June Attack on Iran

[Haliburton]

http://www.theboomshelter.com/content/view/710/81/
We all remember Scott Ritter from the Iraq Inspection Days. Now click the link and read what he has to say now. Considering he was right the first time maybe he'll be right again. What do You hooligans think!

[Moishe3rd]

I think Scott Ritter is
As he was, he will now and ever be...
Nonetheless, we might just bomb Iran one of these days. But, unless Syria starts moving its sorry butt, they might be first.

[Haliburton]

I think Scott Ritter is
As he was, he will now and ever be...
Nonetheless, we might just bomb Iran one of these days. But, unless Syria starts moving its sorry butt, they might be first.

I think he is too but it does'nt change the fact he was right before. Syria also agreed to pull its troops from lebanon today so i think they bought themselves sometime.

[Emerald_Dragon]

i really don't think their pullout will "appease" the American war machine. and anyway, Americans don't seem to care about who's "right", they just listen to whatever they're told. [j/k]

my view of Americans makes me a hypocrit. i am one. but i guess, it takes one, to recognize it, at least where our country's leadership is concerned. we're being mislead by a false shepherd.

[MacRasta]

Well, yesterday Bush said in Brussels : "We are not going to attack Iran, but all options stay open".....

Yeah, right....

Mac

[CELL]

Scott Ritter's name also appears on the list of names who were receiving oil vouchers from Iraq's Oil for Food program. The name appeard with several other UN officials as well as delegates from other countries, as is being reported in the Oil For Food audit. He played roulette once and got it right; does not mean he is going to win all the time.

[prezhorusin04]

IRAN WARNS IT COULD PREEMPTIVELY ATTACK

"We will consider any strike against our nuclear installations as an attack on Iran as a whole, and we will retaliate with all our strength. Where Israel is concerned, we have no doubt that it is an evil entity, and it will not be able to launch any military operation without an American green light. You cannot separate the two." - Iranian Defense Minister

Mid-East Realities - MER - www.MiddleEast.Org - 19 August 2004:

This is how World Wars begin -- arms races, threats, counter-threats, continual provocations, growing fears of first strikes or pre-emptions.

The Americans have in fact since 9/11 declared 'pre-emptive war' legitimate, even if in fact the provocations upon which such wars are based later prove to be illusory or duplicitous.

The Israelis already possess a considerable nuclear arsenal including hundreds of warheads coupled with by far the largest array of modern jet fighters as well as both land and sea-based missiles in the Middle East. Indeed, the Israeli army is said to be fully eight times stronger than all of the combined armies of all the Arab States, thanks to the U.S.

Backing them up the Americans of course are the world's only superpower at the moment with a vast arsenal of all kinds of the most sophisticated weapons systems and surveillance technologies, including massive numbers of weapons of mass destruction.

Other countries are arming -- especially China on the international stage -- but in the Middle East there are only Iran and Syria at the moment that try to minimally stand up to American and Israeli machinations. For the moment at least, all other regional states have been either co-opted, infiltrated, bribed, or one way or another not allowed to possess seriously threatening armaments.

The Iraqis never threatened to attack the U.S. nor in fact did they have any such capabilities.

The Israelis have repeatedly threatened to strike Iran and thanks to the Americans they have considerable capabilities to do so -- not to mention what they continually do to the Palestinians and not that long ago did to the Lebanese.

Add to this situation the major escalating anti-Iran propaganda campaign underway in the U.S., with roots in the 'Axis of Evil' designation made by the President himself, and you clearly have a situation in which the Iranians are understandably wary, anxious, and on guard.

Two years ago Walter Cronkite publicly warned that the U.S. could be leading the world to World War III. About the same time one of Ariel Sharon's most trusted advisers off the record declared that he was "sure World War III was coming" and everyone should prepare.

With the threats and counter-threats of the past year since the Iraqi invasion/occupation, and indeed with the events right now taking place in historic Iraq and Palestine, we are all moving closer to the Midnight conflagration hour.

Read more at: www.middleeast.org

[prezhorusin04]

Israeli Air Force Getting
Ready To Strike Iran
Ha'aretz and Associated Press
2-23-5
Israel Air Force Commander-in-Chief Major General Eliezer Shakedi said Monday that Israel must be prepared for an air strike on Iran in light of its nuclear activity.
But in a meeting with reporters, Shakedi wouldn't say whether he thought Israel was capable of carrying out such a mission alone, as it did when it bombed an unfinished Iraqi nuclear reactor near Baghdad in 1981.

When asked whether Israel has a plan for the Iranian nuclear program, Shakedi replied, "You know that for obvious reasons, I won't say even a word."
But when asked whether he was confident the air force could provide the answer to the Iranian threat, Shakedi replied, "I must be prepared for everything."
The Israeli air force commander also discussed the fluid situation in neighboring Lebanon.

The assassination of former Lebanese PM Rafik Hariri "can create a new picture in Lebanon," Shakedi said.

With Syria, Hezbollah guerrillas and Hezbollah's Iranian benefactors all operating in Lebanon, "we understand who has interests" in Hariri being out of the picture, he said.

Asked whether the IAF has changed its deployment since the assassination, he replied, "Of course we won't let the other side hit us."
"We have a job to protect the citizens of Israel," Shakedi said. "I hope that > there won't be a war - but you know, no one knows."
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen

[prezhorusin04]

Iran readies for feared attack by U.S.
by Borzou Daragahi,
The Washington Times
http://www.unknownnews.org/0502220219iran.html
February 19, 2005

Iran has begun preparing for a possible U.S. attack, announcing efforts to bolster and mobilize recruits in citizens' militias and making plans to engage in the type of "asymmetrical" warfare used against American troops in neighboring Iraq.

"Iran would respond within 15 minutes to any attack by the United States or any other country," an Iranian official close to the hard- line camp, which runs the country's security and military apparatus, said on the condition of anonymity.

Tensions between Tehran and Washington have increased over Iran's pursuit of nuclear technology.

Tehran insists its desire for atomic energy is entirely peaceful while Washington accuses the Muslim state of using nuclear energy as a fig leaf to make weapons.

President Bush said in an interview with Belgian television yesterday that he strongly prefers a diplomatic effort over military action to deal with Iran.

"You never want a president to say never," Mr. Bush said, "but military action is ... never the president's first choice. Diplomacy is always the president's first choice, at least my first choice."

The president issued his strongest warning to Iran during last month's State of the Union speech, telling Tehran that it "must give up" its nuclear program and support for terrorism, and pledging U.S. support for Iranians who openly oppose Iran's unelected regime.

In recent days, Iranian newspapers have announced efforts to increase the number of the country's 7-million-strong "Basiji" militia forces, which were deployed in human wave attacks against Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s.

Iranian military authorities have paraded long-range North Korean-designed Shahab missiles before television cameras. Iranian generals have conducted massive war games near the Iraqi border.

One Western military expert based in Tehran said Iran was sharpening its abilities to wage a guerrilla war.

"Over the last year they've developed their tactics of asymmetrical war, which would aim not at resisting a penetration of foreign forces, but to then use them on the ground to all kinds of harmful effect," he said on the condition of anonymity.

It remains unclear how much of the recent military activity amounts to an actual mobilization and how much is a propaganda ploy.

Iranian officials and analysts have said they want to highlight the potential costs of an attack on Iran to raise the stakes for U.S. officials considering such a move and to frighten a war-weary American public.

"Right now it's a psychological war," said Nasser Hadian, a University of Tehran political science professor who recently returned from a three-year stint as a scholar at New York's Columbia University.

"If America decides to attack, the only ones who could stop it are Iranians," he said. "Pressure from other countries and inside America is important, but it won't prevent an attack. The only thing that will prevent an attack is that if America knows it will pay a heavy price."

Bush administration officials have said there are no immediate plans to attack Iran and the possibility is considered remote because deployments in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere limit U.S. capacity for a major new offensive.

Iran, in addition to developing plans for guerrilla warfare against an invading army, also is attempting to give the impression that it is bolstering its conventional forces.

In December, Iran announced its largest war games "ever," deploying 120,000 troops as well as tanks, helicopters and armored vehicles along its western border.

More recently, Iran's press reported that the Iranian air force had received orders to engage any plane that violates Iranian airspace. These reports followed the disclosure that unmanned American drone planes have been monitoring Iranian nuclear sites.

"It is obvious that with Iran surrounded by the United States forces and America pressing the nuclear issue, Iran wants to make a show of force," said a Western diplomat from Tehran, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

Iran's army includes 350,000 active-duty soldiers and 220,000 conscripts.

Its elite Revolutionary Guards number 120,000, many of them draftees. Its navy and air force total 70,000 men.

The armed forces have about 2,000 tanks, 300 combat aircraft, three submarines, hundreds of helicopters and at least a dozen Russian- made Scud missile launchers of the type Saddam Hussein used against Israel during the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

Iran also has an undetermined number of Shahab missiles based on North Korean designs that have ranges of up to 1,500 miles.

But both outside military experts and Iranians concede that the country's antiquated conventional hardware, worn down by years of U.S. and European sanctions, would be little match for the high-tech weaponry of the United States.

"Most of Iran's military equipment is aging or second-rate and much of it is worn," military expert Anthony Cordesman wrote in a December 2004 assessment of Iran's military. He said Iran lost between 50 percent and 60 percent of its military equipment in the Iran-Iraq war, "and it has never had large-scale access to the modern weapons and military technology necessary to replace them."

Iran's highly classified Quds forces, which have a global network of operatives and answer directly to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, could create a myriad of woes outside Iran's borders.

In neighboring Iraq, where the United States says Tehran already has been interfering, many brush off the current low-level infiltration as minor compared with the damage Tehran is capable of unleashing.

"If Iran wanted, it could make Iraq a hell for the United States," Hamid al-Bayati, Iraq's deputy foreign minister, said in a recent interview.


David R. Sands of the Washington Times contributed to this article