by Sarah Baxter and Michael Smith

Global Research, February 25, 2007
The Times (London)


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Some of America’s most senior military commanders are prepared to resign if the White House orders a military strike against Iran, according to highly placed defence and intelligence sources.

Tension in the Gulf region has raised fears that an attack on Iran is becoming increasingly likely before President George Bush leaves office. The Sunday Times has learnt that up to five generals and admirals are willing to resign rather than approve what they consider would be a reckless attack.

“There are four or five generals and admirals we know of who would resign if Bush ordered an attack on Iran,” a source with close ties to British intelligence said. “There is simply no stomach for it in the Pentagon, and a lot of people question whether such an attack would be effective or even possible.”

A British defence source confirmed that there were deep misgivings inside the Pentagon about a military strike. “All the generals are perfectly clear that they don’t have the military capacity to take Iran on in any meaningful fashion. Nobody wants to do it and it would be a matter of conscience for them.

“There are enough people who feel this would be an error of judgment too far for there to be resignations.”

A generals’ revolt on such a scale would be unprecedented. “American generals usually stay and fight until they get fired,” said a Pentagon source. Robert Gates, the defence secretary, has repeatedly warned against striking Iran and is believed to represent the view of his senior commanders.

The threat of a wave of resignations coincided with a warning by Vice-President Dick Cheney that all options, including military action, remained on the table. He was responding to a comment by Tony Blair that it would not “be right to take military action against Iran”.

Iran ignored a United Nations deadline to suspend its uranium enrichment programme last week. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad insisted that his country “will not withdraw from its nuclear stances even one single step”.

The International Atomic Energy Agency reported that Iran could soon produce enough enriched uranium for two nuclear bombs a year, although Tehran claims its programme is purely for civilian energy purposes.

Nicholas Burns, the top US negotiator, is to meet British, French, German, Chinese and Russian officials in London tomorrow to discuss additional penalties against Iran. But UN diplomats cautioned that further measures would take weeks to agree and would be mild at best.

A second US navy aircraft carrier strike group led by the USS John C Stennis arrived in the Gulf last week, doubling the US presence there. Vice Admiral Patrick Walsh, the commander of the US Fifth Fleet, warned: “The US will take military action if ships are attacked or if countries in the region are targeted or US troops come under direct attack.”

But General Peter Pace, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, said recently there was “zero chance” of a war with Iran. He played down claims by US intelligence that the Iranian government was responsible for supplying insurgents in Iraq, forcing Bush on the defensive.

Pace’s view was backed up by British intelligence officials who said the extent of the Iranian government’s involvement in activities inside Iraq by a small number of Revolutionary Guards was “far from clear”.

Hillary Mann, the National Security Council’s main Iran expert until 2004, said Pace’s repudiation of the administration’s claims was a sign of grave discontent at the top.

“He is a very serious and a very loyal soldier,” she said. “It is extraordinary for him to have made these comments publicly, and it suggests there are serious problems between the White House, the National Security Council and the Pentagon.”

Mann fears the administration is seeking to provoke Iran into a reaction that could be used as an excuse for an attack. A British official said the US navy was well aware of the risks of confrontation and was being “seriously careful” in the Gulf.

The US air force is regarded as being more willing to attack Iran. General Michael Moseley, the head of the air force, cited Iran as the main likely target for American aircraft at a military conference earlier this month.

According to a report in The New Yorker magazine, the Pentagon has already set up a working group to plan airstrikes on Iran. The panel initially focused on destroying Iran’s nuclear facilities and on regime change but has more recently been instructed to identify targets in Iran that may be involved in supplying or aiding militants in Iraq.

However, army chiefs fear an attack on Iran would backfire on American troops in Iraq and lead to more terrorist attacks, a rise in oil prices and the threat of a regional war.

Britain is concerned that its own troops in Iraq might be drawn into any American conflict with Iran, regardless of whether the government takes part in the attack.

One retired general who participated in the “generals’ revolt” against Donald Rumsfeld’s handling of the Iraq war said he hoped his former colleagues would resign in the event of an order to attack. “We don’t want to take another initiative unless we’ve really thought through the consequences of our strategy,” he warned.

__________________
"And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him."
- Revelations 6:8

This is fairly new.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9t_i08d1xc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fmTgfmjtzk
I always thought the US would never attack Iran because Russia and China would probably get involved. After watching the above video, I'm not so sure.

We have to look at the big picture when we talk about Iran. It was an American de facto colony for a long time.
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Blum/Iran_KH.html
http://www.lobster-magazine.co.uk/articles/l30iran.htm

The US would like to take control of Iran all right but not for the reasons they give us.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...292490&pl=true
http://www.informationclearinghouse....ticle17836.htm

Some good info about Iran can be found here.
Enter "Iran" or "Savak" in this search engine.
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/htdig/search.html

Here's some stuff from there.
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Ma...ce_ForPol.html
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Asia/Oil_WarIran.html

It's hard to form an opinion in cases like this because it's hard to be sure if we're basing our opinions on the correct information.
I wouldn't take anything the American mainstream press says seriously.
http://www.nadir.org/nadir/initiativ...propaganda.htm
http://www.nadir.org/nadir/initiativ...atingenemy.htm

Here's some good stuff in the alternative press about Iran.
http://www.zmag.org/iranwatch/Iranwatch.cfm

I've only had the opportunity to talk to one person from Iran lately. He told me that after the US lost Iran as a colony in 79 and lost all that free oil, it started planning a way to get it back. He told me that the war with Iraq was part of the long term plan to weaken Iran so that they could eventually take it back by force. According to this Iranian, the US was able to get Iraq to start the war with Iran. Iran lost a lot of men that would now be high level technicians in the military.
Of course I don't know if any of that reflects reality; it's just something to think about.
The threat of a US attack to get back the free oil it used to get is a very real thing from the Iranian perspective. They have very valid reasons for wanting to be capable of deterring a potential US attack. If the US only wanted to keep Iran from getting weapons to keep the world safe and nothing more, it would publicly apologize for having stolen it's oil from 1953 to 1979 and it would promise not to try to get control of Iran again--overtly or covertly. It doesn't even recognize that it used to steal Iran's oil or any of the other things it used to do to maintain the situation.

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/US...ses_2_CTW.html
(excerpt)
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The Shah's word was law, and he repressed those who opposed him, not only through SAVAK, the umbrella security organization the CIA had created and Israelis trained, but by systematic control over the press, labor, universities, and any institution capable of undermining his absolute power. SAVAK operated a vast system of informers and agents and used torture routinely, and in 1974-75 had, at the least, some thousands in its prisons-although the opposition claimed twenty-five thousand to a hundred thousand. After 1971, when resistance to the Shah's policies from especially middle-class and educated constituencies began to increase, SAVAK was especially active and brutal, and its close relationship with the CIA further identified the United States with their oppressors in the minds of the population. This linkage actually involved a division of labor: SAVAK told the CIA about Iranian internal affairs, becoming its nearly exclusive source of information, while the CIA agents in Iran concentrated on gathering data on Russia and training SAVAK in a variety of techniques essential to its political work, including torture. The CIA also reported to SAVAK on politics among Iranian students in the United States. In early 1977, after the Carter Administration began proclaiming its adherence to "human rights" abroad, the Shah made cosmetic changes in SAVAK's work but nothing more, and its ties with the CIA continued until his fall.
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http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Ro...rael_TICC.html

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Mi...d_for_Oil.html
(excerpt)
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American policy in this period was chiefly concerned that countries in the region did not come under the control of nationalist regimes. They had their first taste of that threat in Iran, when the democratically elected president Mohammed Mossadeq, with mass popular support, nationalized the British-owned Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. In a coup engineered by CIA operative Kermit Roosevelt, Mossadeq was toppled and replaced by the Shah. The Shah's power was underwritten by massive infusions of American aid and upheld by the notoriously savage secret police, Savak.
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http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Te...sm_STATUS.html
(excerpt)
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In 1957 Washington helped the Shah create SAVAK, the notorious security police force which silenced those who criticized the Shah or the regime. The Shah followed the trail of so many other dictators by creating a military intelligence agency. The repression was particularly brutal in the period from 1970 to 1976. He dropped any pretense of reform and adopted a policy of stifling police rule. The press was censored, people were arbitrarily arrested and harassed, and prisoners were systematically tortured.
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This is a sticky situation.
Iran might be a threat to Israel even if it weren't worried about the US trying to get back what it lost. I think it mainly doesn't want to go back to the old days though.
More than ten years ago I talked to some Iranians who were handing out anti-Khomeini pamphlets. They were anti-Khomeini and anti-Shah. They explained to me that if the US had never taken over Iran in 1953, Iran would never had ended up with a fanatical Moslem government. It's easy to understand why Iranians hate the US; it's responsible for a lot of misery there.

Intellignece shows Nukes being developed in Iran!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8ovFfB58Uc

What does intelligence say about Israeli nukes???

__________________
"And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him."
- Revelations 6:8

Welp, I didn't read any of that but I'd just like to say, if the 4 Stars want to be cowards whatever. E-4 Slinger says (me) "Ill go in there place"

ill be the first one to go, just gimmie my stryker and enough gas to get there from baghdad...

god, like the cowards and tree huggers who say this trash do any fighting anyway......

__________________
Yes, I am a mindless, Brainwashed, robot,
AKA an American Infantryman.
Yet somehow I think for myself.....