Bush setting America up for war with Iran!

[Rainscents]

Bush setting America up for war with Iran

By Philip Sherwell in New York and Tim Shipman in Washington
Last Updated: 2:29am BST 17/09/2007

Senior American intelligence and defence officials believe that President George W Bush and his inner circle are taking steps to place America on the path to war with Iran, The Sunday Telegraph has learnt.


Dick Cheney ('The Man') with George W Bush

Pentagon planners have developed a list of up to 2,000 bombing targets in Iran, amid growing fears among serving officers that diplomatic efforts to slow Iran's nuclear weapons programme are doomed to fail.

Pentagon and CIA officers say they believe that the White House has begun a carefully calibrated programme of escalation that could lead to a military showdown with Iran.

Now it has emerged that Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state, who has been pushing for a diplomatic solution, is prepared to settle her differences with Vice-President Dick Cheney and sanction military action.

In a chilling scenario of how war might come, a senior intelligence officer warned that public denunciation of Iranian meddling in Iraq - arming and training militants - would lead to cross border raids on Iranian training camps and bomb factories.

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A prime target would be the Fajr base run by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Quds Force in southern Iran, where Western intelligence agencies say armour-piercing projectiles used against British and US troops are manufactured.

Under the theory - which is gaining credence in Washington security circles - US action would provoke a major Iranian response, perhaps in the form of moves to cut off Gulf oil supplies, providing a trigger for air strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities and even its armed forces.

Senior officials believe Mr Bush's inner circle has decided he does not want to leave office without first ensuring that Iran is not capable of developing a nuclear weapon.

The intelligence source said: "No one outside that tight circle knows what is going to happen." But he said that within the CIA "many if not most officials believe that diplomacy is failing" and that "top Pentagon brass believes the same".

He said: "A strike will probably follow a gradual escalation. Over the next few weeks and months the US will build tensions and evidence around Iranian activities in Iraq."


Possible flash points: Click to enlarge
Previously, accusations that Mr Bush was set on war with Iran have come almost entirely from his critics.

Many senior operatives within the CIA are highly critical of Mr Bush's handling of the Iraq war, though they themselves are considered ineffective and unreliable by hardliners close to Mr Cheney.

The vice president is said to advocate the use of bunker-busting tactical nuclear weapons against Iran's nuclear sites. His allies dispute this, but Mr Cheney is understood to be lobbying for air strikes if sites can be identified where Revolutionary Guard units are training Shia militias.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/09/16/wiran116.xml

[daninthemoon]

1. How odd, or possibly fitting that this post is sandwiched between

two posts with the news of Al Gore receiving a standing ovation at the Emmys. Surreal.

[AndyTiedye]

2. We Are Sooo Screwwwwwed!

kicked and recommended :kick:

[unhappycamper]

3. There's some pretty interesting graphics in that article.

[snappyturtle]

4. We just keephearing more and more of this sabre rattling....but

OJ is in jail!!!!!! eom

[superkia]

5. If we pull from Iraq, they need to start a new war to keep making money.

The sad thing is, if we ever get close to being out of Iraq, you know its almost guaranteed that we will hit Iran before it happens.