US analysts detail war plans against Iran

[ProSense]

US analysts detail war plans against Iran

11 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (AFP) - 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.

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 "Theater Iran Near Term."

Snip...

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.

Snip...

President George W. Bush last week dismissed talk of war planning against Iran as "wild speculation."

But Dianne Feinstein, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, warned this weekend that "there are some in this administration who have been pushing to make nuclear weapons more 'usable.'

"This is pure folly," the Democratic senator commented in The Los Angeles Times. "First use of nuclear weapons by the United States should be unthinkable."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060416/ts_alt_afp/usirannuclearmilitary_060416170316

[ShortnFiery]

1. Now more than ever ...

We need more General Officers to resign and SPEAK THE TRUTH of Rumsfeld's incompetence...

Please resign and speak out NOW General Officers?!?

Remember, all United States Military Officers swear their Oath to serve "The Constitution" NOT The Executive Branch!

[TheBaldyMan]

2. contingency planning is part of the job of the armed forces

the US Navy used to have contingency plans for war against Britain & Japan back in the 1870s through to the 1930s.

This is normal if rather unsettling.

It would be given higher priority because it is next-door neighbors with Iraq. It is no more suspicious than having a fire-drill once a week at work. These are mostly paper exercises and hopefully highlight any glaring deficiencies in the forces availiable.

For the record, the US armed forces have their hands full in Iraq, no action against Iran is imminent, in fact the paper exercises will come up with this on a regular basis and would reinforce the Pentagons view that Iran is off the menu for now.

[MrPrax]

4. Even Canada...

SUPPLEMENT NO. 3

TO

REPORT OF COMMITTEE NO. 8

SUBJECT:

CRITICAL AREAS OF CANADA AND APPROACHES THERETO

-snip-

f. Conclusion.

"Crimson cannot successfully defend her territory against the United
States (Blue). She will probably concentrate on the defense of Halifax
and the Montreal-Quebec line in order to hold bases of operation for Red.
Important secondary efforts will be made to defend her industrial area and
critical points on her transcontinental railroad lines.

http://www.glasnost.de/hist/usa/1935invasion.html">link

[TheBaldyMan]

6. no - that's because Canada is a threat to US national security

ever since they discovered the Canucks could come swarming down from the North like the Golden Horde and Genghis Khan. Apparently they won't stop until they reach the Panama canal.

[mmonk]

10. Can't get your link to work.

[MrPrax]

14. Buggered up...

I put a double http:// in my link thingy...me dumb

http://www.glasnost.de/hist/usa/1935invasion.html

Link

[ProSense]

7. A preemptive strike is not a contingency plan,

and thinking about using nuclear weapons is lunacy.

From the article:

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, Arkin wrote in The Washington Post.

PM 'refuses' to back Iran strikes
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/16042006/362/pm-refuses-iran-strikes.html

Britain took part in mock Iran invasion
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/foreignaffairs/story/0,,1754309,00.html?gusrc=rss

[TheBaldyMan]

8. The estimates of a pre-emptive strike come from paper exercises

like those mentioned, no-one seriously considers them to be actual plans for battle. Several different scenarios are tried as 'what if...' alternatives. Usually the outcome is not to see if you can win but to examine things like worst case scenarios, e.g. losing 30% of your logistics capability and how that would effect your ability to fight.

They are more involved than they used to be thanks to IT but the object is the same. As I said earlier the exercises would reinforce the Brass' view that any attack on Iran would be foolhardy. To be honest you don't really need an exercise to tell you that but these things produce detailed reports on why it wouldn't work.

[ProSense]

9. All logical, but

one didn't need an exercise to see the consequences of invading Iraq the way Bush did, and he was warned against it. Many people drew up the worse case scenarios that are playing out now in Iraq.

The level of involvement in planning a similar strike on Iran and the concerns being raised seem to go beyond contingency planning. Also, there will be those who do not come to the "it wouldn't work" conclusion. It's not a stretch to believe that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rice could be in that camp.

[TheBaldyMan]

11. this time around the forces have been in combat for 3 years

tanks wear out, equipment is degraded, training and doctrinal changes need to be implemented.

Morale is a factor as well and things like the order forbidding dragonskin body-armor don't help. Lot's of things are different to April 2003 and not for the better.

on edit:the PNACers pushed the war through because they were the experts and dismissed the officials who didn't drink the kool-aid as bureaucrats with no understanding of the situation.

[Karenca]

3. kick......nt

[bemildred]

5. I thought publishing war plans was treason or something?

If this guy is not a fatuous liar, why does he get a pass?

[saltpoint]

12. I'm just a tad tardy here, sorry about that, but I appreciate this post

a lot and say thanks for putting it up there for us.

We need to stay on top of this, and this is just the kind of info we need.

Nicely done.

[ProSense]

13. Bombs That Would Backfire (by Richard Clarke and Steven Simon)

Op-Ed Contributors

Bombs That Would Backfire

By RICHARD CLARKE and STEVEN SIMON
Published: April 16, 2006

WHITE HOUSE spokesmen have played down press reports that the Pentagon has accelerated planning to bomb Iran. We would like to believe that the administration is not intent on starting another war, because a conflict with Iran could be even more damaging to our interests than the current struggle in Iraq has been. A brief look at history shows why.

Reports by the journalist Seymour Hersh and others suggest that the United States is contemplating bombing a dozen or more nuclear sites, many of them buried, around Iran. In the event, scores of air bases, radar installations and land missiles would also be hit to suppress air defenses. Navy bases and coastal missile sites would be struck to prevent Iranian retaliation against the American fleet and Persian Gulf shipping. Iran's long-range missile installations could also be targets of the initial American air campaign.

Snip...

So how would bombing Iran serve American interests? In over a decade of looking at the question, no one has ever been able to provide a persuasive answer. The president assures us he will seek a diplomatic solution to the Iranian crisis. And there is a role for threats of force to back up diplomacy and help concentrate the minds of our allies. But the current level of activity in the Pentagon suggests more than just standard contingency planning or tactical saber-rattling.

The parallels to the run-up to to war with Iraq are all too striking: remember that in May 2002 President Bush declared that there was "no war plan on my desk" despite having actually spent months working on detailed plans for the Iraq invasion. Congress did not ask the hard questions then. It must not permit the administration to launch another war whose outcome cannot be known, or worse, known all too well.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/16/opinion/16clarke.html?ex=1302840000&en=bde4bd3288470a1a&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss