Intelligence Indications
And Warnings Abound
On Bush Iran Military Strike
By Wayne Madsen
1-3-5
Intelligence and military sources in the United States and abroad are
reporting on various factors that indicate a U.S. military hit on
Iranian nuclear and military installations, that may involve tactical
nuclear weapons, is in the final stages of preparation. Likely targets
for saturation bombing are the Bushehr nuclear power plant (where
Russian and other foreign national technicians are present), a uranium
mining site in Saghand near the city of Yazd, the uranium enrichment
facility in Natanz, a heavy water plant and radioisotope facility in
Arak, the Ardekan Nuclear Fuel Unit, the Uranium Conversion Facility
and Nuclear Technology Center in Isfahan, the Tehran Nuclear
Research Center, the Tehran Molybdenum, Iodine and Xenon Radioisotope
Production Facility, the Tehran Jabr Ibn Hayan Multipurpose
Laboratories, the Kalaye Electric Company in the Tehran suburbs, a
reportedly dismantled uranium enrichment plant in Lashkar Abad, and
the Radioactive Waste Storage Units in Karaj and Anarak.
Primary target: Bushehr nuclear reactor and hundreds of Russian
technicians
Other first targets would be Shahab-I, II, and III missile launch
sites, air bases (including the large Mehrabad air base/international
airport near Tehran), naval installations on the Persian Gulf and
Caspian Sea, command, control, communications and intelligence
facilities. Secondary targets would include civilian airports, radio
and TV installations, telecommunications centers, government
buildings, conventional power plants, highways and bridges, and rail
lines. Oil installations and commercial port facilities would likely
be relatively untouched by U.S. forces in order to preserve them for
U.S. oil and business interests.
There has been a rapid increase in training and readiness at a number
of U.S. military installations involved with the planned primarily
aerial attack. These include a Pentagon order to Fort Rucker, Alabama,
to be prepared to handle an estimated 50,000 to 60,000 trainees,
including civilian contractors, who will be deployed for Iranian
combat operations. Rucker is home to the US Army's aviation training
command, including the helicopter training school.
In addition, there has been an increase in readiness at nearby
Hurlburt Field in Florida, the home of the U.S. Air Force Special
Operations Command. The U.S. attack on Iran will primarily involve
aviation (Navy, Air Force, Navy-Marine Corps) and special operations
assets.
There has also been a noticeable increase in activity at Marine Corps
Air Ground Combat Center at Twentynine Palms, California, a primary
live fire training activity located in a desert and mountainous
environment similar to target areas in Iran.
From European intelligence agencies comes word that the United States
has told its NATO allies to be prepared for a military strike on
Iranian nuclear development and military installations.
On November 17, 2005, Russian President Vladimir Putin spent seven
hours in secret discussions with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan during the the opening ceremonies in Samsun, Turkey for the
Russian-Turkish underwater Blue Stream natural gas pipeline,
festivities also attended by Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
According to sources knowledgeable about the meeting, Erdogan promised
Putin, who has become a close friend, that Turkey would not support
the use of its bases by the United States in a military attack on
Iran. That brought a series of high level visits to Turkey by Bush
administration officials, including CIA chief Porter Goss, FBI
Director Robert Mueller, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
Although Erdogan listened to Goss's and Rice's pleas for Turkish
logistical, political, and intelligence help for an attack on Iran and
Turkish Army Chief Yasar Buyukanit heard much the same from Pentagon
officials during his recent trip to Washington, the word is that Putin
now has enough clout in Ankara to scuttle any use of Turkey by the
U.S. for an attack on Iran. [Mueller delivered Ankara intelligence
"proof" of Iranian backing for Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) guerrillas
in Turkey. Intelligence agencies and business intelligence units
around the world are now discounting any intelligence coming from the
Bush administration as neocon propaganda invented by think tanks and
discredited intelligence agencies in Washington, Tel Aviv-Herzliya,
and Jerusalem].
A U.S. Attack on Iran: The Perfect Storm for wider nuclear conflict
U.S. political and military officials have also approached Bahrain,
Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Jordan, Oman, and Azerbaijan seeking their
support for a U.S. attack on Iran. Ina replay of the phony pre-war
intelligence on Iraq, Washington is trying to convince various
countries that a link exists between Iran and "Al Qaeda."
Polish intelligence sources report that Poland's Defense Minister
Radek Sikorski assured Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld of Poland's
support for any U.S. strike against Iran. Sikorski is a former
American Enterprise Institute colleague of such neo-cons as Richard
Perle, Michael Ledeen, and Lynne Cheney, the so-called "Second Lady"
of the United States. Sikorski and Polish Foreign Minister Stefan
Meller assured Rumsfeld and Rice, respectively, that Poland would
stand by the United States during the split in NATO that will occur as
a result of the American strike. Polish intelligence sources, who are
unhappy with the arrangement of the new right-wing government in
Warsaw with the Bush administration, leaked the information about the
recent U.S. demarche to NATO in Brussels about preparation for the
attack.
Similar intelligence "leaks" about the U.S. attack plans were also
leaked to the German magazine Der Spiegel.
European intelligence sources also report that the recent decision by
Putin and Russia's state-owned Gazprom natural gas company to cut
supplied of natural gas to Ukraine was a clear warning by Putin to
nations like Ukraine, Poland, Romania, Czech Republic, Slovakia,
Slovenia, Croatia, Moldova, France, Austria, Italy, Hungary, Bosnia,
Serbia, and Germany that it would do the same if they support the U.S.
attack on Iran. Gazprom natural gas is supplied, via pipelines in
Ukraine, from Russia and Turkmenistan to countries in Eastern and
Western Europe. The Bush administration charged Russia with using gas
supplies as a "political tool."
Putin has additional leverage on Western Europe since former German
Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder accepted an appointment to the board of a
joint Russian-German North European Gas Pipeline Consortium that is
controlled by Gazprom. The pipeline will bring Russian gas to
Scandinavia, Germany, Netherlands, and Britain, giving Putin
additional leverage over Washington in Europe.
Southeast Asian intelligence sources report that Burma's (Myanmar's)
recent abrupt decision to move its capital from Rangoon (Yangon) to
remote Pyinmana, 200 miles to the north, is a result of Chinese
intelligence warnings to its Burmese allies about the effects of
radiation resulting from a U.S. conventional or tactical nuclear
attack on Iranian nuclear facilities. There is concern that a series
of attacks on Iranian nuclear installations will create a
Chernobyl-like radioactive cloud that would be caught up in monsoon
weather in the Indian Ocean.
Rangoon (Yangon) capital moved 200 miles north over fears of monsoon
season Iran nuclear fallout?
Low-lying Rangoon lies in the path of monsoon rains that would
continue to carry radioactive fallout from Iran over South and
Southeast Asia between May and October. Coastal Indian Ocean cities
like Rangoon, Dhaka, Calcutta, Mumbai, Chennai, and Colombo would be
affected by the radioactive fallout more than higher elevation cities
since humidity intensifies the effects of the fallout. Thousands of
government workers were given only two days' notice to pack up and
leave Rangoon for the higher (and dryer) mountainous Pyinmana.
In neighboring West Bengal, the leftist government and its national
leftist allies around the country are planning massive demonstrations
during Bush's upcoming trip to India. They are protesting the war in
Iraq as well as the threats against Iran.
Reports from Yemen indicate that western oil companies are concerned
about U.S. intentions in Iran since the southern Arabian country
catches the edge of the monsoon rains that could contain radioactive
fallout from an attack, endangering their workers in the country.
The Bush administration aborted last minute plans to attack Iranian
nuclear and political installations prior to the 2004 presidential
election. On October 9, Rumsfeld met with defense minister colleagues
on the now decommissioned USS John F. Kennedy in the Persian Gulf to
seek support for the attack. That meeting has been confirmed by the
Danish Defense Minister who was in attendance, however, the topic of
the meeting was not discussed. According to U.S. naval personnel on
board the Kennedy, a special "war room" was set up to coordinate the
attack. Britain, Australia, Italy, Netherlands, and Japan did not
attend the meeting because of their opposition to the attack plans.
Intelligence and military officials around the world are also bracing
for the results of a U.S. attack on Iran. This includes the distinct
possibility of a major Shia retaliatory attack in Iraq, the Eastern
Province of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates,
Lebanon, and Afghanistan against U.S. military, diplomatic, and
economic targets in the region. Radioactive fallout from a
conventional or tactical nuclear attack on Iran will result in major
problems with Pakistan, India, China, Russia, Japan, and other
downwind countries in Asia and the Pacific Rim, possibly including the
fall of the Pervez Musharraf government in Pakistan and replacement by
a radical Islamist regime having possession of nuclear weapons. That
would provoke a military response from nuclear power India.
In a counter-attack, Iran would immediately launch its Shahab I and II
missiles at the U.S. Green Zone in Baghdad, the Al Udeid airbase in
Qatar, the US Navy base in Bahrain, Camp Doha base in Kuwait, Al Seeb
airbase in Oman, Baghdad International Airport, the U.S. base in
Kandahar, Afghanistan. Iran would also launch its long-range Shahab
III missiles on the Israeli cities of Tel Aviv, Haifa, Beersheba,
Eilat, and the Israeli nuclear complex at Dimona. Iranian missiles
would also be launched at US naval ships in the Persian Gulf and oil
installations in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.
The virtual end of NATO as a viable defense organization may also
result from an attack that will drive a final wedge between Washington
and Europe. And China may elect to respond financially and militarily
against the United States since Iran is China's second largest source
of imported Middle East oil after Saudi Arabia and plans to use an
Iranian terminal for the export of natural gas from Turkmenistan.
[China now imports 60 percent of its oil needs, and Iran represents 17
percent of those imports].
Russia recently participated in, through the Shanghai Cooperation
Organization (SCO), a three-way military exercise (code named "Indira
2005") between Russia, China, and India to prepare for any new U.S.
power projections in Asia, including an attack on Iran, a prospective
SCO member. Last August, Russia and China held their first-ever joint
land-sea-air military exercises.
Iran also held a large military exercise in early December in Bandar
Abbas on the Gulf. An Iranian C-130 carrying Iranian journalists from
Mehrabad airport to Bandar to cover the exercise crashed into a Tehran
apartment building on December 6, killing at least 116 people,
including 68 journalists.
Within the U.S. military and across the globe, there is heightened
tension about the intentions of the neocon Bush administration and its
allies in Israel.
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