Will the US attack Iran with unmanned missles?

EXCLUSIVE: ROBO-JET PLAN TO STRIKE IRAN

Bush prepares unmanned attack over nukes
By Chris Hughes Security Correspondent
THE Pentagon has secret plans for a "remote control" blitz on Iran if it does not comply with demands to curb its nuclear programme.

Dozens of targets, including nuclear complexes deep underground, would be destroyed by bunker-busting cruise missiles.

And assassinations of key personnel working on the installations are planned using Hellfire rockets fired from unmanned Predator planes.

The Mirror learned details of the plans yesterday as Foreign Secretary Jack Straw dismissed reports that Iran will be attacked with nuclear weapons by the US.

He said: "The idea of a nuclear strike is completely nuts."

A British intelligence source with close links to US intelligence also ruled it out. He told the Mirror: "The nuclear option will have been considered among many other options for a strike.


"But while a nuclear strike may have been considered that does not mean it is going to happen."


It would be "technically the best and most efficient way of eradicating" underground bunkers but "the decision was made early on in the planning that this is politically totally unacceptable".


US intelligence and military came up with the highly surgical "remote attack" plan involving no foreign forces inside Iran.


The three day blitz was planned in the past six months by a small unit in the Defence Department.


Missiles would be fired from B52 bombers and secret US air bases in neutral Gulf states such as Qatar.


And by next year the US may have new 30,000lb bunker busters, dubbed Big Blu, capable of penetrating 100ft underground.


It would be the first air attack in the region without involvement of US or British special forces.


The source said: "This is a new move in the war against terror - the most surgical and clinical strike against a threat ever undertaken. The technocrats pushing the button with the military have worked hard trying to ensure we are as clean as you can be in removing the threat.


"That is the latest plan on the table and it could very well happen if diplomacy does not work.


"The military technocrats believe it is the best way of destroying Iran's facilities and causing least disruption and conflict in the region."


But it would go ahead only if Iran continues to refuse to comply with international calls for a halt to its nuclear programme. Iran was referred to the UN Security Council after failing to convince the world its atomic scientists are working only on power stations, not weapons.


The Security Council demanded that Iran stop uranium enrichment and told the watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency to report on whether it had complied. IAEA experts arrived last week to inspect enrichment and reprocessing plants.


A US spokesman called reports of the blitz plan "ill-informed" but stopped short of outright denial. Mr Straw said the UK would not strike Iran and he was as "certain as he could be" that neither would the US - there was "no smoking gun" and therefore no justification.


He said President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice were "very committed indeed to resolving this issue by negotiation and by diplomatic pressure".


But while they said military action was not on the agenda "they don't rule out any option in theory about their position

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(imntacrook @ Apr 12 2006, 10:31 AM) [snapback]238513[/snapback]</div>

Well, Jack Straw said "The idea of a nuclear strike is completely nuts." Seems right to me.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Mystery Squid @ Apr 12 2006, 10:45 AM) [snapback]238518[/snapback]</div>

Damn! Cover blown by the oh so intelligent mystery squid!

 

"you put up with the range of personalities and still continue on"

Some things are so serious you have to approach them with humor. After all, we live in a universe where an asteroid could totally destroy the earth at any minute and it wouldn't make the slightest difference to anything.

 

"I dont think I will trust the Mirror News"


Boy, you caught me out there.

Would you trust SEYMOUR M. HERSH, of that little known tabloid the New Yorker?

A few exerpts:


The Bush Administration, while publicly advocating diplomacy in order to stop Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon, has increased clandestine activities inside Iran and intensified planning for a possible major air attack. Current and former American military and intelligence officials said that Air Force planning groups are drawing up lists of targets, and teams of American combat troops have been ordered into Iran, under cover, to collect targeting data and to establish contact with anti-government ethnic-minority groups. The officials say that President Bush is determined to deny the Iranian regime the opportunity to begin a pilot program, planned for this spring, to enrich uranium.

American and European intelligence agencies, and the International Atomic Energy Agency (I.A.E.A.), agree that Iran is intent on developing the capability to produce nuclear weapons. But there are widely differing estimates of how long that will take, and whether diplomacy, sanctions, or military action is the best way to prevent it. Iran insists that its research is for peaceful use only, in keeping with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and that it will not be delayed or deterred.

There is a growing conviction among members of the United States military, and in the international community, that President Bush’s ultimate goal in the nuclear confrontation with Iran is regime change. Iran’s President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has challenged the reality of the Holocaust and said that Israel must be “wiped off the map.†Bush and others in the White House view him as a potential Adolf Hitler, a former senior intelligence official said. “That’s the name they’re using. They say, ‘Will Iran get a strategic weapon and threaten another world war?’ â€

A government consultant with close ties to the civilian leadership in the Pentagon said that Bush was “absolutely convinced that Iran is going to get the bomb†if it is not stopped. He said that the President believes that he must do “what no Democrat or Republican, if elected in the future, would have the courage to do,†and “that saving Iran is going to be his legacy.â€


Full article at http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060417fa_fact