Setting the Stage: "Intel chief: Hezbollah may be next U.S. threat"...

[Junkdrawer]

WASHINGTON - Al-Qaida poses the gravest terrorist threat to the United States, and an emboldened Hezbollah is a growing danger, the U.S. intelligence chief said Thursday.

In his annual review of global threats, National Intelligence Director John Negroponte highlighted an increasingly worrisome assessment of Hezbollah — backed by Iran and Syria — since its 34-day war with Israel last year.

“As a result of last summer’s hostilities, Hezbollah’s self-confidence and hostility toward the United States as a supporter of Israel could cause the group to increase its contingency planning against United States interests,” Negroponte told the Senate Intelligence Committee.

He depicted a more multifaceted terrorist threat than in years past. Since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, U.S. spy agencies have stressed the threat from al-Qaida and associated Sunni extremist groups, rather than from Hezbollah and other Shiite Muslim groups.

....

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16582063/

[formercia]

1. That's what happens when we try and start a war

we start a war.

[Junkdrawer]

2. And then there's this:

from a piece in "The American Conservative': (print edition only, no link)


The Pentagon, acting under instructions from Vice President Dick Cheney's office, has tasked the United States Strategic Command (STRATCOM) with drawing up a contingency plan to be employed in response to another 9/11-type terrorist attack on the United States. The plan includes a large-scale air assault on Iran employing both conventional and tactical nuclear weapons. Within Iran there are more than 450 major strategic targets, including numerous suspected nuclear-weapons-program development sites. Many of the targets are hardened or are deep underground and could not be taken out by conventional weapons, hence the nuclear option. As in the case of Iraq, the response is not conditional on Iran actually being involved in the act of terrorism directed against the United States. Several senior Air Force officers involved in the planning are reportedly appalled at the implications of what they are doing--that Iran is being set up for an unprovoked nuclear attack--but no one is prepared to damage his career by posing any objections.




http://www.justinlogan.com/justinlogancom/2005/07/what_is_the_pla.html