Bush all set to attack Iran: Report

Sunday, February 18, 2007


World


Bush all set to attack Iran: Report

Press Trust of India

London, February 17: The Bush administration's preparation to strike
Iran is complete with the top commander of the US Central Command
having received computerised plans for 'Operation Iranian Freedom', a
report has said.
"American military operations for a major conventional war with Iran
extend far beyond targeting suspect WMD (weapons of mass destruction)
facilities and will enable President George Bush to destroy Iran's
military, political and economic infrastructure overnight using
conventional weapons," the journal New Statesman has claimed.
In a story titled Attack-Revealed: America's Plans to Invade Iran, the
journal quoting British military sources, said 'the US military
switched its whole focus to Iran' as soon as Saddam Hussein was
removed from power. The White House continued this strategy, even
though it had American forces bogged down in Iraq.
The US army, navy, air force and marines have all prepared battle
plans and spent four years building bases and training for "Operation
Iranian Freedom". Admiral Fallon, the new head of US Central Command,
has inherited computerised plans under the name TIRANT (Theatre Iran
Near Term).
Even as the sending of a second aircraft carrier to the Gulf has been
highlighted, the US navy can put six carriers into battle at a month's
notice.
The report said any US general planning to attack Iran could now
assume that at least 10,000 targets could be hit in a single raid,
with warplanes flying from the US or Diego Garcia in the Indian
Ocean.


URL: http://www.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=81587

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Pro-Israel lobby (AIPAC) pushing US to attack Iran for Israel:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/zone0...ic.php?t=49800

Stop the Iran War (for Israel) Before It Starts:

http://www.itszone.co.uk/zone0/viewtopic.php?t=67774


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Iran says will not halt uranium enrichment

By Parisa HafeziSun Feb 18, 7:16 AM ET
Iran will not agree to suspend uranium enrichment as demanded by the
U.N. Security Council, which has given Tehran until February 21 to
halt sensitive atomic work, the Foreign Ministry said on Sunday.
The United Nations slapped sanctions on Iran in December, barring the
transfer of sensitive materials and know-how to the Islamic Republic's
nuclear program. It threatened further action if Iran did not heed
U.N. demands.
"Suspension is unacceptable. There are no grounds to do that. This
issue belongs to the past. There is no legal and logical justification
for that," spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini told a weekly news
conference.
Iran previously suspended enrichment work under an agreement with
European states that broke down in 2005.
Other top Iranian officials have also insisted Iran will press ahead
with its nuclear program, which the West believes is a clandestine
program to build atomic bombs. Iran denies this, saying it only wants
to make fuel for power plants.
"Nuclear energy is the country's future and destiny," Supreme Leader
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's highest authority, was quoted by Etemad-
e Melli newspaper as saying.
"If a nation does not care about its energy sources in the future, it
must rely on arrogant powers (the West)," he said.
Iran sits on the world's second biggest oil and gas reserves but says
it wants to build a network of nuclear power plants to prepare for the
day when its energy supplies run out and to ensure it maximizes energy
exports in the meantime.
Visiting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad renewed his country's
support for Iran's nuclear activities, saying it was entitled to them
as a signatory of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
State television said that, in a joint Iranian-Syrian statement,
"Syria expressed its support for Iran's peaceful nuclear program."
Iranian officials have indicated they might consider some compromise
proposals, including one that Iran continue spinning the enrichment
centrifuges it already has, but without injecting the uranium
feedstock.
Diplomats say several Western countries oppose this idea because it
could still help Iran to master the process.
Tehran has so far enriched tiny quantities of uranium to the low
levels needed for power plant fuel. However, it has said it is
determined to increase output by installing a network of thousands of
centrifuges.
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any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in
reliance thereon.



Forwarded:

Mr. Leupp,

The Office of Iranian Affairs is actually at the State Department as
it is the Iranian Directorate which is the department at the Pentagon
(I wouldn't be at all surprised if the 'Iranian' EFP presentation in
Baghdad last Sunday came out of the Iranian Directorate which replaced
Doug Feith's Office of Special Plans that cooked and and manipulated
the 'intel' to get US into the Iraq quagmire for Israel -
http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0213-20.htm ):

Iran: a Chronology of Disinformation

http://counterpunch.org/leupp02172007.html

By GARY LEUPP

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