William Thomas / NewsWire – 2006-05-14 10:37:23
http://newswire.indymedia.org/en/2006/05/839133.shtml
US Prepares to Attack Iran:
Bush Said To Be Seeking a “Persian Gulf Incident”
William Thomas
(May 11, 2006) — In April 2006, the US National Command Authority issued orders for more than 20,000 US soldiers to prepare to deploy to the Persian Gulf within 48 hours of receiving an execute order from either GW Bush or Donald Rumsfeld. Generals fear “Persian Gulf Incident” trigger.
“The commanders of US ground forces destined for Iran bluntly told National Command Authority that if either Bush or Rumsfeld issued orders to enact “Little Bighorn, The Sequel,” their commands would be refused. ”
In January 2006, a major military base located in the western United States received voice instructions from National Command Authority (NCA) to get their logistics train underway and train up their troops for desert warfare.
The current National Command Authority is comprised of a Commander-In-Chief who deserted his post during the Vietnam War, and a Secretary of Defense who, despite never having donned a uniform in defense of his country, did succeed in cashiering and countermanding enough combat-experienced generals to engineer the current debacle in Iraq.
“Which desert?” the commander wanted to know.
“You don’t need to know,” he was told by the NCA.
With their mission unstated, infantry staff officers presumed that this redeployment of more than 10,000 combat-tested troops, as well as supporting armor, artillery and air reconnaissance would soon be heading back into Iraq — with enough force, as my source put it, to “finally go in and do it right.”
In preparation for this combat operation, all upcoming leaves between January and September 2006 were either cancelled or expedited. To insure that essential personnel would remain integrated throughout their units, military operational specialists nearing their end of duty commitments were either replaced or retained under “stop loss” provisions beyond the end of their contracts. “Hot action” would be coming soon — no later than September 2006.
As the troops began intensive training for desert combat during this 1st phase “spin up” to war, a complete inventory was taken of the bullets, beans and bodies required to initiate, sustain and complete a combat mission of unspecified duration in an as yet unspecified Theater of Operations — still assumed to be Iraq.
In February 2006, the 2nd phase of war preparations began as US personnel in Defense Data Management began tapping keypads and arranging “rides” for a still unspecified destination. Orders went out to various air, land and sealift commands to coordinate logistical support for an upcoming combat deployment to the most likely desert environment — the Persian Gulf.
All units involved had to prepare to deploy overseas on just 48-hours’ notice.
By late February 2006, military brass following mostly voice instructions from the NCA were growing uneasy. Neither inspired nor reassured by Donald Rumsfeld’s performance as an amateur armchair general, the bean counters became increasingly concerned when ordered to tally more bullets than beans. This skew in the logistics train indicated some kind of assault or invasion was in the offing, with enough ammunition available to take and hold defended ground.
A flurry of interrogatives peppering the Pentagon grew into a sustained barrage when war planners were told to prepare their own in-theater resupply depots and fueling capabilities.
Why do we need to ship fuel into Iraq, and prepare to airdrop big fuel bladders to troops on the ground, they wanted to know, when substantial ammunition and fuel depots were already secured in a country containing the world’s second biggest oil reserves.
“Shut up and do it,” the professional warriors were told by National Command Authority.
“Do what exactly?” company commanders began asking battalion HQ.
Battalion went to division, division commanders contacted their superiors…and eventually an avalanche of objections fell on the heads of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The JCS is headed by General Richard B. Myers, the man rewarded with command over all US forces after failing to launch routine (more-than-once-weekly) intercept scrambles, or re-route fighters already airborne within easy flying distance of Manhattan and Washington DC on the morning of September 11, 2001. [AFD The Politics of Mass Persuasion; Stand Down; Day Of Deception (June 2006) – by William Thomas]
Then as now, answers were not immediately forthcoming.
By the end of February 2006, retired generals with careers no longer at risk began going more ballistic than ICBMs cooking off in their silos. According to sources inside the Pentagon and close to the JCS, their logic and comments went roughly like this:
“You’re not even telling your own troops where you’re going to deploy them. How stupid is that? If they don’t know the terrain, how can they arrange appropriate transport?
“How can medical facilities know whether to prepare for wounds by bullets, chemicals, or nuclear flash burns? Besides, all necessary material for combat operations in Iraq is already in country.”
Once again, the White House told the commanding officers involved in this unpublicized mobilization: “Shut up and do what you’re told.”
But staff officers are capable of reading newspapers, as well as orders. They started “putting two and two together” my source reported, when headline news began reporting threats from National Command Authority to invade and/or nuke Iran over its legitimate intentions to build nuclear power plants for its rapidly growing and modernizing citizenry.
This action had to be taken, the American press parroted, in order to “pre-empt” the possibility that a country already titling toward the democratic wishes of its overwhelmingly young population might seek to counter repeatedly threatened US aggression, and Israel’s 400-plus nuclear bomb arsenal with its own eventual bomb.
By April 2006 it was clear to combat veterans preparing once again for war that they would not be helping out their buddies in Iraq. When an additional division of 10,000 to 15,000 seasoned troops specializing in rugged terrain was also ordered to prepare for redeployment in the Persian Gulf Theater, enough red flags went up to stop the game.
Iraq is mostly flat.
Iran is mostly mountainous.
We Don’t Think So
As Pulitzer-winning journalist Seymour Hersh has confirmed, the generals performed their sworn duty by rendering their professional opinion to the National Command Authority, to wit: “You’re out of your frickin’ minds.” [Democracy Now! Apr 12/06; New Yorker Apr 17/06]
US commanders pointed out that their tanks were not going to be taking any scenic drives through Persian peaks exceeding 7,000 feet, and occasionally topping out over 10,000. The missing oxygen required to sustain life would also not be enough to sustain heavy-lift helos attempting to chopper in all those bullets and beans well above their rated service ceilings.
“Bad idea,” they said. The Soviet Red Army had conclusively and catastrophically demonstrated what happens when troops attempting to assault unfamiliar mountain defiles without armor and adequate air support confront homeland defenders armed with anti-air and anti-vehicle rockets fighting from good cover. Especially when said shooters are not afraid to die.
“We can’t do this,” the generals told Rumsfeld and his amateur warmakers. “Your plan will not work. Most of our people will get killed.”
“No worries,” the Sec Def’s best and brightest assured the generals. “We’ll cross the eastern border from Afghanistan near Zahedan, and use the Iranian’s own railroad to transport everything we need down hundreds of miles of hotly contested train tracks right into Tehran.”
“After we’ve blown up the tracks and sidings in the preliminary air campaign to prevent the Iranian army from taking train rides?” the generals wanted to know. “How exactly will that work?” Even an intact stretch of track, they went on, can be put of commission by a disgruntled local tossing a single grenade.
“Relax,” the White House war wizards came about onto another tack. “We’ll air drop all the transport vehicles you need from high-flying C-130s.”
“You can’t HALO a Humvee!” the conquest-infatuated civilians were informed. In practice exercises, High Altitude drops of heavy vehicles attained terminal velocities before streaming their chutes at the moment of Low Opening. And stream they did! Humvees arriving beneath shredded canopies tended to shed wheels and parts in all directions, before bouncing their junked chassis 300 feet past ducking observers. At that point, the generals explained, jumping in and driving to Tehran was not really an option.
Another small problem, they pointed out, was that since breaking off all diplomatic relations with Iran more than a decade before, US military commanders with an urgent need for accurate Intel had zero clue what was happening inside that shrouded country.
Sure, they’d been violating Iran’s sovereign airspace as ordered, flying picture-snapping UAVs through the mountains looking for targets for months. But constant climbing and diving — and high winds in the mountain passes — had left the unpiloted Predators with little fuel for loitering.
Even when an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle did spot a feature of possible interest, it was often impossible to tell a painted plywood or Styrofoam decoy from a real truck or howitzer.
Just like what happened in Kosovo, the generals remembered, after a massive US-led aerial bombing campaign massacred civilians, initiated an industrial pollution holocaust, irradiated the country with uranium-waste warheads — and saw most of the Serbian artillery and tanks driven past UN Observers after the ceasefire.
No problem, said the White House. With more than 10,000 potential targets — many of them located in the center of modern cities like Tehran — we’ll simply bomb the crap out of the entire country. With oil fires deliberately lit off by the defenders blinding the US attackers’ night vision equipment — as well as Hellfire missile sensors, and the lasers needed to guide “smart bombs” — waves of terrain-challenged cruise missiles suffering from poor accuracy under ideal conditions, would somehow hedgehop mountain ridges to initially deluge Iranian cities and outlying centers with high explosives and depleted uranium.
Not coincidentally, this multi-billion dollar “urban renewal” project would generate tremendous profits for Bush administrators tied through banks and the Carlyle Group to US arms manufacturers, and reconstruction giants Halliburton and Bechtel.
This ruinous yet highly lucrative attack would be immediately followed by B-52s, “carpet bombing” Iranian cities and countryside — just like they’d done to Vietnam, Cambodia and Basra. Deeply buried nuclear research facilities would be used to “field test” experimental nuclear “bunker-busters”.
Nervous generals worried that the resulting clouds of radioactive dirt, debris and human flesh would rain downwind over Pakistan, India, Burma and China to the east, before contaminating North America and both hemispheres.
Nevertheless, according to my highly placed source, whose record of accurate inside information spans 15 years of our collaboration — and corroborated by Seymour Hersh — by March 2006 Pentagon war-gamers had drawn up “follow on” blueprints for non-democratic regime change in Iran. Following initial battle damage assessment over cratered towns and cities, F-16s, F-18s, and A-10 Warthogs firing radioactive cannon shells would go in at low level to finish off the survivors. “Bait” equipment would also be airdropped, and anyone who came out to investigate would be blown up.
Then US troops deploying out of Afghanistan would presumably cry “all aboard” and ride the rails through clouds of radiation to depose a legitimately elected apocalyptic president prone to language as provocative as their own. At the same time, supporting US forces would also begin humping through the mountains from any other dictatorial “stan” willing to support US aggression on their own Muslim brothers and sisters.
With the Strait of Hormuz — and most of the world’s oil supplies — temporarily shut down, and the US fleet in the Persian Gulf presumably sinking fast under swarms of 2,000 mph Iranian “Sunburn” anti-ship missiles and 200 mph torpedoes, naval logistics and air support would have to be provided from the Caspian Sea.
“Don’t the Russians own that?” the generals asked the NCA.
The White House had already offered to cut Putin in on the spoils, if the Russian president would facilitate US attacks on an allied country where he’d been forced to transplant Russia’s considerable oil and industrial investments in advance of Bush’s aggression on Iraq.
The NCA neglected to mention that their own Nuclear Emergency Search Team assessment had warned that if nukes were used, or a single nuclear power plant bombed, the entire region would be uninhabitable for at least a decade. Once made radioactive, NEST added, the world’s third biggest oil fields would be permanently unusable. [ http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/doctrine/doe/o5530_2.htm]
Bush and Rumsfeld ignored NEST. Putin gave Bush the diplomatic finger.
It was Putin’s pugnacious “nyet” to Washington that provoked “dead eye” Dick Cheney to unlimber his trusty rhetorical blunderbuss and start blasting Russia’s “lack of democracy”.
With the Cold War being rapidly resurrected by White House “Christian” fundamentalists ticking off an apocalyptic agenda that must be fulfilled in their lifetime — that is, during their term in office — the generals realized that they must be prepared to arm-wrestle a Russian bear, as well as Iran’s 800,000-strong army.
And China, too, since that cranky country also held vital oil and other commercial interests in Iran.
With what? The generals guessed that by this point, if not much earlier, the rest of the world would probably not be their friends. Nuclear Armageddon would be their only option.
They balked.
Mutiny in the Ranks
As my source put it, the Bush-Rumsfeld plan was “Kind of like burning down a house to get to a piece of paper sitting on a table in the middle of the room. It’s totally insane.”
Too long unattended by a disinterested American public, the very same PNAC planners who had given their country consecutive disasters in Vietnam and Iraq were confronted by their senior officers and finally, firmly told no.
According to independent corroboration from two separate sources, the generals informed the White House that not only would their troops lose this new war before they kicked off into Iran, but the US Army and Marine Corps — already severely chewed up in Iraq — would to the joy of terrorist regimes everywhere be wrecked for decades to come.
The commanders of US ground forces destined for Iran bluntly told National Command Authority that if either Bush or Rumsfeld issued orders to enact “Little Bighorn, The Sequel” — their commands would be refused.
In April 2006 Bush choppered in to meet his commanders in the field. But the Commander-In-Chief’s personal intervention failed to elicit assurances that his senior officers would obey what some were quietly calling an “illegal” order to attack Iran.
Unwilling to risk certain mutiny — and still without informing Congress or the American public — the two-man National Command Authority backed down from issuing 3rd Phase deployment/attack orders for the invasion of Iran.
Remember the Maddox and the Maine
Undeterred, the White House war planners changed their story and tactics. “Keep your lips zipped,” recalcitrant commanders were told. “And keep your troops and logistics at Phase 2 readiness. Be ready to help out — in, er, Iraq — within 48-hours’ notice.”
Bush and Rumsfeld issued these updated stand by orders in late April 2006. As this story goes to press, US air, naval and ground forces remain “cocked and locked” for deployment to the Persian Gulf, “when the balloon goes up,” according to my source.
Or down.
Remember the Maine? Remember the Maddox? US military leaders now fear that a copycat Cuban or Tonkin Gulf incident will be either faked or provoked sometime soon in the ship-clogged Persian Gulf.
Once an Iranian attack on a US-flagged tanker or warship is announced, US commanders could be ordered to “counter-attack” with all available force — including nuclear weapons.
Even if they suspected a ruse, no serving soldier can fail to protect his or her comrades. Any grunt or general who refused such a “go” command would risk immediate courts-martial, and charges of treason in a time of war.
Once again, the real treason would have come from a White House under siege from Congress, its own generals and an awakening populace — and increasingly desperate to fast-track the apocalypse “God” has personally commanded them to sponsor. As Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice recently reassured the homeless and hungry in Louisiana, “The Lord Jesus Christ is going to come on time.” [www.reopen911.org]
After Armageddon
“It will be another Gulf of Tonkin,” my source reported. “They want it. They’ll have it. Even if they have to make it.”
Unless Congress and the American public back their courageous generals, and stop religious fundamentalists who may or may not command more weaponry than all other nations combined.
Troops keyed up for combat cannot be held on 48-hour alert indefinitely. And with the Iran bourse set to begin trading oil in euros next week — ending the dollar’s dominance in that universal commodity — denial is no longer an option.
For fully illustrated version of this article, please see www.willthomas.net
• About the Author: After signing up to defend his country following the concocted Gulf of Tonkin incident, William Thomas trained four years in the US Navy Reserves before resigning his commission over the criminal folly of the Vietnam War.
e-mail:: willthomas@willthomas.net
homepage:: http://www.willthomas.net
