Philip Giraldi is a former CIA officer who has spilled some good beans on the plans and goings-on within the Bush administration. In the next-to-last (July 18) issue of The American Conservative he wrotean article in which he stated that Dick Cheney’s office,
- has tasked the United States Strategic Command (STRATCOM) with drawing up a contingency plan to be employed in response to another 9/11-type terrorist attack on the United States. The plan includes a large-scale air assault on Iran employing both conventional and tactical nuclear weapons. … As in the case of Iraq, the response is not conditional on Iran actually being involved in the act of terrorism directed against the United States. Several senior Air Force officers involved in the planning are reportedly appalled at the implications of what they are doing–that Iran is being set up for an unprovoked nuclear attack–but no one is prepared to damage his career by posing any objections.
I paused awhile before posting this piece. (Hat-tip to Antiwar.com’s Scott Horton for signaling it, and a friend from American Conservative for confirming its veracity… The piece is not, unfortunately, on AmCon’s website.)
But I paused because I almost couldn’t believe my eyes, and I didn’t want to be part of a slanderous scare campaign.
However, after my AmCon friend confirmed the existence of the piece, and after I checked out Giraldi a little bit, I have to say that this looks like an entirely serious report.
In just eleven days we’ll be marking the 60th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. The idea of an established nuclear-weapons state planning, threatening, or even possibly (God forbid) launching a nuclear attack against a non-nuclear-weapons state that’s a signatory of the NPT flies in the face of Washington’s commitments under the treaty…
But above and beyond that… Has Dick Cheney completely lost his marbles?
Helena, may I copy the article an post it on our political site?
Is this purely a grudge thing or is it because the United States anticipates that in a state of perceived weakness or real weakness, Iran would mount an attack on the U.S.? Maybe I better follow that link and see how much information is provided.
Sunni Islamic militants (like the ones who perpetrated 9-11) tend to dislike or even want to kill Shi’a Muslims, who they often view as heretics or apostates from real Islam.
So let’s see here. We publish the news that if another 9-11 type attack takes place on U.S. soil, regardless of who perpetrates that attack, we will nuke Iran? What does this scenario look like to a Sunni militant? Perhaps an increased incentive to mount a 9-11 type attack on the U.S.
I hope this is smoke and not real.
Dick Cheney has no marbles, but he does want the world to know he has cajones.
Meanwhile, according to ABC News, 6 in 10 Americans think a world war is likely. “‘Man’s going to destroy man eventually. When that will be, I don’t know,’ said Gaye Lestaeghe of Freeport, La.”
We simply do not have the option of letting these cretins make us wallow in despair. (I’m saying that to myself.)
It would irresponsible for the US military not to have contingency plans for Iran, in case the policy makers decide on that course of action. Who should the military be preparing to face? Norway?
I was glad to read that they do.
David
No, David.
It is irresponsible for the military to be making “contingency plans” that involve a nuclear first strike on any nation. If the US military leadership had any heart, or any cojones, they would say to Cheney, and similar “policymakers,” Sir, No Sir! We will not plan for that!
The reported attitude of Cheney is that of a bully, pure and simple. Most of us, most of the world, dislike and fear bullies.
In your support for Cheney, do you mean us to dislike and fear you, personally?
Helena,
I am not being glib or sarcastic when I ask you how, at this point in the matter, you can question whether or not “Has Dick Cheney completely lost his marbles”.
Don’t you grasp the dark, life condemming, nihilistic visions at work with BushCo. Of course he has lost his marbles….
David,
I have family in Iran. I think if you did, too, you wouldn’t be so cavalier about the lives of others.
If that attitude doesn’t represent evil, I don’t know what does.
I don’t know whether Cheney has lost his marbles or not. He is in the same trip as Bush, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Feight, Pearl etc..
But what I know it that this clique is a real danger to the rest of the world.
Last time such a worldwide danger emerged was with nazism.
We have all it there :
The Blitz Krieg, the discourse of the supremacy of the Western civilization over the others, the disregarding for all other non american lifes, the numerous lies and last but not least, the ordinary people in the US believing those lies and supporting this murderous government.
Christian S. H.– yes! This whole site is under a ‘Creative Commons’ license. That means you can use the material with due attribution.
In a curious way the Cheney plans for a nucleur attack on Iran are to be expected. This is a regime without scruple or conscience. No wonder its is loathed and despised everywhere in the world. Yet it also a sign of the desperation the neo-cons feel as the strategy for domination of the middle east collapses.. Remember,after the fall of Baghdad,Sharon said the US should prepare for the march on Tehran.! Therein lies the real threat to the Middle east. The defeat of the Bush plans will be an even bigger defeat for the Israeli government which is behind all such news.A US withdrawal will be a real problem for Israel..one they have created themselves !
John,
Iran is busily working on its own nukes, they are saying as much, have been caught lying about that, have been providing sanctuary to Al Qaeda players (in spite of the alleged religious differences), have been demonizing the US for decades, and have acted on that much more than the US has acted against Iran. Why would the US military refuse to be ready to fight them?
Please read me again. I expressed no opinion on Cheney, and in fact I didn’t vote for him either time. As for liking me personally John, that is your prerrogative, I prefer to be liked but that is your choice.
Vivion, I had family in Russia when we had our nukes pointed that way. Is that any different?
When you talk to your Iranian family maybe you can ask them why they won’t hand over Al Qaeda elements involved in 9/11? Don’t they believe in the justice system, or maybe they support what they did. They murdered, they celebrate, they hide, they work from Iran on the next one. And who was evil Vivion?
David
What a bunch of hyperventilating nonsense. Some ex-‘CIA officer’ writes an unsourced speculation in Pat Buchanan’s anti-war newspaper [“not online”- sorry!], and all of a sudden its US policy. Maybe its the same guy who told Scott Ritter there was an invasion planned for June (another raimondo classic: http://www.antiwar.com/blog/comments.php?id=1917_0_1_0_C)
Helena, are your reporting standards really this low? Has any sitting US official proposed any such thing?
“Iran is busily working on its own nukes,”
no evidence of that….(Pakistan has them, though, and is sharing them with…. maybe AL QAEDA!)
“they are saying as much,”
nope….
“have been caught lying about that,”
nope…..
“have been providing sanctuary to Al Qaeda players (in spite of the alleged religious differences),”
no evidence of that….. Pakistan has though.
“have been demonizing the US for decades,”
golly, wonder why? Well, since we believe in free speech and all, guess we will have to put up with the ugly things that they say we are…. especially since we say worse about them. Otherwise, someone might notice that we are hypocrites!
“and have acted on that much more than the US has acted against Iran.”
nonsense……
“Why would the US military refuse to be ready to fight them?”
They are not refusing to be ready to fight them, Cheney is (reportedly) planning a nuclear first strike against a country that has not attacked or even threatened to attack us, much like Iraq. Furthermore, they don’t have nukes, so they are not a dire threat like Pakistan is.
Beyond bombing runs though, the US military is totally unready and unable to fight them, thanks to Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld.
This plan of Cheney’s is not a contingency plan, is is paving the road to disaster.
Bombing runs on Iran (softening them up) have reportedly started in June, just like Ritter said. This same activity happened in Iraq for years, but increased quite a bit in 2002.
David, you state that Iran has been “demonizing the United States for decades..” They probably have reason to do this. Regard their history, briefly (at least since the 19th century). The country was fought over by the Brits and the Russians in the 19th century (when Britain broke off Afghanistan from Persia.) The British and Soviet troops forced their ruler to abdicate in 1941 (because of suspected sympathy with the Axis). The US backed the Shah (the former ruler’s son), who repressed (often violently) conservative Muslim factions. Conservative Muslims tossed out the US-backed Shah and seized the US Embassy, taking hostages. Iraqi troops, backed by the US, invaded Iran, resulting in a bitter war. The US helped by secretly sending arms to Iran. A US Navy warship shoot down a commercial Iranian jetliner in 1988, killing all 290 persons aboard. In 1996 US authorized sanctions on companies investing in Iran, as a rebuke for its alleged support of “terrorists”. The US invaded Iran’s neighbor, Iraq, in 2003. Oh, and Israel, supported by the US, allegedly possesses nuclear weapons, and, in 1981, had bombed an Iraqi nuclear power plant near Baghdad.
Play an imagination game at this point. Substitute US for Iran, but a US reduced in size, the western half of the country having been split off by force over 150 years ago. For US, read China; for Iraq, read Canada; for Israel, read Mexico. If you would be walking around repeating, “The Chinese are my friends, the Chinese are my friends,” in this scenario, you are a much more unsuspicious and forgiving person than I.
David Said,
“Vivion, I had family in Russia when we had our nukes pointed that way. Is that any different?
When you talk to your Iranian family maybe you can ask them why they won’t hand over Al Qaeda elements involved in 9/11? Don’t they believe in the justice system, or maybe they support what they did. They murdered, they celebrate, they hide, they work from Iran on the next one. And who was evil Vivion?”
I wonder who put you to tell us these lies. where your evidences? All these talks like what produced by you and your propaganda in Iraq WMD case then turned all of them are lies.
Its enough this sick minded and poisonous thinking David.
There is no justification for mass murdering people under any name or in any low, in fact your talk should pointed to you and your followers what they did in Vietnam and Latin America, are they also having nuke their? Enough meddling in these sick thought and you
Susan:
Bombing Iran in June? Do you have any references or evidence for this. I am quite surprised.
The whole story with the nukes and Iran doesn’t quite make sense to me. Perhaps there is some good but secret reason that saber-rattling with Iran makes sense right now — I don’t know. Perhaps if I had a better understanding of what exactly Iran hopes to accomplish by building nuclear weapons I would understand this. Right now it’s a puzzle.
It could of course be an anti-assassination ploy: Don’t assassinate Bush or we’ll be left with something much worse…
I also think that different political cultures have different understandings of “Contingency plans”. I firmly believe that the US Pentagon has contingency plans to invade Ecuador, Antarctica, Monaco and the Vatican. And that these plans are either totally meaningless or intended at most to intimidate whoever is most annoying at the time.
In any case, I stand in opposition to the US actually bombing Iran.
”The US backed the Shah (the former ruler’s son), who repressed (often violently) conservative Muslim factions.”
They trough the elected president Musadaq and they support Sha’h after Musdaq nationalized the oil in Iran.
David, any country tried to get on its feet in ME bullied by US and State Number 52 (You know, sensitivities of certain peace loving religions and State)
you are so religious David?
Bombing runs on Iran (softening them up) have reportedly started in June, just like Ritter said.
care to substantiate this remark? since it’s ‘reportedly’ happened, who is reporting it?
I imagine US bombing runs would have caught the attention of some Iranian news agency. If not you’d seem to have an amazing scoop there.
David,
As far as I’ve been able to tell, the stuff about Al Qaida elements is completely false. If you have solid evidence, please post.
As for supporting 9/11, you may recall that right after the event, thousands in Iran turned out in the streets with candles in demonstrations sympathetic towards the U.S.
You sould like a fanatic, honestly. Who else do you want to nuke?
vivion the 9/11 commission pointed to some al qaeda/ iranian connections that weren’t far fetched, re: the khobar towers bombing.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6581-2004Jun25.html
not that it matters very much as no military assault on Iran is at all likely to occur. popular support simply isnt there, notwithstanding breathless ‘exposes’ like this.
“Bombing runs on Iran (softening them up) have reportedly started in June, just like Ritter said. This same activity happened in Iraq for years, but increased quite a bit in 2002.”
I don’t have any corporate media references. It is just “reportedly” started, which means some people are saying that it is happening, even though corporate media in English is not reporting it. They didn’t report on the bombing runs in Iraq in 2002 either. Nor did they report on the many items about Iraq not having WMDs (at least for American corporate media).
I remember Newsweek reporting on how Saddam would have a “green mushroom cloud” in Baghdad… and then there was all the Judith Miller nonsense in the NYT.
My statement came from claims in alternative media, which can also be wrong at times. But they seem to be right more often than the corporate media.
It seems to me a Bush assassination (god forbid) or impeachment or even death by natural causes will not make much of a difference anytime soon. I don’t think Bush is running things.
What this administration, and the congress, have started in the middle east are going to continue to go downhill, just like a wheel on a track, for some time. And I don’t think there is much anyone can do to turn things around anytime soon. And that makes me very, very sad. I do wish the ones who start up all this hate and violence and destruction would be the ones who suffer the consequences of those decisions…. instead it is the innocents who suffer the most.
Here we go for the alternative media zombies like Susan/Vivion, and the conspiracy theorists like Salah:
Iran cheating:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/programmes/worldtoday/news/story/2005/06/printable/050616_iran_rafsenjani_jun_16_05.shtml
United Nations nuclear monitors say Iran has admitted to misleading them over its experiments with plutonium, which can be used in making nuclear weapons … 16 June, 2005
Iran providing sanctuary to Al Qaeda:
The sheltering of prominent Al Qaeda terrorists and maintaining compounds in Tehran, Mashad, and Zahedan was reported by Libyan Islamist Numan bin Uthman. Among the guests are Saad bin Osama bin Laden (son of…) and Mustafa Hamza.
Iran also hosted Egyptian Al Qaeda’s Shawqi al_Istambuli. Egypt sent General Suleiman in July 2003 to negotiate his and other terrorists extradition. As far as I know they were not extradited. I don’t want to bore you with names and places, just google the name Imad Moughniyah and do some reading. You may want to keep an air sickness bag handy. You may feel like vomiting when you read. I do.
Eclaire:
I am not sure what the Russian and British sagas have to do with anything. Or the Israelis bombing the Osiraq reactor. Did your little brain know that Iran attempted to bomb Osiraq before Israel and failed? I guess that is OK. BTW, Israel has not lifted a finger against Iran, why the heck do you have to smear Israel even when the subject is US-Iranian tensions.
Salah, I am not sure what your problem is, at some point you’ll have to admit that you have a collection of failed states that cannot be explained by blaming others. Oh, and please don’t attack my person blindly. I does not help.
David
David, references to your colleagues here on the comments board being “zombies” or having a “little brain” are way out of line… Ditto a ref you have elsewhere to someone “peeing outside a jar”.
Please take a couple of deep breaths, treat all colleagues here with respect, and open your mind to the idea that just possibly you might learn something from them, and they from you.
(Also, think about this: If your goal is to persuade people, do you think calling them names will make them more, or less, receptive to your arguments?)
David said,
”Iran providing sanctuary to Al Qaeda:
The sheltering of prominent Al Qaeda terrorists and maintaining compounds in Tehran, Mashad, and Zahedan was reported by Libyan Islamist Numan bin Uthman. Among the guests are Saad bin Osama bin Laden (son of…) and Mustafa Hamza.”
Colin Powell said before,
”the State Department. (As for Powell, in February 2003 he had told the UN Security Council, “My colleagues, every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What we’re giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence.”)”
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20050728/roves_nuclear_threats.php
David, on your back door North Korea, which reportedly was either acquiring or expanding a nuclear arsenal, better off lock your doors, instead of keep listing falls statements without any evidences, you my become like your follow apologies for his lies about Iraq.
Contingency plans are made routinely. Tactical nukes are increasingly accepted in some quarters as a possible tool for getting stuff that’s dug in really deep.
On the other hand we had dire warnings of an attack on Iran in July. The risk is too great. Iranian oil alone makes up more than surplus production, the resulting panic will shoot prices higher even if Iran doesn’t succeed in seriously hampering regional supply, southern Iraq will likely explode. There will be miscief in Afghanistan and the rest of central Asia.
I don’t think the Bush administration has been particularly intelligent in foreign policy, but I doubt if it would go this far.
“Iraq was supposed to be a first step. Iran was also in the neoconservatives’ sights. The neocons envisaged U.S. control of the region (and its oil),”
Oil and Blood
By BOB HERBERT
Published: July 28, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/28/opinion/28herbert.html?oref=login
“President Franklin Roosevelt cut a deal with the tyrants running Saudi Arabia: give us secure access to your oil – a quarter of all the world’s supplies – and we will ask no questions about what you do with the cash. Kill democrats? Provoke Islamism? If that’s what you have to do to keep the oil flowing, then we’re right there with you, buddy.”
That the standerd US setup for ME 55 years.
“The brutal face we have shown to most Muslims rests on a deal that was made on a very unromantic Valentine’s Day in 1945, on board the USS Quincy in the Suez Canal. we are part of the problem, not part of the solution.”
Iran cheating:
United Nations nuclear monitors say Iran has admitted to misleading them over its experiments with plutonium, which can be used in making nuclear weapons … 16 June, 2005
Actually, it says there are inconsistencies in what Iran has claimed. That *may* mean they lied, not that they cheated.
There was inconsistencies in what Saddam’s regime claimed also. Doesn’t mean there were WMDs there in Iraq. I will start thinking that Iran has nukes when the head of IAEA says so. Even then, I cannot see how Iran having a nuke or two is more dangerous than Pakistan having them. I think the danger in Pakistan is far, far, greater. We have lots of proof that al Qaeda and other extremists are in Pakistan, little evidence they are in Iran.
David, references to your colleagues here on the comments board being “zombies” or having a “little brain” are way out of line… Ditto a ref you have elsewhere to someone “peeing outside a jar”.
Please take a couple of deep breaths, treat all colleagues here with respect, and open your mind to the idea that just possibly you might learn something from them, and they from you.
Helena, please re-read any of the many abusive comments from your regulars. Why do you reserve criticism exclusively for ‘neocon’ types? your double standard here is appalling. perhaps a misnomer: you seem to have NO standard of civility for posts critical of Bush, Israel or Zionism.
I’m with you, Helena.
Rachel, you can’t reasonably oppose particular criticism of individuals and instances, by Helena, with a general slash at “posts critical of Bush, Israel or Zionism”.
You don’t give examples, of incivility of these latter posts, because you can’t. In fact your own post is a good example of the bullying manner of which Helena is complaining.
You, David, and WarrenW should consider carefully whether your overbearing aggression helps your cause in any way. In my opinion it does not.
Helena,
I am not here to persuade anybody, at most to defend against systematic and often unfounded attacks on my country. I am grateful to the US and standing up to much of this nonsense is the least I can do.
As for my etiquette, I would ask you to consider it part of my colorful style and leave me alone. Or at least have a say on the crap addressed to me, like Salah’s calling me “sick minded , poisonous, evil and terrorist” right on this very thread. Vivion calls me evil. And curiously none of them addresses the substance of my points.
David
Dear David
First I apologize for my harsh words, but in same talk, David you started with me for no reasons just I was expressing my felling and my view in regard of Iraq war and invasion with the suffering for my family their due to US occupation.
As you said “I am grateful to the US and standing up to much of this nonsense is the least I can do.
Is this story sourced anywhere else?