Cheney Is Seeking A Pretext For War?!? Get The F#*@ Out Of Here! That's Unheard Of!!!

[Gold9472]

Cheney seeks pretext for war as US reestablishes elite Air Force wing

http://rawstory.com//news/2007/Cheney_seeks_pretext_for_war_as_0923.html

(Gold9472: Can we arrest this fucker yet?)

John Byrne
Published: Sunday September 23, 2007

The US Air Force has reestablished the elite fighting force which planned the 1991 Gulf War's air campaign and tasked them with "fighting the next war" as US-Iran tensions bloom, the London Sunday Times reports Sunday.

The news came on the heels of another Sunday report in Newsweek, which confirmed a quotation from a Cheney advisor who said that the Vice President "had been mulling the idea of pushing for limited Israeli missile strikes against the Iranian nuclear site at Natanz - and perhaps other sites - in order to provoke Tehran into lashing out."

Such a strike would then give the US the ability to launch a strike in response.

Democratic foreign policy expert Steve Clemons, who said this week that President George W. Bush had ruled out a first-strike on Iran, voiced concern that the Cheney team might seek use an "accident" as a casus belli.

"I'm not saying there won't be any war but nothing in Bush's posture suggests he's really with the Cheney gang yet," Clemons told RAW STORY. "But I do worry about the Cheney gang and the [Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps]/Ahmadinejad crowd in Iran trying to precipitate a spark that produces a very fast escalation that circumvents most of Bush's national security decisionmaking structure -- and that kind of war is something we should worry about. That's what I think could happen."

The London Sunday Times, meanwhile, reports that an elite Air Force unit called "Project Checkmate" was resurrected in June. The unit reports directly to US Air Force chief Gen. Michael Moesely and "consists of 20-30 top air force officers and defence and cyberspace experts with ready access to the White House, the CIA and other intelligence agencies."

"Detailed contingency planning for a possible attack on Iran has been carried out for more than two years by Centcom (US central command)," says the Times's Sarah Baxter. "Checkmate's job is to add a dash of brilliance to Air Force thinking by countering the military's tendency to 'fight the last war' and by providing innovative strategies for warfighting and assessing future needs for air, space and cyberwarfare."

The group is led by Brigadier-General Lawrence Stutzriem, and assisted by a former Israeli military officer and cyberwarfare expert.

Strike force could target other states
Bush faces strong opposition to military action among his own staff, Baxter says. Clemons has said that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, White House chief of staff Josh Bolten and Defense Secretary Robert Gates all oppose a strike.

"None of them think it is a good idea, but they will do it if they are told to," a 'senior defense source' told the Times.

According to Baxter, Checkmate's mission isn't limited to Iran, but rather "to provide planning inputs to warfighters that are strategically, operationally and tactically sound, logistically supportable and politically feasible." Targets might also include China or North Korea.

Checkmate was originally formed in the 1970s to counter Soviet threats but fell derelict in the 80s; it was revived to plan for the first Gulf war.

On Saturday, Iran tested a longer-range missile in public for the first time and ran the gamut of anti-Israeli slogans in a military parade marking the start of Iran's 1980-1988 war with Iraq.

The missile is said to put US bases and Israel within Tehran's reach.

According to AP, "the parade was marked by a litany of slogans calling for "Death to America" and "Death to Israel."

"The Iranian nation is ready to bring any oppressive power to its knees," a slogan from supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei read.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad heads for New York today amid a storm of controversy and angry protests over his appearances at the United Nations and Columbia University.

The outspoken Iranian leader, who has openly called for the destruction of Israel and questioned the Holocaust, is due to speak at Columbia Monday, a day before addressing the UN General Assembly.

The trip comes at a low point in relations between Iran and the United States, which have not had formal diplomatic ties since revolutionary students stormed the US embassy in Tehran in 1979.

[AuGmENTor]

Cheney advisor who said that the Vice President "had been mulling the idea of pushing for limited Israeli missile strikes against the Iranian nuclear site at Natanz - and perhaps other sites - in order to provoke Tehran into lashing out."

Such a strike would then give the US the ability to launch a strike in response. How does that work? How is it that if Iran goes after Israel, we have the ability to strike Iran? Could someone explain that to me?

[Gold9472]

How does that work? How is it that if Iran goes after Israel, we have the ability to strike Iran? Could someone explain that to me?

If Israel strikes Iran, and Iran retaliates, because of the faux treaty that doesn't exist between the United States, and Israel, we would be "obligated" to interfere.

[beltman713]

http://apnews.excite.com/article/20070923/D8RRF7O80.html

U.S. Says Iran Sending Missiles to Iraq

Sep 23, 7:14 PM (ET)

By SAMEER N. YACOUB


BAGHDAD (AP) - The U.S. military accused Iran on Sunday of smuggling surface-to-air missiles and other advanced weapons into Iraq for use against American troops. The new allegations came as Iraqi leaders condemned the latest U.S. detention of an Iranian in northern Iraq, saying the man was in their country on official business.

Military spokesman Rear Adm. Mark Fox said U.S. troops were continuing to find Iranian-supplied weaponry including the Misagh 1, a portable surface-to-air missile that uses an infrared guidance system.

Other advanced Iranian weaponry found in Iraq includes the RPG-29 rocket-propelled grenade, 240 mm rockets and armor-piercing roadside bombs known as explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs, Fox said.

An American soldier was killed Saturday and another wounded when an EFP hit their patrol in eastern Baghdad, the military said.

Iran has denied U.S. allegations that it is smuggling weapons to Shiite militias in Iraq, a denial that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad reiterated in an interview with CBS'"60 Minutes" aired Sunday.

"We don't need to do that. We are very much opposed to war and insecurity," said Ahmadinejad, who arrived in New York Sunday to attend the U.N. General Assembly. "The insecurity in Iraq is detrimental to our interests."

Tensions between Iran and the United States have worried Iraqi officials - many of whom are members of political parties with close ties to Tehran.

A 240 mm rocket was fired this month at the main U.S. headquarters base in Iraq, killing one person and wounding 11.

U.S. officials said the rocket was fired from a west Baghdad neighborhood controlled by Shiite militiamen.

On Thursday, U.S. troops arrested an Iranian in the Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah. U.S. officials said he was a member of the elite Quds force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards that smuggles weapons into Iraq.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki condemned the Iranian's arrest, saying he understood the man, who has been identified as Mahmudi Farhadi, had been invited to Iraq.

"The government of Iraq is an elected one and sovereign. When it gives a visa, it is responsible for the visa," he told The Associated Press in an interview in New York. "We consider the arrest ... of this individual who holds an Iraqi visa and a (valid) passport to be unacceptable."

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, also demanded the Iranian's release.

The U.S. military said the suspect was being questioned about "his knowledge of, and involvement in," the transportation of EFPs and other roadside bombs from Iran into Iraq and "his facilitation of travel and training in Iran for Iraqi insurgents." The military said no decision had been made about whether to file charges.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said Farhadi was in charge of border transactions in western Iran and went to Iraq on an official invitation.

He said Iran expects the Iraqi government to provide security for Iranian nationals there and warned the arrest could affect relations between the two neighbors as well.

Iraqi authorities, meanwhile, said a shipment of chlorine had crossed the border from Jordan after concerns were raised about shortages of the chemical needed to prevent an outbreak of cholera from spreading.

Officials said earlier that as much as 100,000 tons of chlorine was being held up at the border for fear it would be hijacked and used in explosives. Several chlorine truck bombs blamed on suspected Sunni insurgents earlier this year killed scores of people.

Naeem al-Qabi, the deputy chief of Baghdad's municipal council, said warehouses in the capital were preparing to accept the chlorine, which would help purify water supplies.

"There is some administrative work needed to be done and it will be finished very soon," al-Qabi said.

Iraq now has a total of 1,652 confirmed cases of cholera after three new cases were confirmed in Salahuddin province, according to an update on the World Health Organization's Web site on Sunday. Earlier, cholera was confirmed in the provinces of Sulaimaniyah, Tamim and Irbil, as well as a case each in Baghdad and in Basra.

"As the weather cools and becomes more favorable for transmission, the organism is expected to spread to other provinces," the WHO's country office in Iraq said on its Web site.

Cholera is endemic to Iraq, with about 30 cases registered each year. The last major outbreak was in 1999, when 20 cases were discovered in one day.

Also Sunday, Iraq's minister of state for national security, Sherwan al-Waili, took over the security operations center in Basra as tensions rose in the southern city following the assassination of a local representative of Iraq's top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

The region has been rocked by violence between rival Shiite militias linked to political parties, raising concerns about security as the British military has pulled back its troops from the city center to a nearby airport to allow Iraqi security forces to take over.

Al-Waili told reporters that he will temporarily head the operations center until a new security plan is implemented "very soon" in the city, 340 miles southeast of Baghdad.

[Gold9472]

bump