War Signals?
Pastor Dale Morgan
by DAVE LINDORFF
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 issued orders for 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 recent 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."
*Senior intel official: Pentagon moves to second- stage planning for
Iran strike option*
Larisa Alexandrovna
Published: Thursday September 23, 2006
The Pentagon's top brass has moved into second-stage contingency
planning for a potential military strike on Iran, one senior
intelligence official familiar with the plans tells RAW STORY.
The official, who is close to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the highest
ranking officials of each branch of the US military, says the Chiefs
have started what is called "branches and sequels" contingency planning.
"The JCS has accepted the inevitable," the intelligence official said,
"and is engaged in serious contingency planning to deal with the worst
case scenarios that the intelligence community has been painting."
A second military official, although unfamiliar with these latest
scenarios, said there is a difference between contingency planning --
which he described as "what if, then what" planning -- and "branches and
sequels," which takes place after an initial plan has been decided upon.
Adding to the concern of both military and intelligence officials alike
is the nuclear option, the possibility of pre-emptive use of nuclear
weapons targeting alleged WMD facilities in Iran.
An April New Yorker report by Sy Hersh alleged that the nuclear option
was on the table, and that some officers of the Joint Chiefs had
threatened resignation.
"The attention given to the nuclear option has created serious
misgivings inside the offices of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he added,
and some officers have talked about resigning," Hersh wrote. "Late this
winter, the Joint Chiefs of Staff sought to remove the nuclear option
from the evolving war plans for Iran�without success, the former
intelligence official said."
The senior intelligence official who spoke to RAW STORY, along with
several military intelligence sources, confirmed that the nuclear option
remains on the table. In addition, the senior official added that the
Joint Chiefs have "come around on to the administration's thinking."
"The Joint Chiefs have no longer imposed roadblocks on a possible
bombing campaign against Iran's nuclear production facilities," the
intelligence official said. "In the past, only the Air Force had
endorsed the contingency, saying that it could carry out the mission of
destroying, or at least significantly delaying, Iran's ability to
develop a nuclear weapon."
Preparation for such a strike would require contingency plans for
securing oil transport lines and dealing with possible riots, as well as
assessment of issues that arose during the Iran-Iraq war.
"Bahrain will be a battleground as it is majority Shi'a and has had
Shi'a riots stimulated by Iran in the past," the official said. "The US
Fifth Fleet is also based there. A system for [protection of] oil
transport in the Gulf will have to be devised by the US Navy to protect
against attacks."
The Pentagon did not immediately respond to repeated emails requesting
comment.
Deployment orders
With allegations of a plan in place and contingency scenarios in play,
several military and intelligence experts see this as proof of a secret
White House order to proceed with military action.
Last week, a military intelligence official described to this reporter
the movement of Naval submarines and a deployment order sent out to
Naval assets of strategic import, such as minesweepers, that could
indicate contingency planning is already under way to secure oil
transport routes and supplies.
On Sunday, Time Magazine confirmed much of what the military
intelligence source had described.
"The first message was routine enough: a 'Prepare to Deploy Order' sent
through Naval communications channels to a submarine, an Aegis-class
cruiser, two minesweepers and two mine hunters," Time's Michael Duffy
wrote. "The orders didn't actually command the ships out of port; they
just said be ready to move by October 1. A deployment of minesweepers to
the east coast of Iran would seem to suggest that a much discussed, but
until now largely theoretical, prospect has become real."
Retired Air Force Col. Sam Gardiner also expressed concern about the
deployment orders, but cautioned that these particular ships are
slow-moving and would take "a month or so" to arrive in position.
"Minecountermeasures, the four ships mentioned, are generally not
self-deploying," Gardiner said Wednesday. "When previously sent to the
Gulf, they were transported on the decks of heavy lift ships. The
earliest they would arrive would be around the first of November."
Although some claim the Defense Department has denied the deployment
order, no official denial has been made. The Pentagon does not comment
on operational plans, not even to issue a denial.
Lawmakers in the dark?
Attempts to contact members of the Senate Armed Services Committee
provided little help in confirming allegations of the deployment order
made to this reporter and Time. Senate offices that were available for
comment would not do so on the record.
From all appearances, however, it would seem that at least some members
of the Senate Armed Services Committee have not been briefed on
deployment orders or on any strike plans, even contingency plans. The
Senate Intelligence Committee is attempting to get a grasp on what is
and has been going on.
A source close to the Committee, who asked to remain anonymous due to
the sensitivity of the information, explained that a series of briefings
will be going on this week and into next.
The Senate Intelligence Committee has "embarked on a much more
aggressive review of what the intelligence community knows and is doing
regarding Iran," the source said.
"In fact [the Committee has] a number of Iran related briefings this
week and next before the senators leave town," the source added. They
"will cover the full spectrum including various aspects of their nuclear
program and all U.S. collection efforts."