“We’re closer now to war against Iran than we’ve ever been”

So said Joseph Cirincione this evening at a lecture on nuclear proliferation in Lancaster, PA. A highly respected expert in the field, and until recently the Director for Non-Proliferation at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Cirincione’s comments deserve attention, even from those who don’t believe the situation is that dire.

One of the themes of his talk was that coming to grips with the fear that nuclear weapons cause, and becoming aware of how actors on the political stage evoke and manipulate that fear, is the only way for humans to take control of their own destiny and pull back from the abyss of virtually unchecked nuclear proliferation. People everywhere want to see the end of nuclear weapons, he said, yet the stoking of fear keeps causing us to seek out ever more perilous solutions to the problems.

During the question period I asked him whether he gives credence to reports that the Vice President and his friends were responsible for spreading false stories recently about a supposed nuclear facility in Syria. Cirincione said emphatically that he does believe them: “Absolutely.” As I discussed earlier today, the fear-mongering regarding Syria may be an indication of the direction this administration intends to take with Iran.

Cirincione also stated that he had confirmed that the Bush administration received from Iran a sweeping offer to negotiate a grand bargain in April 2003. The first detailed account of the Iranian offer was given by Gareth Porter last May.

The proposal, a copy of which is in the author's possession, offered a dramatic set of specific policy concessions Tehran was prepared to make in the framework of an overall bargain on its nuclear program, its policy toward Israel, and al-Qaeda. It also proposed the establishment of three parallel working groups to negotiate "road maps" on the three main areas of contention -- weapons of mass destruction, terrorism and regional security, and economic cooperation.

The offer reportedly was drafted by the Iranian ambassador to France, Sadegh Kharrazi, and passed on to the U.S. through the Swiss ambassador to Iran, Tim Guldimann. When the corporate media finally noticed the story last winter, Condoleezza Rice tried to cast doubt on it.

Rice was questioned about the document on Capitol Hill last week. She said she did not recall seeing it when she was national security adviser. "I just don't remember ever seeing any such thing," she said.

This evening, however, Joe Cirincione said that he has spoken to Kharrazi, who confirmed that he drafted the offer, as well as to Guldimann, who confirmed that he had passed it on to the U.S. The offer was (as we now know) rejected more or less abruptly by the neocons in the Bush administration, because they believed the US could force the collapse of the Iranian government. Cirincione described the Bush administration’s refusal to negotiate in 2003 as one of the greatest policy disasters of the last 30 or 40 years in regard to Iran.

It was while describing the consequences of that blunder that he expressed the view that we are closer now than we’ve ever been to war with Iran. It’s a view that a depressingly large number of people have been reaching.

More omens of war against Iran

For the past year I’ve been highly skeptical of claims that George Bush had resolved upon attacking Iran. Whatever he may have wanted early last spring, there were signs by June of 2006 that Bush was stepping back from the abyss. It may have been due to push-back by the Pentagon, or the complete collapse of post-election Iraq, or possibly a temporary eclipse of Cheney’s influence. Much of the administration’s saber-rattling since then I put down as the negotiating tactics of those Mayberry Machiavellis in the White House.

But increasingly these days we’re seeing more ominous signs of actual planning.

For example, a recent report suggests that an additional 20% of our operational fleet of U-2 planes was moved this year to bases in the Middle East in order to spy on Iran.

Today brings further news.

First, a curious provision tucked away in an appropriation bill to outfit B-2 “stealth” bombers with “bunker buster” bombs. The WH described this request as an “urgent operational need”.

From Congressional Quarterly:

Some Democrats are worried that President Bush’s funding request to enable B-2 “stealth” bombers to carry a new 30,000-pound “bunker buster” bomb is a sign of plans for an attack on Iran.

Buried in the $196.4 billion supplemental war spending proposal that Bush submitted to Congress on Oct. 22 is a request for $88 million to modify B-2 bombers so they can drop a Massive Ordnance Penetrator, or MOP, a conventional bomb still in development that is the most powerful weapon designed to destroy targets deep underground.

A White House summary accompanying the supplemental spending proposal said the request for money to modify ­B-2s to carry the bombs came in response to “an urgent operational need from theater commanders.” The summary provided no further details…

Previous statements by the Defense Department and the program’s contractors, along with interviews with military experts, suggest the weapon is meant for the kind of hardened targets found chiefly in Iran, which Bush suspects of developing nuclear weapons capability, and North Korea, which already has tested a nuclear device.

What is most alarming about the request is that the 15-ton bomb is still in its testing phase (the first test was held only in March). Only in June was the first contract (a small one) awarded to Grumman to retrofit the B-2 to carry the MOP. The current request, then, is a massive and sudden expansion of the operation. To what end?

CQ quotes Rep. James Moran (D-VA) and Jim McDermott (D-WA) as saying they believe the bomb capabilities are intended for use against Iran.

[McDermott] said the funding request was the latest of many signs that indicated Bush was contemplating an attack on Iran. McDermott said such a scenario was his “biggest fear between now and the election.”

“We are not authorizing Bush to use a 30,000-pound bunker buster,” he said. “They’ve been banging the drums the same way as they did in 2002 with Iraq.”

Both Moran and McDermott plan to oppose the request in the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense. Others, however, have learned to love the Bomb.

Not all Democratic lawmakers oppose the weapon. Non-nuclear bunker busters have emerged in recent years as favorites of Democrats concerned about Bush administration’s earlier plans to conduct research on nuclear models.

“We need to have this as a conventional weapon,” said Norm Dicks, D-Wash., a member of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. “It adds to our deterrent.”

That may have been the intended object of all that loose talk of nuclear strikes against Iran—to convince wavering Democrats to view a non-nuclear attack as the best outcome they could hope for from this administration. It’s a game that Bush & Co. have played successfully before: Push Democrats into negotiating with themselves until they arrive at the “compromise” he wanted in the first place.

At a minimum, it’s time to jangle those phones in the offices of members of the Defense Subcommittee, chaired by John Murtha.

The leaking of false information about the Israeli attack in Syria on Sept. 5 is also cause for concern. Ten days ago David Sanger and Mark Mazzetti published a Judith-Milleresque report in the NYT claiming that the Israelis had destroyed a nuclear reactor under construction with North Korean help. Neither Israel nor Syria confirmed the allegation, and few experts have credited it.

But it was clear that the Vice President’s minions were pushing the story hard. They appear to have been behind the related and equally false stories that Syria was disassembling the bombed reactor in order to conceal evidence, and that a Syrian diplomat at the U.N. had admitted the facility was a nuclear reactor. It was a classic whispering campaign; the only insider who would attach his name to the allegations was true-believer John Bolton.

Now Steve Clemons appears to have produced some actual inside dope. His sources confirm that Cheney’s gang was behind the dissemination of false information about Syria:

Then, a journalist friend of mine -- not at the New York Times -- confided to me that they were being pressed by the White House and by fellow travelers of the Cheney gang to pump up the Syria nuclear story. This is one of several people who actually used the term "being Judith Miller'd" to me to describe how they felt in their interactions with the administration. Even the way they were using it, it still doesn't describe properly the kind of interaction going on.

Other sources tell Clemons that the Syrian facility probably was working on retrofitting Scud missiles to take chemical weapons warheads that could burst in the air. Be that as it may (and even though Clemons spills a lot of pixels wringing his hands about his inability to find sources who can back up the nuclear allegations by Sanger and Mazzetti), it looks very likely that the real crazies inside the Bush administration (Cheney & Co.) treated the Israeli attack as agitprop.

At a minimum, if Cheney can convince the serious people in Washington that Israel attacked a nuclear facility in Syria, he’ll have built a partial case for an American attack on the Natanz facility in Iran—before the Israelis take the initiative there as well.

And if the Syrians were playing with chemical weapons, then Cheney could count on their refusal to open up the bombed facility or make an international cause celebre of the attack. His own scenario, then, might well go uncorrected. It would thus “prove” that it’s possible to bomb a nuclear facility in a rogue state without provoking an international crisis.

At long last, it’s time for Congress to pass a resolution prohibiting Bush from attacking Iran without explicit authorization from those with Article I authority to make war.

crossposted from unbossed.com

At least 20% of U-2 planes sent to Middle East this year

This statement, made in passing by the Sunday Times defence correspondent Mick Smith, is noteworthy:

Seven American U2 spy planes have passed through RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire this year on their way to Akrotiri in Cyprus or Al-Dhafra in Abu Dhabi, the bases for flights over Iran.

Two observations crowd in:

First, the US is said to have an active fleet of only 35 U-2 planes (nominally headquartered in California). Twenty percent of them, a staggering proportion, were en route this year through England for the Middle East.

Second, Smith’s assertion of fact is apropos of very little in the article. The U-2 information looks to be a salient fact that just needed to see the light of day somehow or other.

The article in which that paragraph is buried requires a closer look. In one sense it mirrors the standard complaints about Iran that one sees in Murdoch papers, except the story is oddly self-deflating.

It focuses on conflicts that the SAS, British special forces, have had with smugglers crossing the Iranian border in the south near Basra. The headline, “SAS raiders enter Iran to kill gunrunners”, seems to be contradicted by the body of the report however (h/t Cernig). It states:

Last week, Bob Ainsworth, the armed forces minister, said the Ministry of Defence was unable to say whether British troops had killed or captured any Iranians in Iraq. The ministry declined to comment, but privately officials insisted British troops never carry out hot pursuit across the border.

Half-way through the article, we would seem to be back to square one. Except that we’re not quite done. Smith rather suddenly shifts the focus away from border firefights:

There have been persistent reports of American special-operations missions inside Iran preparing for a possible attack. But the sources said British troops were solely stopping arms smuggling.

The fighting comes amid an increase in US and British intelligence operations against Iran. Britain’s forces have more than 70 Farsi experts monitoring Iranian communications, and the intelligence is shared with the United States.

Here is where the statement about U-2 flights occurs. Editorially, its inclusion in the story is justifiable (though only barely) as a counter-example of US/UK intelligence sharing.

But note that Smith does not state that the seven U-2 planes have been flying over Iran. He leaves that for the reader to infer, saying only that these are bases “for” flights over Iran. For the U-2 flights over Iraq, as Smith must know, the US doesn’t need the Cypriot and U.A.E. bases. Since 2003 the US has been able to use air fields in Saudia Arabia and Kuwait.

The context of the statement about U-2 planes is important. Smith is portraying the British response to smuggling from Iran as measured, and any conflicts with the Iranian military as straddling the border. Also, these operations are directed simply at blocking the smuggling. (Let’s set aside the question of whether all that is accurate.)

The American special forces, by contrast, are depicted as operating rather deep inside Iran, acting to prepare the ground for a large-scale attack on Iran.

There is a deliberate parallelism with Smith’s treatment of intelligence operations, to which he then turns. The British limit themselves to monitoring signals (presumably from outside Iran). And the US? We’re told it has shipped at least 20% of its U-2 fleet to the region during this year. The implication is clear: The US is regularly violating Iranian air space with U-2 flights, flights that have been stepped up dramatically in recent months by the addition of 7 further U-2 planes.

For several years there have been credible allegations that U-2 planes are spying on Iran, especially after a U-2 crashed in June 2005 at Al-Dhafra air base (U.A.E.).

The United States says the incident occurred as the plane was returning to base after an observation mission over Afghanistan…

Air Force spokesman David Small says U-2 planes are flying daily over Afghanistan and Iraq, in support of American and allied ground forces…

Although the Air Force spokesman did not mention Iran, it's considered certain that the United States is employing the U-2's surveillance capabilities there, as well. Washington suspects Tehran of trying to develop nuclear weapons.

The Boston Globe added:

The military statement also did not specify the nature of the U-2's classified mission, saying only it was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom…

The U-2 mission will probably remain a mystery. Specialists said yesterday that the plane could have been gathering intelligence for operations in Afghanistan.

It could also have been spying over the eastern border into the mountainous regions of Pakistan, where Osama bin Laden is believed to be hiding. Another possibility, they said, was Iran, which borders Afghanistan to the west and where the United States suspects a covert nuclear weapons program is underway.

Operation Enduring Freedom ''is not synonymous with Afghanistan," Pike said. ''What they were looking at and what they were flying over could be two very different things."

In fact, the U.A.E. lies more or less directly south of the main areas of nuclear activity in Iran, as well as the porous low-lying border between Iraq and Iran. Afghanistan, however, is on the other side of Iranian air space from the U.A.E.

It’s also possible that the US may be able to fly U-2 missions to Iran out of Georgia and Azerbaijan, alliances the US has cultivated partly for that reason perhaps.

In the last two months, several articles appeared in the corporate media about the continued need for the U-2’s capabilities. Clearly the stories were being orchestrated by the military for purposes of its own.
Jonathan Karl of ABC was surprised to find at long last that he would be allowed to fly on the spy plane.

Meanwhile U.S. News declared that “The legendary U-2 spy planes are busier than ever”. True, but maybe for reasons other than those explored in the bland report.

If in fact the U.S. has now dedicated an additional 20% of its U-2 fleet to overflights of Iran, then we can make better sense of this modest barrage of stories about the normally secretive U-2 program.

It almost goes without saying that to violate Iranian air space could be an act of war; to do so systematically might be intended as a deliberate provocation.

You may recall that one of George Bush’s last acts in the push toward war in Iraq was to demand that Saddam Hussein accept U-2 flights over his country. It was one of the last gasp of the plan to “wrongfoot” Hussein. The Bush administration reacted petulantly when the dictator finally said he was willing to accede to the demand.

Unlike Iraq, however, Iran may have the capability to shoot down a U-2.

crossposed from unbossed.com