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Key General: White House Briefed on Iran Target Options
U.S. News and World Report ^ | 2/29/2012 | John T. Bennett

Posted on 02/29/2012 6:38:38 PM PST by U-238

The Air Force has provided the White House with options for a strike against Iran's nuclear weapons sites, but a former top Pentagon official is warning America and Israel lack the weaponry to halt Tehran's atomic arms program.

Iran's defiant pursuit of nuclear weapons "has the attention of the [Joint] Chiefs and other national security officials," Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz told reporters Wednesday. "Our obligation is to provide options" to the defense secretary and the president, Schwartz said, "and we have done that."

President Obama and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta have said for months they will continue with a plan based on increasingly severe sanctions aimed at weakening the regime in Tehran. But the U.S. leaders contend a military strike is very much on the table.

[Iran Flexes Military Muscle in Persian Gulf.]

The strike options apparently include dropping the Air Force's 30,000-pound "bunker buster" bomb. That weapon is designed to penetrate deep into the ground and take out deeply burried enemy targets.

Schwartz's revelation that strike options have been sent to the military's civilian bosses in the Pentagon's E-Ring and the White House came less than a week before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to meet with Obama in Washington. And it came six days after the former second-ranking U.S. general said flatly that the Air Force and Israel lack the firepower to bring Iran's nuclear arms program to a halt.

(Excerpt) Read more at usnews.com ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: centralcommand; iran; persiangulf; usaf
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To: familyop

I am sure the highest ranking general would not comment something like this.


21 posted on 02/29/2012 11:25:06 PM PST by U-238
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To: U-238

The highest general probably leaked this to his subordinates.


22 posted on 02/29/2012 11:26:59 PM PST by U-238
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To: U-238
Yes, and agreed. I was thinking about the possibility that he might have been a "former second-ranking U.S. general" in '91--maybe the lefty who was Secretary of State for a very short time about a decade or so later.


23 posted on 02/29/2012 11:33:16 PM PST by familyop (We Baby Boomers are croaking in an avalanche of rotten politics smelled around the planet.)
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To: familyop

Even though they wear uniforms, they are still subject to politics.


24 posted on 02/29/2012 11:49:44 PM PST by U-238
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To: U-238

Unless the plan includes taking out the Mullahs in power it’s a waste of time. Give Israel the green light and it will be done and over in less than 72 hours....they will take everyone and everything out by air and the Mossad on the ground will handle the politicos and Mullahs...they won’t even know what hit them.


25 posted on 02/29/2012 11:55:06 PM PST by My Favorite Headache (In a world where I feel so small, I can't stop thinking big. Vote Newt!)
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To: My Favorite Headache

Command and Control is always a key priority. Especially in this type of this opeartion. Crush the snake’s head and the body dies.


26 posted on 03/01/2012 12:43:37 AM PST by U-238
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To: FedsRStealingOurCountryFromUs

Do not forget Rosa Brooks in the DoD. Look her up.


27 posted on 03/01/2012 5:06:09 AM PST by combat_boots (The Lion of Judah cometh. Hallelujah. Gloria Patri, Filio et Spiritui Sancto.)
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