US preparations for invading Iran are complete: Report

[dantes76]

LONDON: American preparations for invading Iran are complete and a major conventional war with Teheran could begin any day, according to a chilling new report that coincides with leading US Democrat Congressmen's warning to President Bush that he does not have the authority to go to war with Iran.

The report, by authoritative defence expert Dan Plesch, says American military operations for Iran "extend far beyond targeting suspect WMD facilities and will enable President Bush to destroy Iran's military, political and economic infrastructure overnight using conventional weapons."

Plesch, who is known to be well-connected and well-networked at the very highest reaches of the trans-Atlantic political and defence establishment, quoted unnamed British military sources to say that "the US military switched its whole focus to Iran" as soon as Saddam Hussein was kicked out of Baghdad.

He said his sources added that the US has continued this target-Iran strategy ever since, even though the American infantry continues to be bogged down fighting the insurgency in Iraq.

In an assertion that has astonished European capitals, the defence guru claimed that despite the gross failure to re-build post-Saddam Iraq, American hubris extends to plans for a "peaceful" post-invasion "settlement" for Iran. This plan will seek to create a federal nation, an "Iran of the regions", he said.

Pointing out that two years ago, the Congress of Iranian Nationalities for a Federal Iran had its inaugural meeting in London, Plesch said, "We should not underestimate the Bush administration's ability to convince itself that an 'Iran of the regions' will emerge from a post-rubble Iran."

Plesch's revelations and extraordinary claims form the cover-story of this week's generally staid, anti-interventionist and left-leaning New Statesman magazine. They come within days of a surge in Washington rhetoric over Iran. Just five days ago, senior American officials devastatingly told the world that deadly new "explosively formed penetrators", which have killed 170 US soldiers in Iraq, are "coming from the highest levels of the Iranian government".

Soon after, Bush himself declared that "if Iran escalates its military action in Iraq to the detriment of our troops and/or innocent Iraqi people, we will respond firmly".

Defence experts said the revelation that America's military planning is advanced and well-calibrated to wipe out chunks of Iran's installations and infrastructure and could lay bare swathes of the country was bound to scare policy makers and diplomats on both sides of the Atlantic.

The experts pointed out that Plesch's claims come in the very week American House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi was forced publicly to restrain Bush with a cutting response to the president's pious claims he wants a diplomatic solution to the rift with Iran.

Pelosi said, "I take him at his word", only to add the US Congress must assert itself "and make it very clear that there is no previous authority for the president, any president, to go into Iran.”

Plesch's report claimed the US Army, Navy, Air Force and marines have all prepared battle plans and spent four years building bases and training for "Operation Iranian Freedom". He added that Admiral Fallon, the new head of US Central Command, has inherited computerised plans under the name TIRANNT (Theatre Iran Near Term).

He chillingly claimed, “US defence establishment's programme called "Global Strike" means that, without any obvious signal, what was done to Serbia and Lebanon can be done overnight to the whole of Iran.” He added saying, “We, and probably the Iranians, would not know about it until after the bombs fell. Forces that hide will suffer the fate of Saddam's armies, once their positions are known."

He added, "The whole of Iran is now less than an hour's flying time from some American base or carrier. Sources in the region as well as trade journals confirm that the US has built three bases in Azerbaijan that could be transit points for troops and with facilities equal to its best in Europe."

Plesch claims that "post-9/11, the US Navy can put six carriers into battle at a month's notice, with each carrier force including hundreds of cruise missiles."

Plesch added that several US marine forces are already "assembling, each with its own aircraft carrier. These carrier forces can each conduct a version of the D-Day landings. They come with landing craft, tanks, jump-jets, thousands of troops and, yes, hundreds more cruise missiles. Their task is to destroy Iranian forces able to attack oil tankers and to secure oilfields and installations. They have trained for this mission since the Iranian revolution of 1979."

The report said that "any US general planning to attack Iran can now assume that at least 10,000 targets can be hit in a single raid, with warplanes flying from the US or Diego Garcia...With little military effort, the US air force can hit the last-known position of Iranian military units, political leaders and supposed sites of weapons of mass destruction. One can be sure that, if war comes, George Bush will not want to stand accused of using too little force and allowing Iran to fight back."

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/U...ow/1629862.cms


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