SPECIAL FORCES PREPARE FOR IRAN ATTACK [CIA Already In Country]

UK Evening Standard ^ | June 17, 2003 | Robert Fox

[ewing]

British and American Intelligence and Special Forces have been put on alert for a conflict with Iran within the next 12 months as fears grow that Terhan is building a nuclear weapons program.

Iran has been constructing a nuclear civil power program for some years. It is due to start generating electricity for the national power grid in two years.

However, United Nations, American and European Union experts have become alarmed at the extent of nuclear power plants in Iraq and many are of a sophistication that suggests they are for a weapons program rather than for civil use.

A full report by the International Atomic Energy Authority is due to be published within days. It points at discrepencies in what Iran has officially disclosed about its nuclear facilities.

Already CIA agents are known to have been working inside Iran to establish the full range of the Iranian nuclear program.

[RightWhale]

Some very old scores to be put right...

Sure there will be an accounting. At the same time, for many people all that 444 days happened before they were born. Let's not fall into the same Groundhog Day trap with those who are still fighting the Crusaders.

[RaceBannon]

http://rescueattempt.tripod.com

[ought-six]

What with Korth Korea going nuclear, and Iran well on its way there, the next 18 months will be VERY interesting.

[twigs]

Brit Hume's guest last night said that this protest is much larger than students--for the first time. He said that only about 10-15% of the protesters are students. The rest are families. This is serious and the mullahs knows they have a REAL problem on their hands.

[DoughtyOne]

Special forces 'prepare for Iran attack'
By Robert Fox, Evening Standard
17 June 2003

British and American intelligence and special forces have been put on alert for a conflict with Iran within the next 12 months, as fears grow that Tehran is building a nuclear weapons programme.

Iran has been constructing a nuclear civil power programme for some years. It is due to start generating significant amounts of electricity for the national power grid in two years.

However, United Nations, American and EU experts have become alarmed at the extent of the nuclear plants in Iran, and many are of a sophistication that suggests that they are for a weapons programme rather than for civil use.

A full report by the International Atomic Energy Authority is due to be published within days. It points at "discrepancies" in what Iran has officially disclosed about its nuclear facilities.

The chief IAEA inspector Mohammed El Baradei said: "Tehran has failed to report certain nuclear material and activities."

The EU has declared this week that it backs the demands of the United States and Britain that IAEA inspectors should be allowed full access to all nuclear sites in Iran. Russia, which has helped Iran develop nuclear plants, has also backed the international effort to get more inspectors on the ground there.

Tehran has rejected these demands. A government spokesman accused Washington of "blatant interference" in stirring up the student protests against the clerical regime, which have been running for six nights in the capital.

However, the EU's foreign ministers meeting in Luxembourg yesterday backed the Americans and demanded that inspectors be admitted or any trade deals with the EU should be called off.

In the past week the EU and Nato, as well as Russia and Japan, have expressed genuine alarm that Iran could be developing a nuclear weapons programme more powerful than anything Saddam Hussein actually achieved in Iraq, whatever he intended.

"This is not a question of crying Wolfowitz," a Washington defence insider said, referring to the calls to deal with the "axis of evil" of rogue states - which include Iran - by the hawkish deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz. "The threat is real."

Already CIA agents are known to have been working inside Iran to establish the full range of the Iranian nuclear programme. Production and research is being carried out at no less than 16 different sites, including Tehran university-Recently Iran began developing a new series of medium-range missiles, which could reach Israel, Cyprus and even Greece.

Growing protests against the clerical regime of the ayatollahs has suddenly made Iran more unstable in the past few weeks. President Bush has welcomed the protests, though some fear they will make the country even more unmanageable. But one of the Pentagon's most hardline advisers, Richard Perle, has said that the demonstrations could undermine the rule of the clerics, which would be the best way of disarming Iran. Michael Ledeen, his colleague at the American Enterprise Institute, a think tank close to the White House, has gone further.

He wrote last week: "Iraq's support of terrorism was minuscule compared to Tehran's activities. If we are serious about winning the war against the terror masters, the Tehran regime must fall."

Washington also blames the ayatollahs in Tehran for giving financial backing and training to a hardline organisation, the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), founded by Ayatollah Mohammed Bakr al Hakim. He has just returned to Iraq. The ayatollah is blamed for the Shi'ite violence against British and American forces in Basra and in the Shi'ite heartlands of central and southern Iraq.

A British intelligence official said that any campaign against Iran would not be a ground war like the one in Iraq. The Americans will use different tactics, said the intelligence officer. "It is getting quite scary."

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[Arthalion]

American troops one the east,west and south. Should take about 3 days... mostly driving time.

Wouldn't be so sure about that. I work with an Iranian Assyrian who used to be in the Iranian military (conscriptee during the Iran/Iraq war) and have discussed an invasion of Iran with him in the past. He brought up a few good points:

1. Iran still has a sizeable number of F-16's from the pre-revolution days and the missiles to use on them. They haven't kept up with us technology wise, but they are still very capable of intercepting and taking down our bombers.
2. Iran is bigger than Afghanistan and Iraq combined, so there's more ground to cover.
3. Iran has many narrow mountain valleys with concealed runways, and there is a contingency plan in place to scatter the air force to these runways to conduct "hit and run" missions. Many of these blind valleys don't have real roads, and it could take weeks to reach and destroy them all.
4. Like Afghanistan, most of Iran is covered with mountains, with very few decent roadways.
5. Unlike Afghanistan, there will be no seasoned and well equipped local rebels there to assist us.
6. Unlike Afghanistan, Iran isn't all desert. We think "dry" when we think of Iran because of the Rambo movies and images of the southern desert, but huge swaths of the Iranian mountains are covered in thick forest.
7. Like Iraq, the Iranians have chemical and bio weapons, and aren't afraid to use them (he told me about one battle where he watched his own [Iranian] jets drop chemical weapons over Iraqi lines, and then watched as the gas drifted back toward his lines. They killed the Iraqis, but they also killed half their own troops.)
8. The eastern border is fairly undefended, but the Iran/Iraq border is one of the most heavily fortified in the world. They've been reinforcing, burying, and hiding their emplacements and artillery along the border for twenty years...getting past it will be a formidable task.

Don't get me wrong, we WOULD beat them...but it would certainly be the most drawn out battle in the war on terror to happen yet. And just for the record, my Iranian co-worker wishes we would topple the mullahs...he hasn't been able to speak with his parents or family in Tehran since he fled the country a decade ago.

[jimkress]

"Damn, and this isn't even DEBKA!" bump...

That's the fisrt thing I thought, too.

[bedolido]

Excellent. Thanks for the infomation. Your post should be Bumped!

[ought-six]

"I don't understand what the French are thinking. Are they for Hamas and against Iranians? This doesn't make sense."

The French are for the Islamifascists. They are scared stiff of the ones that are in France already (hence the round-up of anti-Islamicists), and are in the process of surrendering French sovereignty to the Islamifascists. It is no mere coincidence that France has the largest concentration of Islamic believers in Europe. They make up some 20% of the population now, and its is projected that in 30 years France will have some kind of Islamic government (not totally Islamic, but enough Islamicists to exert significant influence, and in some areas, control). Remember that the French political structure is highly fragmented, and it would be no great feat for the Islamicists to control a plurality of the government (heck, all they need is a plurality and they virtually control the whole shot). Then, watch out.

[bedolido]

thanks for the input. That makes sense.

[ewing]

Good historical comparison between 9/11 and Pearl Harbor, except the extremist Islamokazi leaders havent yet figured out that they have awakened a sleeping giant.

[ewing]

The French have a lot of business contracts with Iran.

[GETMAIN]

Not to defend le frogs or anything, but according to foxnews.com :

The group, also called the People's Mujahedeen of Iran (search), was declared a terrorist organization by the European Union in May 2002. The United States also labels it a terror group.

[Bigg Red]

G.W. came into office to make the world a safer and more peaceful place.

^^^
Amen! Amen! God bless President Bush.

[John_11_25]

What worries me, and I hope at least give some concern to the people at the P and Oval offices is that Iranian Mullahs when cornered will behave like any one else (Fight or Flight).

What they could do is set the Hezbollah and the rest of the world terrorist groups, which everyone know they support:

http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/Terrorism/terror_report_orgs.html

onto the west, with massive fatalities. They are not Iraq, they have plenty of oil money, and they have the infrastructure to do it and more importantly, the will.

[maestro]

Your#10...............

"Damn, and this isn't even DEBKA!" bump...

It's the British equivalent :-)

LOL

(It must be a 'French-UN-DemoRat'......dream!)

/sarcasm

[Archangelsk]

What is this? Da friggin' Sopranos of the beltway? :-)

[ewing]

It sounds like we have already defeated the Mullahs from within..

[Charles Martel]

Iran still has a sizeable number of F-16's from the pre-revolution days and the missiles to use on them. They haven't kept up with us technology wise, but they are still very capable of intercepting and taking down our bombers.

Iran bought around 80 Grumman F-14s, of which it is estimated that only 10-15 are airworthy. They've been cannibalizing the majority of them to keep that handful operational.