09th
April 2007
With
Tehran continuing to move ahead with its nuclear plans,
rumours persist the White House is planning a military
strike on Iran in April.
"Preparations
to strike Iran's strategic facilities continue," Col.
Gen. Leonid Ivashov, president of the Academy for
Geopolitical Problems, a Russian think tank.
"Three
major groups of U.S. forces are still in the Arabian Sea
and the Persian Gulf. Altogether, they have up to 450
cruise missiles on alert."
"Military operations against Tehran will begin with the
launch of at least two unexpected strikes using Tomahawk
cruise missiles and air power in order to disable Iran's
air-defence capabilities."
"According to our data, up to 150 aircraft are to be
involved in each strike on Iran. Land-based air-defence
systems will be disabled in the first place, then mobile
short-range systems, which Tehran has (including some 30
new systems)," he said.
Ivashov
also did not rule out the possibility of nuclear weapons
being used against Iran.
"Combat
nuclear weapons may be used for bombing. This will
result in radioactive contamination of the Iranian
territory, which could possibly spread to neighbouring
countries," he said.
A press conference
Ivashov held in Moscow March 30 led to
speculation the U.S.
would strike Iran on April 4 in a military attack
code-named "Operation Bite."
In his
most recent warning, Ivashov stressed the release of the
15 British sailors and marines captured by Iran robbed
the U.S. of the pretext planned for a military strike
last week. Still, Ivashov warned the U.S. had not given
up plans to launch a missile and air strike on Iran
before the end of April.
Russia's RIA Novosti news
agency
continues to support
the charges Ivashov continues to make.
On Friday, RIA Novosti quoted an unnamed Russian
security source as saying, "Russian intelligence has
information that the U.S. Armed Forces stationed in the
Persian Gulf have nearly completed preparations for a
missile strike against Iranian territory."
The U.S. Navy has
announced the aircraft carrier
USS Nimitz left San Diego April 2
and is headed to the Persian Gulf. The Nimitz is
expected to relieve the USS Eisenhower currently on
station in the Gulf. The Nimitz will join the USS
Stennis in a continued two-carrier battle group presence
in the Gulf.
The
White House continues to deny categorically there are
any imminent plans to launch a military attack on Iran.
This news comes at a time when no attempt
was made to conceal the visit a cluster of top US brass
paid April 4 to American marine units aboard the
multipurpose amphibious assault ship USS Baatan (LHD 5)
and other vessels of the strike group deployed in the
Persian Gulf. In fact they were happy to answer
questions about policies, equipment and future plans.
The group visiting the 26th Marine
Expeditionary Unit (MEU) aboard the Baatan was led by
Gen. James Conway. With him were Lt. Gen. Keith Stadler,
Commanding General of II Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF),
Marine Corps Sgt. Maj. John Estrada and Rear Adm.
Richard Jeffries, medical officer of the Marine Corps.
The group earlier climbed aboard the USS
Oak Hill and USS Shreveport, which are part of the
Bataan Strike Group.
Tehran took this public flurry of
activity as another sign of an impending US assault. Its
response came four days later. On April 8, the foreign
ministry spokesman in Tehran Mohammad Ali Hossein said
the Iranian army had completed all its preparations for
defending the homeland and Iran was prepared to repel a
military offensive.
The tenor of the language emitting from
Iran is one of defiance across the board.
The foreign ministry in Tehran announced
Monday, April 9: “Talks with the US are not on Iran’s
agenda,” in reference to planned meetings on the
sidelines of the second Iraq security conference taking
place in Cairo next month.
This was the final death blow to the
US-Saudi initiative to engage Iran, which was fathered
earlier this year by the Bush administration and Saudi
King Abdullah. Washington had pinned high hopes on the
follow-up Cairo meeting providing the forum for direct
talks between US and Iranian foreign ministers.
Since Tehran has knocked this prospect on
the head, not much is expected to come out of the Cairo
gathering of UN Security Council and G-8 members as well
as Iraq’s neighbours – even if it takes place. This too
is in question, given the menacing tone of Iranian
foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki. On Monday, he
warned that relations with Iraq could deteriorate if the
five Iranians detained in Iraq by US troops last
February are not freed. Tehran is investigating their
fate, he said, and urged Iraq to do the same.
Radical president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s
proclamation of National Nuclear Energy Day celebrations
to mark the first anniversary of Iran’s initial
breakthrough on uranium enrichment is taken as a red
flag to the West.
Notwithstanding persistent speculation,
the Iranian leader refrained from announcing the
installation of 3,000 centrifuges, which would have
marked an important stride in large-scale uranium
enrichment. He only announced “industrial scale”
production of enriched uranium." Intelligence sources
disclose that Iran has not managed to install.
Last week, ABC News revealed that in the
last three months, Iran has more than tripled its
ability to produce enriched uranium, adding some 1,000
centrifuges which are used to separate radioactive
particles from the raw material
The addition of 1,000 new centrifuges,
which are not yet operational, means Iran is expanding
its enrichment program at a pace much faster than U.S.
intelligence experts had predicted. The Islamic Republic
may indeed have a bomb by 2009. This is six years
earlier than the previous US intelligence time frame of
2015 and closer to Israeli intelligence assessments.
And this week, Aviation Week & Space
Technology brought out some new data relevant to
Iran’s missile program about the expansion of Chinese
missile strength US monitoring operations.
The weekly reports that US Air Force
Defence Support Program monitors have noted that both
the Chinese and the Iranians “have very vigorous test
programs. The number of ballistic missile launch events
we are seeing with DSP is increasing.”
USAF Lt. Col, Joe Coniligio is quoted as
saying: “…with major new Chinese and Iranian flight test
activity to monitor, the DSP program has major
initiatives underway to extract more intelligence out of
the infrared data stream from each of the satellites.”
Also Monday, Iranian state TV announced
Revolutionary Guard Gen. Mohammad Baqer Zolqadr had
demonstrated the “ineffectiveness” of UN sanctions by
spending six days in Moscow in defiance of the
international ban on his travel. The Russians confirmed
this. The general is listed with 15 individuals, whose
visits all governments are required to ban.
Sources note additional factors
contributing to heightened tensions in the region,
chiefly the high death toll the US and British military
are sustaining in Iraq from high-powered Iranian
roadside bombs, 10 Americans and 6 Britons killed over
the Easter weekend alone. Quantities of lethal weapons
continued to flow across the border to the anti-US
Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr’s Mehdi Army militia. US and
Iraqi forces have been battling these militia units for
almost a week in the town of Diwaniya south of Baghdad.
The Shiites are armed to the teeth with smuggled Iranian
arms, including anti-tank and anti-air missiles.
Sadr brought out to the streets of Najef
and Kufa on Monday, April, 9, the fourth anniversary of
the fall of Baghdad, tens of thousands of anti-American
demonstrators who burned US flags and demanded the end
of “American occupation.” Sadr in person is a constant
thorn in America’s side from a safe distance in Tehran.
