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The Bush Roadmap to War with Iran
Reports circulated as early as last year and in 2005 that the Bush administration signed off on a "shock and awe" attack against Iran to destroy its perfectly legal commercial nuclear program that may involve using so-called "mini-nuke robust earth penetrator bunker-buster" weapons that won't be "mini" in their catastrophic effects if indeed used. These are powerful dangerous weapons. They can be made to any desired potency, would likely be from one-third to two-thirds as powerful as the Hiroshima bomb that destroyed an entire city, but could have far greater explosive capability that potentially will be catastrophic to the area struck and well beyond by radiation contamination alone.
Pentagon false and misleading reports about them claim they're "safe for civilians" because they penetrate the earth and explode underground. Test results prove otherwise showing when released from 40,000 feet a B61-11 nuclear earth-penetrator burrowed about 20 feet in the soil for a pre-explosion depth able to produce intense fallout over the area struck that's unremediable and would result in enough permanent surface contamination to be unsafe for human habitation. Nonetheless, weapons able to cause a nuclear holocaust are cleared for use real time along with conventional ones if a "shock and awe" attack is ordered against Iran or any other nation on the false and misleading pretext of protecting the national security only threatened by a rogue leadership at home willing to risk catastrophic mass destruction in pursuit of its insane and unachieveable imperial aims.
Not surprisingly, we have an eager partner in Israel straining at the leash to fulfill its long-term agenda to attack Iran alone (possible but doubtful) or along with its US ally that keeps getting reinforced by bellicose statements by its high officials like the one reported February 13 by ultra-right wing Strategic Affairs Minister Avigdor Lieberman. He commented in a radio interview that if necessary "We will have to face the Iranians alone, because Israel cannot remain with its arms folded, waiting for Iran to develop non-conventional (nuclear) weapons." Officials like Lieberman, current Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert and former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu are dangerous men on the far right allied with others in government and the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) all dripping war talk that must be taken seriously from a nation dedicated to conflict and never shy about striking the first all out aggressive blow.
The same theme comes from a report published February 11 that vice-president Cheney's national security advisor, John Hannah (who replaced Lewis Libby just convicted of obstruction of justice, perjury and lying to the FBI), speaking for the Bush administration, considers 2007 "the year of Iran" saying a US attack is a real possibility. Hannah played a key role in the run-up to the Iraq war having written the first draft of Colin Powell's infamous pre-war speech to the Security Council citing bogus evidence. He also played a lead role putting out phony pre-war intelligence from Iraqi exiles. Now he's at the seat of power and must be taken seriously, especially since his boss barely disguises his aggressive posturing for war against the Iranian state he's wanted for 15 years or more.
They're both part of the high-level propaganda messaging similar to the lead-up to the Iraq war. It's aim is instill fear to make the administration's case that Iran poses serious threat enough to justify military action against it. It follows UN Resolutions 1696 in July demanding Iran suspend uranium enrichment by August 31, which it didn't, and 1737 in December imposing limited sanctions on Iran for not abiding by what the Security Council demanded in July. A second deadline passed putting the Iranian matter back in the Security Council to consider new sanctions be imposed and ratcheting things closer to a US attack as further events unfold.
And so the beat goes on with US oil reserves being stockpiled, Iranian diplomats apprehended in Iraq, the Pentagon and Israeli forces scheming together, the US military buildup in the Gulf and Eastern Mediterranean continuing, US ground forces moved to the Iran-Iraq border, Patriot missiles strategically installed in Israel and neighboring Arab states, a "surge" of up to 50,000 additional troops planned, and a change of commanders on the ground in Iraq made replacing less hawkish ones with others supporting the Bush war strategy.
They're part of the new Pentagon team under Defense Secretary Robert Gates who told the Senate Armed Services Committee the military needs to prepare for large-scale operations against countries like Russia, China, North Korea and Iran that reaffirms the administration's commitment to its "long war" Dick Cheney said won't end in our lifetime, but may end up shortening it. Clearly Iran is the next planned target, the dominant media echoes the threat, and Congress is just a talking-shop like always posturing as the gathering storm in the Gulf intensifies.
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