Bush Orders Nuclear Aircraft Carrier Eisenhower and Additional Navy Ships To Iran's Western Coast

Bush Orders Nuclear Aircraft Carrier Eisenhower and Additional Navy
Ships To Iran's Western Coast


"This is very serious," said Ray McGovern, a former CIA
threat-assessment analyst who got early word of the Navy officers'
complaints about the sudden deployment orders. (McGovern, a
twenty-seven-year veteran of the CIA, resigned in 2002 in protest over
what he said were Bush Administration pressures to exaggerate the
threat posed by Iraq. He and other intelligence agency critics have
formed a group called Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.)
Colonel Gardiner, who has taught military strategy at the National War
College, says that the carrier deployment and a scheduled Persian Gulf
arrival date of October 21 is "very important evidence" of war
planning. He says, "I know that some naval forces have already received
'prepare to deploy orders' [PTDOs], which have set the date for being
ready to go as October 1. Given that it would take about from October 2
to October 21 to get those forces to the Gulf region, that looks about
like the date" of any possible military action against Iran. (A PTDO
means that all crews should be at their stations, and ships and planes
should be ready to go, by a certain date--in this case, reportedly,
October 1.) Gardiner notes, "You cannot issue a PTDO and then stay
ready for very long. It's a very significant order, and it's not done
as a training exercise." This point was also made in the Time article.
So what is the White House planning?

As reports circulate of a sharp debate within the White House over
possible US military action against Iran and its nuclear enrichment
facilities, The Nation has learned that the Bush Administration and the
Pentagon have moved up the deployment of a major "strike group" of
ships, including the nuclear aircraft carrier Eisenhower as well as a
cruiser, destroyer, frigate, submarine escort and supply ship, to head
for the Persian Gulf, just off Iran's western coast. This information
follows a report in the current issue of Time magazine, both online and
in print, that a group of ships capable of mining harbors has received
orders to be ready to sail for the Persian Gulf by October 1.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20061009/lindorff

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War Signals?
by DAVE LINDORFF
[posted online on September 21, 2006]
As reports circulate of a sharp debate within the White House over
possible US military action against Iran and its nuclear enrichment
facilities, The Nation has learned that the Bush Administration and the
Pentagon have moved up the deployment of a major "strike group" of
ships, including the nuclear aircraft carrier Eisenhower as well as a
cruiser, destroyer, frigate, submarine escort and supply ship, to head
for the Persian Gulf, just off Iran's western coast. This information
follows a report in the current issue of Time magazine, both online and
in print, that a group of ships capable of mining harbors has received
orders to be ready to sail for the Persian Gulf by October 1.
As Time writes in its cover story, "What Would War Look Like?,"
evidence of the forward deployment of minesweepers and word that the
chief of naval operations had asked for a reworking of old plans for
mining Iranian harbors "suggest that a much discussed--but until now
largely theoretical--prospect has become real: that the U.S. may be
preparing for war with Iran."
According to Lieut. Mike Kafka, a spokesman at the headquarters of the
Second Fleet, based in Norfolk, Virginia, the Eisenhower Strike Group,
bristling with Tomahawk cruise missiles, has received orders to depart
the United States in a little over a week. Other official sources in
the public affairs office of the Navy Department at the Pentagon
confirm that this powerful armada is scheduled to arrive off the coast
of Iran on or around October 21.
The Eisenhower had been in port at the Naval Station Norfolk for
several years for refurbishing and refueling of its nuclear reactor; it
had not been scheduled to depart for a new duty station until at least
a month later, and possibly not till next spring. Family members,
before the orders, had moved into the area and had until then expected
to be with their sailor-spouses and parents in Virginia for some time
yet. First word of the early dispatch of the "Ike Strike" group to the
Persian Gulf region came from several angry officers on the ships
involved, who contacted antiwar critics like retired Air Force Col. Sam
Gardiner and complained that they were being sent to attack Iran
without any order from the Congress.
"This is very serious," said Ray McGovern, a former CIA
threat-assessment analyst who got early word of the Navy officers'
complaints about the sudden deployment orders. (McGovern, a
twenty-seven-year veteran of the CIA, resigned in 2002 in protest over
what he said were Bush Administration pressures to exaggerate the
threat posed by Iraq. He and other intelligence agency critics have
formed a group called Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.)
Colonel Gardiner, who has taught military strategy at the National War
College, says that the carrier deployment and a scheduled Persian Gulf
arrival date of October 21 is "very important evidence" of war
planning. He says, "I know that some naval forces have already received
'prepare to deploy orders' [PTDOs], which have set the date for being
ready to go as October 1. Given that it would take about from October 2
to October 21 to get those forces to the Gulf region, that looks about
like the date" of any possible military action against Iran. (A PTDO
means that all crews should be at their stations, and ships and planes
should be ready to go, by a certain date--in this case, reportedly,
October 1.) Gardiner notes, "You cannot issue a PTDO and then stay
ready for very long. It's a very significant order, and it's not done
as a training exercise." This point was also made in the Time article.
So what is the White House planning?
On Monday President Bush addressed the UN General Assembly at its
opening session, and while studiously avoiding even physically meeting
Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was also addressing the body,
he offered a two-pronged message. Bush told the "people of Iran" that
"we're working toward a diplomatic solution to this crisis" and that he
looked forward "to the day when you can live in freedom." But he also
warned that Iran's leaders were using the nation's resources "to fund
terrorism and fuel extremism and pursue nuclear weapons." Given the
President's assertion that the nation is fighting a "global war on
terror" and that he is Commander in Chief of that "war," his prominent
linking of the Iran regime with terror has to be seen as a deliberate
effort to claim his right to carry the fight there. Bush has repeatedly
insisted that the 2001 Congressional Authorization for the Use of Force
that preceded the invasion of Afghanistan was also an authorization for
an unending "war on terror."
Even as Bush was making not-so-veiled threats at the UN, his former
Secretary of State, Colin Powell, a sharp critic of any unilateral US
attack on Iran, was in Norfolk, not far from the Eisenhower, advocating
further diplomatic efforts to deal with Iran's nuclear program--itself
tantalizing evidence of the policy struggle over whether to go to war,
and that those favoring an attack may be winning that struggle.
"I think the plan's been picked: bomb the nuclear sites in Iran," says
Gardiner. "It's a terrible idea, it's against US law and it's against
international law, but I think they've decided to do it." Gardiner says
that while the United States has the capability to hit those sites with
its cruise missiles, "the Iranians have many more options than we do:
They can activate Hezbollah; they can organize riots all over the
Islamic world, including Pakistan, which could bring down the Musharraf
government, putting nuclear weapons into terrorist hands; they can
encourage the Shia militias in Iraq to attack US troops; they can blow
up oil pipelines and shut the Persian Gulf." Most of the major
oil-producing states in the Middle East have substantial Shiite
populations, which has long been a concern of their own Sunni leaders
and of Washington policy-makers, given the sometimes close connection
of Shiite populations to Iran's religious rulers.
Of course, Gardiner agrees, recent ship movements and other signs of
military preparedness could be simply a bluff designed to show
toughness in the bargaining with Iran over its nuclear program. But
with the Iranian coast reportedly armed to the teeth with Chinese
Silkworm antiship missiles, and possibly even more sophisticated
Russian antiship weapons, against which the Navy has little reliable
defenses, it seems unlikely the Navy would risk high-value assets like
aircraft carriers or cruisers with such a tactic. Nor has bluffing been
a Bush MO to date.
Commentators and analysts across the political spectrum are focusing on
Bush's talk about dialogue, with many claiming that he is climbing down
from confrontation. On the right, David Frum, writing on September 20
in his National Review blog, argues that the lack of any attempt to win
a UN resolution supporting military action, and rumors of "hushed back
doors" being opened in Washington, lead him to expect a diplomatic
deal, not a unilateral attack. Writing in the center, Washington Post
reporter Glenn Kessler saw in Bush's UN speech evidence that "war is no
longer a viable option" in Iran. Even on the left, where confidence in
the Bush Administration's judgment is abysmally low, commentators like
Noam Chomsky and Nation contributor Robert Dreyfuss are skeptical that
an attack is being planned. Chomsky has long argued that Washington's
leaders aren't crazy, and would not take such a step--though more
recently, he has seemed less sanguine about Administration sanity and
has suggested that leaks about war plans may be an effort by military
leaders--who are almost universally opposed to widening the Mideast
war--to arouse opposition to such a move by Bush and war advocates like
Cheney. Dreyfuss, meanwhile, in an article for the online journal
TomPaine.com, focuses on the talk of diplomacy in Bush's Monday UN
speech, not on his threats, and concludes that it means "the realists
have won" and that there will be no Iran attack.
But all these war skeptics may be whistling past the graveyard. After
all, it must be recalled that Bush also talked about seeking diplomatic
solutions the whole time he was dead-set on invading Iraq, and the
current situation is increasingly looking like a cheap Hollywood
sequel. The United States, according to Gardiner and others, already
reportedly has special forces operating in Iran, and now major ship
movements are looking ominous.
Representative Maurice Hinchey, a leading Democratic critic of the Iraq
War, informed about the Navy PTDOs and about the orders for the full
Eisenhower Strike Group to head out to sea, said, "For some time there
has been speculation that there could be an attack on Iran prior to
November 7, in order to exacerbate the culture of fear that the
Administration has cultivated now for over five or six years. But if
they attack Iran it will be a very bad mistake, for the Middle East and
for the US. It would only make worse the antagonism and fear people
feel towards our country. I hope this Administration is not so foolish
and irresponsible." He adds, "Military people are deeply concerned
about the overtaxing of the military already."
Calls for comment from the White House on Iran war plans and on the
order for the Eisenhower Strike Group to deploy were referred to the
National Security Council press office, which declined to return this
reporter's phone calls.
McGovern, who had first told a group of anti-Iraq War activists Sunday
on the National Mall in Washington, DC, during an ongoing action called
"Camp Democracy," about his being alerted to the strike group
deployment, warned, "We have about seven weeks to try and stop this
next war from happening."
One solid indication that the dispatch of the Eisenhower is part of a
force buildup would be if the carrier Enterprise--currently in the
Arabian Sea, where it has been launching bombing runs against the
Taliban in Afghanistan, and which is at the end of its normal six-month
sea tour--is kept on station instead of sent back to the United States.
Arguing against simple rotation of tours is the fact that the
Eisenhower's refurbishing and its dispatch were rushed forward by at
least a month. A report from the Enterprise on the Navy's official
website referred to its ongoing role in the Afghanistan fighting, and
gave no indication of plans to head back to port. The Navy itself has
no comment on the ship's future orders.
Jim Webb, Secretary of the Navy in the Reagan Administration and
currently a Democratic candidate for Senate in Virginia, expressed some
caution about reports of the carrier deployment, saying, "Remember,
carrier groups regularly rotate in and out of that region." But he
added, "I do not believe that there should be any elective military
action taken against Iran without a separate authorization vote by the
Congress. In my view, the 2002 authorization which was used for the
invasion of Iraq should not extend to Iran."

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20061009/lindorff

Iran: The Next War (for Israel):

http://www.itszone.co.uk/zone0/viewtopic.php?t=56761


Possible war with Iran/North Korea - a PNAC Neocon's dream:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/zone0...ic.php?t=61008

Chris Hedges: US to Attack Iran (for Israel):

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/zone0...ic.php?t=61258

A War for Israel: Colin Powell Seems to Think So:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/zone0...ic.php?t=61128

Welcome to Fascist America:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/zone0...ic.php?t=61022