Sarah Baxter, Washington and Michael Smith

PLANS are under way for a massive bombing strike on sites where Iran is believed to be enriching uranium before President George W Bush leaves office in less than three years’ time.

Both Bush and Dick Cheney, his vice-president, regard Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s president, as a new Hitler who cannot be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons and carry out his fantasy of wiping Israel off the map.

Although they hope that diplomatic efforts to restrain Iran will succeed, “it is not in their nature to bequeath the problem to their successors”, a senior White House source said last week.

The Pentagon is believed to be considering options that would allow it to destroy facilities such as Iran’s main centrifuge plant at Natanz in a single night of bombing.

Richard Perle, a leading neoconservative, said that an attack could “be over before anybody knew what had happened. The only question then would be what the Iranians might do in retaliation”.

Defence analysts believe the most likely weapon is Big Blu, a 30,000lb bunker-buster bomb that will be ready for use towards the end of 2007.

A report by Seymour Hersh, the investigative reporter, in tomorrow’s New Yorker magazine claims the Pentagon is also considering the use of a tactical nuclear weapon. A refusal to rule out the nuclear option has reportedly led some officers to talk of resigning.

“There are very strong sentiments within the military against brandishing nuclear weapons against other countries,” Hersh quotes a Pentagon adviser as saying.

The Bush government has been inviting defence consultants and Middle East experts to the White House and Pentagon for advice.

The favoured scenario is an attack using a small number of ground attack aircraft flying out of the British dependency of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. The British would have to approve the use of the American base there for an attack and would be asked to play a supporting role by providing air-to-air refuelling or sending surveillance aircraft, ships and submarines.

Senior Pentagon planners recently advised the White House that they did not yet have accurate intelligence on the whereabouts of all Iran’s nuclear enrichment sites and several were buried under granite. At present it could hope to set back the Iranians’ nuclear programme by only two years.

American officials remain divided about the wisdom of a military strike. A senior White House source said opinion was in a “state of flux” and added: “We can bomb the sites, but what then?” It was important to plan for an escalation of the conflict, the source said.

The assumption that British forces would take part in an attack on Iran will be deeply embarrassing to the government. The Foreign Office has insisted that a diplomatic solution is still possible.

Times on Line

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I cannot believe Britain would be so foolish as to take part in this attack on Iran.

Yet another attack on a foreign country on the basis of the US attacking them as self defense? The world isn't going to accept that rationalization a second time. There are many who didn't accepted it the first time around.

The hardcore koolaid drinkers clearly already think of Bush as a great president (which is what makes cognitive dissonance so deeply frightening).

Maybe I've more naive and less cynical than usual (it's Sunday!), but do you honestly think that the American people will accept rebranding Bush as a "great president" or as a "peacemaker"?

...at a deep emotional level, I don't want to believe Americans are that gullible or ignorant. I really don't.

Maybe I've more naive and less cynical than usual (it's Sunday!), but do you honestly think that the American people will accept rebranding Bush as a "great president" or as a "peacemaker"?

Somebody has to make Herbert Hoover look good, and assuming Shrub doesn't start a Nuclear war, he is going to make Hoover look good.

...at a deep emotional level, I don't want to believe Americans are that gullible or ignorant. I really don't.

They are! I can't think of a more Geographically, Historically & Culturally illiterate empire.

War is God's way of teaching Americans geography.

Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives. John Stuart Mill

this PR product now is to set up the Dems for weak, cowardly, stabbing their wartime President in the back, etc. The need to get this story out now is to start prepping for the Fall elections.

Sunday, Apr 9, 2006

LONDON (Reuters) - A military strike against Iran is not on the agenda and the United States is committed to a negotiated solution to the dispute over Iran's nuclear ambitions, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said on Sunday.

Straw also disagreed with comments by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak who warned that civil war has started in Iraq.

The idea that Washington could launch a nuclear strike against Iran was "completely nuts", Straw said in an interview on BBC television.

Straw was responding to a report by investigative journalist Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker magazine that the U.S. administration was stepping up plans for a possible air strike on Iran. The White House, without denying the report, reiterated that it was pursuing a diplomatic solution to the nuclear row.

The report said the U.S. administration was seriously considering using "bunker buster" tactical nuclear weapons against Iran to destroy its main centrifuge plant.

Military action against Iran was "not on the agenda", Straw said.

"They (the Americans) are very committed indeed to resolving this issue ... by negotiation and by diplomatic pressure. And what the Iranians have to do is recognize they have overplayed their hand at each stage ...," he said.

Straw said Britain, Washington's closest European ally, would not accept a pre-emptive strike against Iran, adding: "I am as certain as I can be sitting here that neither would the United States."

Circumstantial evidence added up to a "high suspicion" that Iran was developing a civil nuclear capability that could be used for nuclear weapons, he said.

"But let's be clear: There is no smoking gun ... We can't be certain about Iran's intentions and that is therefore not a basis on which anybody would gain authority for military action," he said.

But if Iran were to attack Israel or to attack or threaten its neighbors, "that's a very different circumstance", Straw said, adding that Israel would have a right to self-defence if attacked.

Iran insists it only wants nuclear technology for power generation. Washington believes Iran is trying to build an atomic bomb and refuses to rule out an attack to deal with what it says is one of the biggest threats to regional stability.

More

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I firmly believe Britain would not be in alliance with the United States if they do decide to attack Iran. Or at least, not with the weak evidence that has been collected to date.

I'm still throwing it out there.

Sun Apr 9, 2006
By Parisa Hafezi

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran on Sunday brushed aside what it called a U.S. "psychological war" against its nuclear programme after a published report described Pentagon planning for possible military strikes against Iranian atomic facilities.

A report by influential investigative journalist Seymour Hersh in The New Yorker magazine, citing unnamed current and former officials, said Washington has stepped up plans for possible attacks on Iranian facilities to curb its atomic work.

The article said the United States was considering using tactical nuclear weapons to destroy Iran's underground uranium enrichment facilities at Natanz, south of Tehran.

"This is a psychological war launched by Americans because they feel angry and desperate regarding Iran's nuclear dossier," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told a weekly news conference.

"We will stand by our right to nuclear technology. It is our red line. We are ready to deal with any possible scenario. Iran is not afraid of threatening language," he added.

The United Nations has called on Iran to halt uranium enrichment, which the West believes Iran is pursuing to acquire technology to make a nuclear bomb. Iran has rejected the demand and insists it only wants to make fuel for civilian uses.

Iran's decision in January to resume enrichment prompted Britain, France and Germany to break off 2-1/2 years of EU talks with Tehran and back a U.S. demand to refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council, which can impose sanctions.

Asefi said Iran was ready to continue its cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency and said IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei would visit Iran by Friday to discuss Iran's cooperation with the IAEA.

"We have always had good cooperation with the IAEA and we will continue to do so," he said.

ElBaradei is expected to provide a report to the Council on Iran's nuclear programme entitled "the process of Iranian compliance" at the end of this month.

ElBaradei has said he has found no proof of a weapons programme in Iran but at the same time has said he cannot give the Islamic Republic a clean bill of health.

An IAEA official has said earlier that ElBaradei would travel to Iran on Tuesday or Wednesday for a day of meetings in Tehran to try to win more cooperation from Tehran.

Reuters

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If it's a game these two nations are playing with each other, it's potentially deadly.

By the way, I read, think it was 5, UN inspectors from the IAEA had arrived in Iran today.

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Sean, any idea of when you will hear when your Visa's will be approved/disapproved for travel to Iran?

Will the American Media promote this war or not? That is the big question. They promoted the Iraq War. We know what FOX will do.

ok they got thru last weeks bombs, time to pull back on Iran

U.S. tries to dampen talk of Iran strike
Updated 4/10/2006 10:20 AM E-mail | Save | Print | Subscribe to stories like this

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House sought Monday to minimize new speculation about a possible military strike against Iran while acknowledging that the Pentagon is conducting "normal military contingency planning" to deal with Tehran's nuclear ambitions.
White House press secretary Scott McClellan refused to confirm or deny a report in The New Yorker magazine that raised the possibility of using nuclear bombs against Iran's underground nuclear sites. "I'm not going to engage in all this wild speculation," President Bush's chief spokesman told reporters.

"Those who are seeking to draw broad conclusions based on normal military contingency planning are misinformed or not knowledgeable about the administration's thinking," he said.

McClellan repeatedly stressed that the administration's focus is on working with other nations to come up with a diplomatic solution to get Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment program.

more
http://yahoo.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-04-10-iran_x.htm?csp=1

US plans strike to topple Iran regime - report

· US 'intent on Iran attack'
· Bush accused of 'messianic' mission

Julian Borger in Washington and Bob Tait in Tehran
Monday April 10, 2006
The Guardian

The US is planning military action against Iran because George Bush is intent on regime change in Tehran - and not just as a contingency if diplomatic efforts fail to halt its suspected nuclear weapons programme, it was reported yesterday.

In the New Yorker magazine, Seymour Hersh, America's best known investigative journalist, concluded that the Bush administration is even considering the use of a tactical nuclear weapon against deep Iranian bunkers, but that top generals in the Pentagon are attempting to take that option off the table.