PressTV & Reuters – 2010-11-07 22:01:48
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/149956.html
US Senator Calls for Major Iran Attack‎
PressTV
(November 7, 2010) — A veteran senator says the US should not be satisfied with stopping Iran’s nuclear program but should also destroy its military capabilities and deliver a major blow to the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps.
Influential Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, known for his radical militaristic views and support for the Israeli regime said, “My view of military force would be not to just neutralize their nuclear program, which are probably dispersed and hardened, but to sink their navy, destroy their air force and deliver a decisive blow to the Revolutionary Guard.” Graham also sits in two major Senate committees of Armed Services and Homeland Security.
“In other words, neuter that regime,” added Graham, who spoke at the Halifax International Security Forum on Saturday. He also complained that the current US-sponsored anti-Iran sanctions are not “crippling.”
In another recent speech before a conservative US think tank, the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, Graham last September had once again called for a direct US military intervention in Iran, insisting that it should not involve ground troops but should be launched by US warplanes and ships.
Iranian officials have repeatedly condemned, yet mocked the US-led sanctions and described it as a great incentive for a major Iranian push towards progress and self-sufficiency.
Meanwhile, top Iranian leaders and military commanders have repeatedly undermined US and Israeli threats of military actions against the Islamic Republic, insisting that in case the US engages in such an adventure, the repercussions will be severe and wide-ranging.
Moreover, Iran has conducted numerous sea and air military exercises in the past year, showing off the capabilities of its new anti-ship and anti-air weaponry.
Bush: Olmert Asked Me to Bomb Suspected Syria Nuclear Plant
Reuters
Former United States President George W. Bush wrote in his recently published memoirs that he considered ordering a US military strike against a suspected Syrian nuclear facility at Israel’s request in 2007, but ultimately opted against it, Reuters revealed on Friday.
Israel eventually destroyed the facility, which Syria denied was aimed at developing nuclear weapons.
In his memoir, Decision Points, to hit bookstores Tuesday, Bush says that shortly after he received an intelligence report about a “suspicious, well-hidden facility in the eastern desert of Syria,” he spoke by phone with former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
“George, I’m asking you to bomb the compound,” Olmert told Bush, according to the book, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters.
Bush says he discussed options with his national security team. A bombing mission was considered “but bombing a sovereign country with no warning or announced justification would create severe blowback,” he writes.
A covert raid was discussed but it was considered too risky to slip a team in and out of Syria undetected. Bush received an intelligence assessment from then-CIA Director Mike Hayden, who reported that analysts had high confidence the plant housed a nuclear reactor, but low confidence of a Syrian nuclear weapons program.
Bush writes that he told Olmert, “I cannot justify an attack on a sovereign nation unless my intelligence agencies stand up and say it’s a weapons program.” Bush had ordered the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 based on intelligence that said Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, which were never found.
Olmert was disappointed with Bush’s decision to recommend a strategy of using diplomacy backed up by the threat of force to deal with Syria over the facility. “Your strategy is very disturbing to me,” Olmert told Bush, according to the book.
Bush denies charges that arose at the time that he had given a “green light” for Israel to attack the installation. “Prime Minister Olmert hadn’t asked for a green light, and I hadn’t given one. He had done what he believed was necessary to protect Israel,” Bush writes.
Bush writes that Olmert’s “execution of the strike” against the Syrian compound made up for the confidence he had lost in the Israelis during their 2006 war against Hezbollah in Lebanon, which Bush feels was bungled.
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