more willing to attack Iran. General Michael Moseley, the head of the air force, cited Iran as the main likely target for American aircraft at a military conference earlier this month.

According to a report in The New Yorker magazine, the Pentagon has already set up a working group to plan airstrikes on Iran. The panel initially focused on destroying Iran’s nuclear facilities and on regime change but has more recently been instructed to identify targets in Iran that may be involved in supplying or aiding militants in Iraq.

However, army chiefs fear an attack on Iran would backfire on American troops in Iraq and lead to more terrorist attacks, a rise in oil prices and the threat of a regional war.

Britain is concerned that its own troops in Iraq might be drawn into any American conflict with Iran, regardless of whether the government takes part in the attack.

One retired general who participated in the “generals’ revolt” against Donald Rumsfeld’s handling of the Iraq war said he hoped his former colleagues would resign in the event of an order to attack. “We don’t want to take another initiative unless we’ve really thought through the consequences of our strategy,” he warned.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Centre for Research on Globalization.

22 posted on 02/25/2007 9:05:22 AM PST by Fitzcarraldo (If the Moon didn't exist, people would have traveled to Mars by now.)
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To: Fitzcarraldo

That is the story. Thanks for taking the time to search for it.


23 posted on 02/25/2007 9:07:33 AM PST by RightWhale (300 miles north of Big Wild Life)
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To: Basheva

If one reads the autobiography of Norman Schwartzkopf
one would find passages that support the notion that
command staff is more interested in proctecting their
assets, turf, and status quo rather than engaging in
actual combat activity.

That said, I am surprised if this is a true story,
that the generals would not keep quite out of a sense
of duty although they may harbor these sentiments.


24 posted on 02/25/2007 9:13:26 AM PST by buckalfa
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To: All

"...Iran has reached the technology to produce nuclear fuel and Iran's movement on this path is like a train on a one-way track with no room for stopping, reverse gear or braking," the president [Mahmoud Ahmadinejad] told a gathering of religious leaders.

"A while ago, we threw away the reverse gear and the brakes of the train and we announced to them that this Iranian train has no reverse gear or braking," the ISNA and Fars news agencies quoted him as saying..."

http://www.france24.com/france24Public/en/administration/afp-news.html?id=070225093647.wzudvkps&cat=null

AFP News brief

Ahmadinejad says 'no brakes' on Iran nuclear drive

by Hiedeh Farmani

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Sunday defied Western threats to impose more sanctions over Iran's contested nuclear programme, comparing its atomic drive to a "train with no brakes."

Ahmadinejad's declaration came a day before the UN Security Council's five permanent members plus Germany are to meet to discuss more possible punitive measures against Tehran.

"Iran has reached the technology to produce nuclear fuel and Iran's movement on this path is like a train on a one-way track with no room for stopping, reverse gear or braking," the president told a gathering of religious leaders.

"A while ago, we threw away the reverse gear and the brakes of the train and we announced to them that this Iranian train has no reverse gear or braking," the ISNA and Fars news agencies quoted him as saying.

The UN Security Council in December imposed limited sanctions against Tehran over its refusal to suspend uranium enrichment, a process that the West fears could be used to make nuclear weapons.

A report by the UN atomic watchdog has confirmed that Iran is still continuing with uranium enrichment work in defiance of the UN Security Council, opening the way towards possible further sanctions.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice brushed aside Iran's latest statements and reaffirmed her offer of negotiations if Tehran suspends uranium enrichment.

"We're leaving open the track of negotiations, because the best way to resolve this would be to have Iran come to the table," she said in an interview on Fox News Sunday.

Washington has never ruled out the prospect of military action to halt Iran's nuclear programme and Vice President Dick Cheney reignited such speculation by saying that "all options are still on the table."

The United States and Israel accuse Iran of seeking nuclear weapons. Tehran denies the charges, insisting its atomic programme is peaceful in nature.

"We have prepared ourselves for any situation, even if war happens," Deputy Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mohammadi told the ISNA news agency.

He added that Iran was prepared for talks with the United States but without preconditions.

"We have had unofficial meetings with Americans over Afghanistan and Iraq, but they say first Iran should accept US conditions and then the talks take place," Mohammadi said.

Ahmadinejad shrugged off the impact of a resolution against Iran, saying such a move would neither hurt the Islamic republic economically nor affect the progress of the nuclear programme.

"They think they can hurt us economically. Since they have threatened us and issued a resolution against us we have had record contracts. They cannot do anything," Ahmadinejad said.

"Our revolution is going fast towards the summit like a bulldozer. The enemies think they can stop this bulldozer by throwing a few pebbles at it. They then magnify their small pebbles 500 times in psychological warfare"

Monday's meeting in London between diplomats from Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States will seek to hammer out a consensus on how to bring Tehran into compliance.

The Security Council could meet as early as the coming week, with the London meeting between US Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns and his counterparts laying the groundwork.

However it remains unclear what if any new sanctions will be agreed by the council, amid divergences between its veto-wielding members.

Russia and China both have economic, energy and strategic interests in Iran, and in December both signaled their reluctance to ramp up pressure on Tehran, the second biggest oil exporter in OPEC.

The foreign ministers of seven Muslim nations meeting in Islamabad urged a diplomatic solution to the "dangerous" standoff over Iran's nuclear programme.

"It is vital that all issues must be resolved through diplomacy and there must be no resort to use of force," said a statement by hosts Pakistan as well as Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

Meanwhile, Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani was holding talks in South Africa on the nuclear programme.

In another move that could increase tensions, Iran said on Sunday it had successfully launched its first rocket into space in a possible first step to launching its own satellites.

25 posted on 02/25/2007 9:14:12 AM PST by Fitzcarraldo (If the Moon didn't exist, people would have traveled to Mars by now.)
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To: RightWhale

Good. The sooner, the better. Wake-uo America. We have more to worry from within, than the terrorists without.


26 posted on 02/25/2007 9:14:25 AM PST by mulligan
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To: RightWhale
US generals ‘will quit’ if Bush orders Iran attack

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1790665/posts

27 posted on 02/25/2007 9:33:27 AM PST by Screaming_Gerbil (Let's Roll...)
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To: Fitzcarraldo
That article about US generals resigning looks like left-wing BS or disinformation. It's probably based loosely on opposition in the Pentagon to a full-scale invasion of Iran. But we're not going to do a full-scale invasion and regime change--not now and probably not ever. Serious change in the Iranian government will have to originate from within Iran. We would only do airstrikes and quick raids by limited ground forces if absolutely necessary. The reported quote from the generals that we "don’t have the military capacity to take Iran on in any meaningful fashion" is totally false and laughable. On a military level, Iran is no match for US capabilities and all the generals know this. IIRC, Sarah Baxter is a big left-winger who has written a lot of anti-American articles that criticize the invasion of Iraq and the removal of Saddam's regime.

Our military generals understand the threat from a nuclear-armed Iran better than the vast majority of Americans or Britons. Our generals know that we are much better off dealing with Iran now than dealing with Iranian nuclear weapons later.

28 posted on 02/25/2007 10:48:06 AM PST by defenderSD (Holds the San Diego high school football record for most interceptions by a slow white guy.)
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To: DevSix; Salem; Fitzcarraldo; RightWhale; blam; M. Espinola; happygrl; sauropod; hellinahandcart; ...
"...Olmert and his team couldn't even handle Hezz and barely managed a draw/cease fire last year......He nor his Admin has the stones needed to take on Iran...
Regardless....If Iran is to be dealt with via the military option....Israel cannot accomplish this task without us (U.S.)..."

By the end of March, Iran will have enough fissile material to build their first A-Bomb.

By the end of April, Iran will no longer have the capability of producing any fissile materials, their Armed Forces will be decimated, and their oil assets will be in the protective hands of other people, including the USA, Britain, and Canada.

By the end of April, Israel and the USA will have destroyed Hizbollah, and also any Syrian Forces that can be found (most of the Syrian forces will drop their weapons, strip off their boots, and run scared into the nearest desert). Hamas and Fatah will finally try to make a deal with Israel. They'll fail!

By the end of April, Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia will have lost some of its more unsavoury islamaniacs (read wahhabbis - our Spec-Ops are good!).

By the end of April, Mushareff and Pakistan will be negotiating with somebody (?) to get International advice about their Nuclear Weapons, and their 'father-of-the-islamic-bomb' guy will finally go to a real jail.
Mushie will also tell the USA where the remains of ole-binny are buried. It'll be under 50 tons of rock.

By the end of April, the Kurds in the North of Iraq and Iran will be talking about forming an Independant State. Turkey won't like that, but there's enough oil to go around.

By the end of April, everybody in the USA, Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Russia, China, Japan, South Korea, and all other democratic nations will be wondering why there even exists a thing called "The UN"!

By the end of April, the world will be a different place, and business will continue to grow and prosper. Life will be good! The dimocRATS will have a two-year cluster-f*ck, then nominate Ralph Nader ............ FRegards

Not sure about Nader, though ...

29 posted on 02/25/2007 12:55:06 PM PST by gonzo (I'm not confused anymore. Now I'm sure we have to completely destroy Islam, and FAST!!)
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To: RightWhale

Maybe they are Salvation Army generals?

I really doubt we have any in our military like that.


30 posted on 02/25/2007 1:00:48 PM PST by Eye of Unk
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To: gonzo

I sure wish you were correct but, you're not.


31 posted on 02/25/2007 2:13:23 PM PST by blam
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To: blam
"...I sure wish you were correct but, you're not..."

In my perfect world, I'm correct. Even in yours, it's pretty close.

We, the USA, are all over Iraq with a huge amount of Armed Forces and materials, right in the center of the Middle East oil fields, and it's not an accident.

We're also in Afghanistan, the other side of Iran. Maps at # 11.

April 9th is a good day, if it goes that long ............. FRegards

32 posted on 02/25/2007 6:47:45 PM PST by gonzo (I'm not confused anymore. Now I'm sure we have to completely destroy Islam, and FAST!!)
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To: gonzo; blam
"The pace of military planning in Israel, which has markedly accelerated since the start of the year, is being driven by Mossad's stark intelligence assessment that Iran, given the rate of progress on uranium enrichment at Natanz, could have enough fissile material for a nuclear warhead by 2009."

I doubt that anything exciting will happen until the second half of this year at the earliest. We might see a brief naval skirmish in the Persian gulf but that's all I can imagine until the end of this year or 2008.

33 posted on 02/25/2007 6:56:29 PM PST by defenderSD (Holds the San Diego high school football record for most interceptions by a slow white guy.)
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To: gonzo; blam

But covert ops are certainly possible at any time: we might see something like a car full of Iranian nuclear technicians driving off a bridge.


34 posted on 02/25/2007 6:58:48 PM PST by defenderSD (Holds the San Diego high school football record for most interceptions by a slow white guy.)
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To: gonzo
"April 9th is a good day, if it goes that long ............. FRegards"

I notice the Brits have just doubled their naval presence in the area too.

I guess I ought to get my hurricane gasoline stockpile early this year...Huh?

35 posted on 02/25/2007 7:02:07 PM PST by blam
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To: RightWhale

"ABC radio news today had an article about five or so US generals who would quit if the Pres gives the order to invade Iran."

They need to go now. Generals don't make policy, they say "Yes Mr. President"


36 posted on 02/25/2007 7:05:15 PM PST by HereInTheHeartland (Never bring a knife to a gun fight, or a Democrat to do serious work...)
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To: blam
"...I notice the Brits have just doubled their naval presence in the area too.
I guess I ought to get my hurricane gasoline stockpile early this year...Huh?..."

And, the Brits are adding troops in Afghanistan, (what-the-hell? - they were supposed to go home to Scotland) and, the Canucks - THE CANUCKS, fer cryin'-out-loud, are ready to invade by sea! Jeez!

I already got the hurricane gas, and I keep the cars topped-up. Stay well, pally ............ FRegards

37 posted on 02/25/2007 7:41:11 PM PST by gonzo (I'm not confused anymore. Now I'm sure we have to completely destroy Islam, and FAST!!)
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To: gonzo
Lordy.

"A military spokesman says it’s all just an experiment, but one analyst says the exercise is a response to new global threats, which may require Canada to challenge a rogue state by mounting a seaborne assault. "

38 posted on 02/25/2007 7:54:34 PM PST by blam
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To: defenderSD; blam; DevSix; Salem; Fitzcarraldo; RightWhale; M. Espinola; happygrl; sauropod; ...
"...I doubt that anything exciting will happen until the second half of this year at the earliest. We might see a brief naval skirmish in the Persian gulf but that's all I can imagine until the end of this year or 2008.
But covert ops are certainly possible at any time: we might see something like a car full of Iranian nuclear technicians driving off a bridge..."

It's doubtful that we could, or should, limit it to a skirmish. There are B-1-b Lancers flying sorties over Baghdad now, and apparently, they've been deployed to Kuwait or Qatar - possibly another close country. We can't leave them there for long without using them for their intended purpose (contrary to stated performance, the B-1-b IS transonic).

The Military build-up in both Iraq and the Arabian Sea is mind-boggling! I think the USS Ronald Reagan Carrier Battle Group is on its' way there too. That'll be _____ Battle Groups, including two Amphibious Groups, on Station there. We can't afford to keep them there indefinitely.

Based on the old saying: 'The longer we wait, the stronger the enemy grows', there's no point in waiting much longer. Remember, Yassir Arafat was the most-visiting terrorist ever in the klintoon years, and President Bush refused to ever see him, at all! He knew that arafat was a liar and a terrorist.

I think our President is taking Ahmanutjob very seriously, and is about to attack Iran with great ferocity and furious anger, the way it should be done!

Islam needs an object-lesson, and I think they're about to get it! Now, count the number of mosques in your neighbourhoods, note their locations, then stay well armed and safe ........ FRegards

39 posted on 02/25/2007 8:21:05 PM PST by gonzo (I'm not confused anymore. Now I'm sure we have to completely destroy Islam, and FAST!!)
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To: gonzo

Okay. I'm making the gasoline run tomorrow.


40 posted on 02/25/2007 8:26:06 PM PST by blam
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