US plans to hit Iran N-sites

I say look at your own human rights and friking Democracy, before you go talking about human rights and democracy, in another Nation You Goons.

Correspondents in Washington
February 13, 2006
LONDON: The Pentagon is drawing up plans for bombing raids backed by submarine-launched ballistic missile attacks against Iran's nuclear sites as a last resort to block Tehran's efforts to develop an atomic bomb, The Sunday Telegraph reported in Britain yesterday.

The paper said US Central Command and Strategic Command planners were "identifying targets, assessing weapon-loads and working on logistics for an operation" against Iran.

The planners are reporting to the office of US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, with a view to having a military option if diplomatic efforts fail to put the brakes on Iran's suspected push for nuclear weapons.

"This is more than just the standard military contingency assessment," The Sunday Telegraph quoted a senior Pentagon adviser as saying. "This has taken on much greater urgency in recent months."

The flow of disclosures about Iran's nuclear operations and the virulent anti-Israeli threats of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has prompted the new assessment of military options by Washington, the report said.

The most likely strategy would involve aerial bombardment of Iran by long-distance B2 bombers, each armed with up to 18,000kg of precision weapons, including the latest bunker-busting devices.

They would fly from bases in Missouri, with mid-air refuelling.

The Bush administration has recently announced plans to add conventional ballistic missiles to the armoury of its nuclear Trident submarines within the next two years. If ready in time, they would also form part of the plan of attack, the paper said.

Tehran has dispersed its nuclear plants, burying some deep underground, and has recently increased its air defences, but Pentagon planners believe the US attacks could seriously set back Iran's nuclear program.

Mr Ahmadinejad warned at the weekend that Iran could withdraw from the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty if Western pressure increased over its nuclear program.

His threat was an escalation of the Iranian Government's previous position that it would only stop complying with spot inspections of military installations and sites it has not declared to be part of its nuclear program.

"The Islamic Republic has continued its program within the framework of the International Atomic Energy Agency and the non-proliferation treaty. But if we see you want to use the NPT regulations to deprive us of our rights, know that the people will revise their policy in this regard," Mr Ahmadinejad said at a huge rally in Tehran.

"I ask our dear people to prepare themselves for a great struggle. Fasten your seat belts and pull up your sleeves."

The comments came as experts in Washington urged Mr Bush to drop diplomacy with Iran in favour of boosting internal dissent and opposition forces within the Islamic country. In an open breach with White House policy, neo-conservative analysts argued that the multilateral diplomacy pursued by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was encouraging the Iranians to snub the IAEA and develop a nuclear bomb under cover of a peaceful energy program.

Michael Rubin, a Middle East expert at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, said: "The United States doesn't have a policy on Iran. We should be looking for a way to address the people of the country."

Mr Rubin accused Dr Rice of being tepid in her support for democratic reforms and regime change in Iran.

"I don't believe Dr Rice has ever put her neck out for freedom, when the Soviet Union was dissolving or now," he said.

Foreign policy hawks say the US should assist democratic forces inside Iran, much as president Ronald Reagan did with the trade union organisation Solidarity in Poland in the early 1980s.

Robert Kagan, a leading neoconservative who helped to make the case for the invasion of Iraq, said the "non-military answer in Iran is political change", and accused the Bush administration of doing little "to exploit the evident weaknesses in the regime" in Tehran.

And The Wall Street Journal said "neo-realists" such as Dr Rice, who support diplomacy as the best way to project US power and interests, were consolidating their grip on Washington.

Dr Rice helped to broker the agreement in London recommending that Iran be reported by the IAEA to the UN Security Council for breaching the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, although the move is unlikely to lead in the first instance to tough economic sanctions against Tehran.

Few of the US foreign policy hawks say the mullah's regime should be overthrown by force, but they argue it could collapse from within.

There are signs of labour unrest in Iran. Mansoor Oslanloo, the leader of a bus workers' union, has been in prison since December and hundreds of union members have been arrested, prompting a wave of protests in Tehran and around the country.

The US State Department spends about $US4million ($5.4million) a year on the promotion of democracy and women's rights in Iran -- too little to make a difference, according to the critics.

A campaign for human rights and democracy in Iran is to be launched in the US Congress on March 2.

AFP, The Sunday Times

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