"The Bombing Starts In Five Minutes"

By Mimikatz

Has the war with Iran already started?  Seymour Hersh's  recent article on Iran War Plans ratcheted up the discussion from a theoretical level to contemplation of a more imminent threat of war.  But some comentators, such as  Digby and Billmon, have begun asking whether, in fact, the war has already started, whether phase I is purely a covert war about which Congress generally has not been informed and whether there will be consultation, or merely 24 hour's notice, before the next phase, when the bombs envisioned in Hersh's recent article begin raining on Iran's anti-aircraft and missle defense sites, nuclear facilities, and military installations. 

Back in January Hersh wrote another article, as always sourced heavily to his contacts in the defense and intelligence commmunity, in which he asserted that

"This is a war against terrorism, and Iraq is just one campaign. The Bush Administration is looking at this as a huge war zone," the former high-level intelligence official told me. "Next, we’re going to have the Iranian campaign. We’ve declared war and the bad guys, wherever they are, are the enemy. This is the last hurrah—we’ve got four years, and want to come out of this saying we won the war on terrorism."

[snip]

Rumsfeld will become even more important during the second term. In interviews with past and present intelligence and military officials, I was told that the agenda had been determined before the Presidential election, and much of it would be Rumsfeld’s responsibility. The war on terrorism would be expanded, and effectively placed under the Pentagon’s control. The President has signed a series of findings and executive orders authorizing secret commando groups and other Special Forces units to conduct covert operations against suspected terrorist targets in as many as ten nations in the Middle East and South Asia.

The President’s decision enables Rumsfeld to run the operations off the books—free from legal restrictions imposed on the C.I.A. Under current law, all C.I.A. covert activities overseas must be authorized by a Presidential finding and reported to the Senate and House intelligence committees. (The laws were enacted after a series of scandals in the nineteen-seventies involving C.I.A. domestic spying and attempted assassinations of foreign leaders.) “The Pentagon doesn’t feel obligated to report any of this to Congress,” the former high-level intelligence official said. "They don’t even call it 'covert ops'—it’s too close to the C.I.A. phrase. In their view, it’s 'black reconnaissance.' They’re not even going to tell the cincs"—the regional American military commanders-in-chief.

That was January.  Last week Colonel Sam Gardiner, who ran war games at the National War College, appeared on CNN and said (via Digby):

The secretary[sic] point is, the Iranians have been saying American military troops are in there, have been saying it for almost a year. I was in Berlin two weeks ago, sat next to the ambassador, the Iranian ambassador to the IAEA. And I said, "Hey, I hear you're accusing Americans of being in there operating with some of the units that have shot up revolution guard units."

He said, quite frankly, "Yes, we know they are. We've captured some of the units, and they've confessed to working with the Americans."

The evidence is mounting that that decision has already been made, and I don't know that the other part of that has been completed, that there has been any congressional approval to do this.

No Congressional approval.  Informing only select, supportive Senators and Congressmen, as Hersh reported ths month.  Not even telling the theater commanders in chief.  Are the special forces in Iran to gather intelligence?  To foment sectarian strife?  To stage a provocation that will provide a pretext for moving to air strikes?

Once, during a microphone check  Ronald Reagan famously joked that he had just signed legislation to outlaw the Soviet Union, saying "The bombing starts in five minutes."  We know that Bush looks on Reagan as his model.  Will we get more than five minutes warning before the bombs strike, in our name, on Iran?

Comments

[ArthurKC]

That Hersh piece was not merely "back in January", it was back in Januray 2005. That is how long these neocons have been planning the Iranian phase of their GWOT.

[Sara]

While it was not the Defense Department and was the CIA -- I really recommend Gary Brendtsen's book, Jawbreaker, which describes the CIA para-military attack on Afghanistan for an understanding of the tactics. Brendtsen was the lead ofrficer in this -- and was removed right in the midst of his efforts to capture bin Laden at Tora Bora in exchange for someone under DOD command. (Little turf battle there).

I have grave doubts whether anything in Iran is capable of being taken down by the kind of tactics used in Afghanistan -- actually the love affair that Rumsfeld adores that is covert ops on the cheap. But what we need to understand is what those tactics look like -- and Jawbreaker does describe them. And more than that we need a press that looks for the evidence of this sort of thing, be it American or otherwise, that reports the evidence.

Right now we have Hersh as one good reporter telling us what he has heard, not what he has observed. We need more to validate.

But we also need plans to make life very cramped and unpleasant for members of congress if any of this is true. I suspect what is called now the "Revolt of the Generals" is part of this -- but we shall see.

[Mimikatz]

Thanks for the correction, Arthur KC--I knew it was 2005, it was right in front of me, but I've been finishing my taxes and the forms all say 2005, and somehow I thought it was still 2005.

I definitely think that the Generals' revolt is at least in part about their fears of what is coming next. Reid should call Lieberman in and ask him what he's been told, as Bush's "House Democrat" about this war.

I hope for more pointed questions when the Congress returns, and more declarations that any escalation requires Congress' approval. And then I hope that approval is withheld on the grounds that
(1) we haven't finished the last 2 wars;
(2) they were both very poorly prosecuted so why should we think this one would be different and
(3) the stakes are so much higher morally, economically and security-wise that diplomacy had better be tried very, very seriously and military action is not needed under the present circumstances (8-10 years from the bomb).

[John Casper]

Thanks Mimi for an important and in my opinion necessary post. Posts like your's put pressure on the corporate media to start asking the identical question. With that said, I doubt any fighting actually has occurred. The current Iranian government has every incentive to broadcast any such attack. It reinforces their notion that they are the victim of U.S. aggression. This applies to shooting down U.S. reconaissance flites too, which I think are taking place. If fighting occurs, the most likely scenario that I have heard is exclusively air combat. Even if Iran had anything remotely approaching a nuclear capability, it's underground, which means bda (bomb damage assessment) can't be done from the air. The Leaker-in-Chief, however, doesn't care, he just want something to distract Americans from his failures. From Juan Cole's (University of MIhttp://www.juancole.com/) web site: "MOSCOW (AP): Russia's nuclear chief on Thursday said Iran is far from being capable of industrial-scale uranium enrichment, the Interfax news agency reported. Russian Federal Nuclear Energy Agency chief Sergei Kiriyenko said the enrichment facility in the Iranian city of Natanz, equipped with 164 gas centrifuges, could not produce any significant amount of enriched uranium, which can be used to fuel power plants or produce atomic weapons. "These centrifuges allow Iran to conduct laboratory uranium enrichment to a low level in insignificant amounts," Kiriyenko was quoted as saying. "The acquisition of highly enriched uranium is unfeasible today using this method."
If Russia isn't panicked, why should we?

[zanzibar]

I'd like to understand the political ramifications of either a covert or air attack on Iran. How would the American public react? Would they rally to support Bush and the Republicans or would they reject the Republican party this Nov? How would the Democrats behave? Would they calculate wrongly like many did when the Iraq authorization came up or stand up now in opposition and camapign on that opposition this Nov?

I can believe Rove wanting to go to his tried and true strategy. The question is will the Dems follow script or do something different this time. Biden recently has said the Dems are split. Will "triangulating" Dems give Rove and Cheney the opening they need so badly?

[Sara]

ON NPR I've heard one or two second hand quotes from Senator Lugar -- our very laid back Republican Chair of Foreign Relations, indicating he has doubts too about the emergency nature of the Iran Nuclear Project, and plans hearings. Biden is his opposite number on the Dem side.

Lugar is the Lugar of Nunn Lugar fame, and that was a good collaboration as I see it vis a vis the Soviet Nuclear stockpile. Perhaps the thing to do is press Lugar for a second act with his good friend former Senator Nunn. In fact, if Bush is looking for a substitute and bi-partisian Sec of Defense, Sam Nunn might be available. Lugar is calling for Bush to initiate broad talks on Regional Power issues -- and to get his mind off a few experiments with Uranium. Apparently Lugar wants to mesh the talks with India about Nuclear power production with Iran and China -- and he is pointing away from shooting war.

Lugar could supprise -- remember he was the one who went to Manila and talked the Morcos family into giving up power, and going into exile, avoiding civil war. With the Generals revolting on Bush he might just be ripe for proposals from the Nunn Lugar bi-partisian center of things.

[CKR]

The difference is that Reagan was joking.

[dan]

One of the overlooked political problems of an attack on Iran is that the facilities that are on the hit list, such as Natanz, are all "safeguarded" and subject to inspection, monitoring and verification by the IAEA.

I appreciate that the neocon faction in Washington may not care, but this would constitute a serious breach of US obligations under the NNPT, and would, to all intents and purposes, destroy the treaty. I'm not sure that the plurality of the US political-military-diplomatic elite is really prepared to do this.

[prostratedragon]

I'm not sure that the plurality of the US political-military-diplomatic elite is really prepared to do this.
I'm sure they are not, in fact that much might be true of more than a mere plurality. Thank your for pointing it out, it's a good argument to include in our letters to editors. But in these exhausting times, let's not forget Who Gets to Decide. I fear the only solution will be for suitable majorities to take that option away from him.