| Topic: |
Science > Prophecies-Of-Nostradamus |
| User: |
"The Last 1948 Days..... HOOROO !" |
| Date: |
25 Aug 2007 11:13:13 PM |
| Object: |
U.S. POISED TO STRIKE IRAN, CIA CONTACTS TELL WRITER BOB BAER.......26/8/7 |
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22302632-401,00.html
U.S. POISED TO STRIKE IRAN, CIA CONTACTS TELL WRITER BOB BAER.......
26/8/7
US poised to strike Iran, CIA contacts tell writerBy Geoff Elliott in
Washington
August 25, 2007 01:00am
BOB Baer, the former Middle East CIA operative whose first book about
his life inspired the oil-and-espionage thriller Syriana, is working
on a new book on Iran, but says he was told by senior intelligence
officials that he had better get it published in the next couple of
months because things could be about to change.
Baer, in an interview with The Weekend Australian, says his contacts
in the administration suggest a strategic airstrike on Iran is a real
possibility in the months ahead.
"What I'm getting is a sense that their sentiment is they are going to
hit the Iranians and not just because of Israel, but due to the fact
that Iran is the predominant power in the Gulf and it is hostile and
its power is creeping into the Gulf at every level," Baer says.
He says his contacts have told him of his book: "You better hurry up
because the thesis is going to change.
"I told them submission is in January but they said 'you're probably
going to be too late'."
Washington's intelligence community is abuzz about possible military
action against Iran, which is being weighed at the highest levels of
the Bush administration.
While the guessing game has become "will they or won't they?", at
least some experienced and trusted intelligence sources have told The
Weekend Australian that the possibility of a strike in the next 12
months remains remote.
"The success of a strike is limited and the downside could be
enormous," said one source, noting the possibility of a regional
conflagration involving the entire Gulf because Iran would look to hit
back at the US's strategic interests.
For his part, Baer is not an advocate of a demonstration strike on
Tehran and he is scathing of the Bush administration's handling of
Middle East policy, as he is of previous administrations, marking
1979, under the Carter administration, as the point in which US policy
on Iran went awry.
He agrees with many in the intelligence community in Washington that a
strike on Iran could be a disaster and counterproductive to US
interests, but he says the rising level of impatience in the Bush
administration over Iran's belligerence on its nuclear program and its
destabilising role in Iraq could mean something snaps.
"In the CIA, they are calling what the Iranians are doing to us in
Iraq as the slow cook - where we get cooked there for the next 10
years and then we give up completely and leave."
But Baer says an emboldened Iran in the event of mass US withdrawal
from Iraq "scares the ***** out of Saudis, the Bahrainis and all the
Arab gulf states".
"They are saying: 'What are you going to do now that you've created a
mess in Iraq and what are you going to do about Iran?'."
Intelligence sources say military contingency planning on Iran under
the Bush administration has been under way since 2003 but the latest
speculation has been a surgical strike on the Iranian Revolutionary
Guard.
A case for a strike became more prominent last week when The New York
Times reported the Bush administration was preparing to declare the
Revolutionary Guard Corps a foreign terrorist organisation.
"If imposed, the declaration would signal a more confrontational turn
in the administration's approach to Iran and would be the first time
that the United States has added the armed forces of any sovereign
government to its list of terrorist organisations," the Times
reported.
The Revolutionary Guard is said to be the largest branch of Iran's
military.
"While the United States has long labelled Iran as a state sponsor of
terrorism, a decision to single out the guard would amount to an
aggressive new challenge from an American administration that has
recently seemed conflicted over whether to take a harder line against
Tehran over its nuclear program and what American officials have
called its destabilising role in Iraq," the newspaper said.
The Bush administration continues to try to ratchet up the pressure on
Iran, pressing the US's allies to apply sanctions against Iran in the
UN Security Council.
The State Department and Treasury officials are pushing for sanctions
that include an extensive travel ban on senior Iranian officials and
further moves to restrict the ability of Iran's financial institutions
to do business abroad.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has consistently denied US
allegations that Iran was furnishing weapons to both the Taliban in
Afghanistan and insurgents in Iraq.
Two months ago, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said the volume of
weapons reaching the Taliban from Iran made it "difficult to believe"
that the shipments were "taking place without the knowledge of the
Iranian Government".
Baer says the Iranians are "masters at using surrogates" and
disguising their role in conflicts.
"They are not stupid, they are the least stupid people in the Middle
East," he says.
"If they are providing the EFPs (explosively formed penetrators), they
are not leaving serial numbers, return addresses; it's not the way the
world works out there."
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