Reply #13: A week ago Straw said military action was "inconceivable". Maybe in

[54anickel]

his mind it is, but why all the contingency planning behind the scenes?

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle.asp?xfile=data/theworld/2006/April/theworld_April59.xml§ion=theworld&col=

snip>

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, who met with Rice in England before traveling with her to Baghdad, has said it is inconceivable that military action would be taken against Iran.

However, the Sunday Telegraph newspaper reported that Britain’s government and military chiefs plan to hold secret talks on Monday to discuss contingency plans about possible military strikes against Iran.

In addition to officials from Prime Minister Tony Blair’s and Foreign Secretary Jack Straw’s offices, the meeting will involve Gen. Michael Walker, the chief of the defense staff; Lt. Gen. Andrew Ridgway, the chief of defense and intelligence; and Maj. Gen. Bill Rollo, the assistant chief of the general staff, the paper said in a front-page story.

Asked about the Sunday Telegraph report, Britain’s Defense Ministry said in a statement: “There is no such meeting between defense, the Foreign Office and other officials taking place. There will be no briefing of the prime minister or the Cabinet in this regard.”



Who to believe?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2006/04/09/dl0902.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/04/09/ixnewstop.html

Last Sunday, we revealed that several of Britain's defence chiefs were going to meet to discuss the effects on British interests of a military strike on Iran by the United States to destroy that county's capacity to build a nuclear bomb. Our story was categorically denied by Ministry of Defence officials, who told Sean Rayment, our Defence Correspondent, that there was "no truth in it whatsoever".

Yet those officials also told Rayment that by writing the story, he "had come very close to damaging national security". Asked how any story that was apparently false could possibly damage national security, the MoD officials changed tack: they admitted the story was correct in maintaining that there had been a meeting of defence chiefs - but, they insisted, an American strike on Iran had not been on the agenda.

It is, of course, no secret that the Bush administration has drawn up plans for a strike on Iran. As Seymour Hersh reports in The New Yorker tomorrow, many of the US officials opposed to a strike believe that its most immediate effect will be to generate an armed insurrection among the Shias in southern Iraq - precisely the region where British soldiers are concentrated. British soldiers are the most visible and easily accessible symbols of the American-led occupation in southern Iraq. They would be at very serious risk. Iran has also threatened to shut down its oil exports in the event of a strike, which could have a devastating effect on the world's economies.

But if you believe the MoD's press office, British defence chiefs are not talking about any of these things. They have no anxieties about what might happen to British soldiers in Iraq, and are certainly not meeting to discuss what to do in the event that the US drops "bunker-buster" bombs tipped with nuclear warheads on Iran's nuclear facilities.


:shrug: Not sure about the Telegraph story, but I do trust Hersh and his sources. While Hersh might be being used to get this info out as part of the saber rattling, I have no doubt that in Bushco's mind, this is not an idle threat. Since he's crowned himself king and done away with any oversight, he'll damn well do as he pleases.