us back up plan :invade iran

U.S. backup plan: invade iran by land, air, water strikes
By Maxim Kniazkov

04/16/06 -- "Asian Age" -- -- Washington, April 16: The United States began planning a full-scale military campaign against Iran that involves missile strikes, a land invasion and a naval operation to establish control over the Strait of Hormuz even before the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, a former US intelligence analyst disclosed on Sunday.

William Arkin, who served as the US Army’s top intelligence mind on West Berlin in the 1970s and accurately predicted US military operations against Iraq, said the plan is known in military circles as Tirannt, an acronym for "Theatre Iran Near Term."

It includes a scenario for a land invasion led by the US Marine Corps, a detailed analysis of the Iranian missile force and a global strike plan against any Iranian weapons of mass destruction, Mr Arkin wrote in the Washington Post. US and British planners have already conducted a Caspian Sea war game as part of these preparations, the scholar said.

"According to military sources close to the planning process, this task was given to Army General John Abizaid, now commander of Centcom, in 2002," Arkin wrote, referring to the Florida-based US central command. But preparations under Tirannt began in earnest in May 2003 and never stopped, he said. The plan has since been updated using information collected in Iraq. Air Force planners have modelled attacks against Iranian air defences, while Navy planners have evaluated coastal targets and drawn up scenarios for keeping control of the Strait of Hormuz.

A follow-on Tirannt analysis, which began in October 2003, calculated the results of different scenarios to provide options to commanders, Mr Arkin wrote. The Marines, meanwhile, have come up with their own document called Concept of Operations that explores the possibility of moving forces from ship to shore without establishing a beachhead first. "Though the marine corps enemy is described only as a deeply religious revolutionary country named Karona, it is — with its Revolutionary Guards, WMD and oil wealth — unmistakably meant to be Iran," Mr Arkin said.

Various scenarios involving Iran’s missile force have also been examined in another study, initiated in 2004 and known as BMD-I, which is short for "Ballistic Missile Defence — Iran", Mr Arkin said. In June 2004, US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld alerted the US Strategic Command in Omaha to be prepared to implement CONPLAN 8022, a global strike plan that includes Iran. "The new task force mostly worries that if it were called upon to deliver ‘prompt’ global strikes against certain targets in Iran under some emergency circumstances, the President might have to be told that the only option is a nuclear one," Mr Arkin said. The US military has been involved in contingency planning against Iran since at least the presidency of Jimmy Carter, who undertook a failed commando operation to rescue US hostages in Tehran in 1980.

Following the 1996 bombing of an apartment building used by the US Air Force in Khobar, Saudi Arabia, which was reportedly traced to Iranian agents, the administration of then-President Bill Clinton considered a bombing campaign, according to Richard Clarke and Steven Simon, who held at the time high-level counterterrorism positions at the national security council.

"But after long debate, the highest levels of the military could not forecast a way in which things would end favourably for the US," the two experts wrote in Sunday’s New York Times. (AFP)

iran petroleum facilities 2004




*according to a plan revealed back in 2002 , the neo-cons only intended to grab the straits of hormuz and the oil laden part of iran which is close to iraq and relatively flat land .

i think they believe if they can knock out missile defenses , iranian ground forces won't be strong enough to drive them out . they would be decimated by combined Us ground and air attacks and would disintegrate into smaller units fighting an irregular type war from the mountainous regions .

the neo-cons wouldn't have control of the entire country but they would hold the most strategic parts --the oil fields and the straits.

this plan was revealed about the same time the neo-cons were talking about issuing an ultimatum to saudi arabia that went something like "cease sponsorship of terrorism or face military seizure of saudi oil fields by the west" .

of course in 2002 the neo-cons were still ratcheting up the "saddam = 9-11 = wmd = mushroom clouds over america" propaganda spin equation and still "fixing " the intel to support the preconclusion to go to war.

bank swindler ahmed chalabi , raking in 300 grand a month from Us taxpayers back then, was still assuring cheney and the office of special plans boys that the invasion of iraq would be a cake walk and the marines would be greeted with flowers and candy ---how could they know that the Us would be lured into a bloody insurgency and that iraq would spiral downwards into chaos ?

afterall , who believes "unfixed" intelligence reports casting doubts on the claims of the war's paid cheerleaders?

the problem now is that the Us military is overextended and troop moral is dangerously low . the desert sands have taken their toll on military equipment and machinery , and the cost of the war and bush's tax cuts are drowning the Us economy in debt.

would china continue to buy a billion dollars of Us debt per day if the chinese saw their energy needs and interests threatened by an american invasion of iran ?

would india and russia sit idly by as Us military expanded their occupied territories by building bases in iran to match those already in the region including the 14 permanent ones in iraq being constructed ?

any invasion of iran would more than likely involve the same formula that was unsuccessful in iraq --massive airstrikes along with an undersized invasion force on the ground .

personally i don't think they will be any more successful in iran than they've been in iraq , but the Us has the additional problem of israel chaffing at the bit to get at iran .

iran is not a threat to israel, but neither was iraq or iraq's nonmilitary reactor that israel bombed at osirak back in the early 80s.

iraq , syria and iran were obstacles to israel extending its power and influence in the region and israel would love nothing better than to see all three nations militarily defeated with their infrastructure destroyed ala lebanon 1980s , and the three nations descend into sectarian and ethnic conflict as the region balkanizes .

besides the americans , israel would then be the undisputed biggest kid on the block and could do whatever it wishes to rid itself of the palestinians and fulfill the old zionist dream of a " greater israel"

israel has purchased in-air refueling tanker planes from the Us which extends the range of israeli fighters into iranian airspace.

the israelis are reportedly working with pesh merga kurdish militia on the ground in iran "painting" iranian nuclear sites as well as other military installations preparing targets for bombing runs .

even if the Us does not act , it is likely that trigger-happy israel will be difficult to persuade not to .

the neo-cons may have painted themselves into the proverbial corner --the strangest part of this entire senario is that iran is by many accounts 5 to 10 years away from a nuclear bomb and as a sovereign nation , well within its rights to build one.

israel already has several hundred nukes and a slew of missiles , planes and submarines to deliver them with --an attack on israel would be suicide --so how is iran any real threat ?