Promoted from a comment made by wkmaier:
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
‘Two B-2s could take out Iran’s nuclear assets’
WASHINGTON: Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions will be history by the time US President George W Bush leaves office, said a report published here.Veteran foreign correspondent Arnaud de Borchgrave, writing for the United Press International, quotes a “prominent neo-con” with good White House and Department of Defence contacts, as the source of the assertion. Asked what would the US do if sanctions did not make Iran turn away from its nuclear target, the source replied, “B-2s. Two of them could do the job in a single strike against multiple targets.”
De Borchgrave writes in an amused vein, “So we looked up B-2s. The US Air Force only has 21 of them. Perhaps price had something to do with it. They came in at $2.2 billion a copy. But they can carry enough ordnance to make Iranians nostalgic for the Shah and his role as the free world’s gendarme in charge of the West’s oil supplies in the Gulf. These stealthy bombers have one major drawback in the Persian magic carpet mode. They can only attack 16 targets simultaneously; one short of the 17 underground nuclear facilities pinned red on Mossad’s target-rich PowerPoint presentations to the political leadership. Presumably, that’s why two B-2s would be required.”
Isn't it interesting that Mossad has now taken over responsibility of targeting the US Air Force's planes? Maybe this is a bit of the old Bu$hCo outsourcing carried to the logical conclusion? After all, it's been known for quite some time that the US Government has dedicated itself to the goal of an invincible Israel in the Middle East. And Mr Bush has consistently denied that Iraq was NOT about the oil, so what other reason could there be? Saddam is a prisoner in Baghdad, he's not in Iran. The insurgents are not Iranian, so why attack Iran?
De Borchgrave points out that most of Iran’s secret nuclear installations are not only underground, but also close to population centres. “The first pictures of a B-2 raid would be dead women and children on al-Jazeera television newscasts, now as globally ubiquitous as CNN and FOX. The collateral damage would then rival Abu Ghraib’s devastating impact on America’s good name. The perceived American indifference over the loss of Arab lives would now be seen as spreading to another Muslim country,” he writes. The neo-con informant told the correspondent that there is “absolutely no way” Bush will accommodate to an Iranian nuke or two, the way he blinked first with North Korea. Bush uncompromising view of the Iranian nuclear danger and his determination to prevent it by force of two B-2s if necessary is “as solid as his resolve to rid Iraq of Saddam Hussein,” he said.
A cynical man could leap to the inference that Mr Bush isn't really interested in true threats to US national security as much as setting his sights on being a Supreme War Lord. Having played at being Winston Churchill and Douglas MacArthur, he now wants to be Harry Truman, the first President to authorize nuclear attacks on a foreign country.
According to de Borchgrave, “This is also the British assessment of Bush’s intentions against Iran, a power whose president has vowed to wipe Israel off the map.
Israel must be defended to the last American.
Comments
Some corrobaration on that story. You may have to register to view it. I can email the copy too.
Lurch this makes it sound like the Israelis DO NOT want the US to hit Iran. What it does reinforce however, is that Bush gets only one side of an argument, and ultimately makes the decision of a drunken 20 year old cheerleader.
remind me again, what was the theory behind sanctions on Iraq?
Oh, yes, starve the sand niggers, so that they'll rise up against the dictator. & that famous Albright line 'It is worth it' about half a million Iraq kids dying as a result.
I suppose you might want to work out a deal among yourselves and the Isrealis about how many hits you are willing to take before you decide you decide you'll rise up to Bush and/or the Israelis.
Naaah, you'd rather die than give up on Israel...no....wait arent you doing that already?
Another analysis here
http://stevegilliard.blogspot.com/2006/04/iraqi-gambit.html
Sean-Paul Kelley has a different view of what the drums mean:
I'm not sure what the colloquialism in Farsi for 'all hat - no cattle is' but I've got to point out, as I did on the radio Monday night that, in my opinion, all of the bluster coming out of Iran is geared towards one thing, and one thing alone.
But let's back up and give this some context. As we all know, the US and Iran agreed recently, in principle, to negotiate, face to face, about their interests in Iraq. The conversation is limited to Iraq and nothing else: no nukes, no Afghanistan, no Azerbaijan, no nada. Clear?
Iran is certainly full of vim and vinegar, what with their super-modern flying boat, new fangled missiles, wicked fast torpedoes and Ahmed-i-nejad's pervasive mug in the background chanting a Farsi version of "bring it on."
Why?
The whole point of all this bluster is to stake out the best possible position before negotiations begin. Nothing more, nothing less.
It's like when you are in a foreign country and you've got to haggle over something. The first thing you do is state outright half of what you are willing to pay for the trinket or outfit you're fixing to buy and hope your interlocutor plays along. (At least, that's what I do.)
Point: don't believe the hype. Look deeper into the provocations for the simpler answer. Iran wants ALOT from the US in Iraq and they are setting up the negotiations to get what they want.
http://agonist.org/sean_paul_kelley/20060405/men_are_from_mars_ahmed_i_nejad_is_from_jupiter_all_he_really_wants_to_do_is_talk
Team BIO had a piece about the US military in Paraguay, and I also found this. Just because your paranoid, doesn't mean George Bush doesn't want to sniff through your garbage, tap your phones and sit in your bedroom.
Lurch, sorry to keep posting links. ;-)
This interview with Joseph Stiglitz is a must read, about the economic costs of the Adventure in Iraq. While he is looking at the numbers, he does make some ethical and moral declarations.
No problem at all about posting links to articles with a bearing on topics we discuss. It's been my feeling for some time that even though the economic impact on America of Mr Bush's War of Choice over the next two decades will be catastrophic in the logn run the greater damage results from our loss of moral and ethical leadership.
The documented evils perpetrated by this regime have made America an object of contempt among civilized countries.
Hijacking Catastrophe, this looks to be powerful.
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