War
Signals?
By Dave
Lindorff
The Nation
Monday 25
September 2006
As reports
circulate of a sharp debate within the White House over possible US
military action against Iran and its nuclear enrichment facilities,
The Nation has learned that the Bush Administration and the Pentagon
have moved up the deployment of a major "strike group" of ships,
including the nuclear aircraft carrier Eisenhower as well as a
cruiser, destroyer, frigate, submarine escort and supply ship, to
head for the Persian Gulf, just off Iran's western coast. This
information follows a report in the current issue of Time magazine,
both online and in print, that a group of ships capable of mining
harbors has received orders to be ready to sail for the Persian Gulf
by October 1.
As Time writes in
its cover story, "What Would War Look Like?," evidence of the
forward deployment of minesweepers and word that the chief of naval
operations had asked for a reworking of old plans for mining Iranian
harbors "suggest that a much discussed - but until now largely
theoretical - prospect has become real: that the U.S. may be
preparing for war with Iran."
According to
Lieut. Mike Kafka, a spokesman at the headquarters of the Second
Fleet, based in Norfolk, Virginia, the Eisenhower Strike Group,
bristling with Tomahawk cruise missiles, has received orders to
depart the United States in a little over a week. Other official
sources in the public affairs office of the Navy Department at the
Pentagon confirm that this powerful armada is scheduled to arrive
off the coast of Iran on or around October 21.
The Eisenhower had
been in port at the Naval Station Norfolk for several years for
refurbishing and refueling of its nuclear reactor; it had not been
scheduled to depart for a new duty station until at least a month
later, and possibly not till next spring. Family members, before the
orders, had moved into the area and had until then expected to be
with their sailor-spouses and parents in Virginia for some time yet.
First word of the early dispatch of the "Ike Strike" group to the
Persian Gulf region came from several angry officers on the ships
involved, who contacted antiwar critics like retired Air Force Col.
Sam Gardiner and complained that they were being sent to attack Iran
without any order from the Congress.
"This is very
serious," said Ray McGovern, a former CIA threat-assessment analyst
who got early word of the Navy officers' complaints about the sudden
deployment orders. (McGovern, a twenty-seven-year veteran of
the CIA, resigned in 2002 in protest over what he said were Bush
Administration pressures to exaggerate the threat posed by Iraq. He
and other intelligence agency critics have formed a group called
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for
Sanity.)
Colonel Gardiner,
who has taught military strategy at the National War College, says
that the carrier deployment and a scheduled Persian Gulf arrival
date of October 21 is "very important evidence" of war planning. He
says, "I know that some naval forces have already received 'prepare
to deploy orders' [PTDOs], which have set the date for being ready
to go as October 1. Given that it would take about from October 2 to
October 21 to get those forces to the Gulf region, that looks about
like the date" of any possible military action against Iran. (A PTDO
means that all crews should be at their stations, and ships and
planes should be ready to go, by a certain date - in this case,
reportedly, October 1.) Gardiner notes, "You cannot issue a PTDO and
then stay ready for very long. It's a very significant order, and
it's not done as a training exercise." This point was also made in
the Time article.
So what is the
White House planning?
On Monday
President Bush addressed the UN General Assembly at its opening
session, and while studiously avoiding even physically meeting
Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was also addressing the
body, he offered a two-pronged message. Bush told the "people of
Iran" that "we're working toward a diplomatic solution to this
crisis" and that he looked forward "to the day when you can live in
freedom." But he also warned that Iran's leaders were using the
nation's resources "to fund terrorism and fuel extremism and pursue
nuclear weapons." Given the President's assertion that the nation is
fighting a "global war on terror" and that he is Commander in Chief
of that "war," his prominent linking of the Iran regime with terror
has to be seen as a deliberate effort to claim his right to carry
the fight there. Bush has repeatedly insisted that the 2001
Congressional Authorization for the Use of Force that preceded the
invasion of Afghanistan was also an authorization for an unending
"war on terror."
Even as Bush was
making not-so-veiled threats at the UN, his former Secretary of
State, Colin Powell, a sharp critic of any unilateral US attack on
Iran, was in Norfolk, not far from the Eisenhower, advocating
further diplomatic efforts to deal with Iran's nuclear program -
itself tantalizing evidence of the policy struggle over whether to
go to war, and that those favoring an attack may be winning that
struggle.
"I think the
plan's been picked: bomb the nuclear sites in Iran," says Gardiner.
"It's a terrible idea, it's against US law and it's against
international law, but I think they've decided to do it." Gardiner
says that while the United States has the capability to hit those
sites with its cruise missiles, "the Iranians have many more options
than we do: They can activate Hezbollah; they can organize riots all
over the Islamic world, including Pakistan, which could bring down
the Musharraf government, putting nuclear weapons into terrorist
hands; they can encourage the Shia militias in Iraq to attack US
troops; they can blow up oil pipelines and shut the Persian Gulf."
Most of the major oil-producing states in the Middle East have
substantial Shiite populations, which has long been a concern of
their own Sunni leaders and of Washington policy-makers, given the
sometimes close connection of Shiite populations to Iran's religious
rulers.
Of course,
Gardiner agrees, recent ship movements and other signs of military
preparedness could be simply a bluff designed to show toughness in
the bargaining with Iran over its nuclear program. But with the
Iranian coast reportedly armed to the teeth with Chinese Silkworm
antiship missiles, and possibly even more sophisticated Russian
antiship weapons, against which the Navy has little reliable
defenses, it seems unlikely the Navy would risk high-value assets
like aircraft carriers or cruisers with such a tactic. Nor has
bluffing been a Bush MO to date.
Commentators and
analysts across the political spectrum are focusing on Bush's talk
about dialogue, with many claiming that he is climbing down from
confrontation. On the right, David Frum, writing on September 20 in
his National Review blog, argues that the lack of any attempt to win
a UN resolution supporting military action, and rumors of "hushed
back doors" being opened in Washington, lead him to expect a
diplomatic deal, not a unilateral attack. Writing in the center,
Washington Post reporter Glenn Kessler saw in Bush's UN speech
evidence that "war is no longer a viable option" in Iran. Even on
the left, where confidence in the Bush Administration's
judgment is abysmally low, commentators like Noam Chomsky and Nation
contributor Robert Dreyfuss are skeptical that an attack is being
planned. Chomsky has long argued that Washington's leaders aren't
crazy, and would not take such a step - though more recently, he has
seemed less sanguine about Administration sanity and has suggested
that leaks about war plans may be an effort by military leaders -
who are almost universally opposed to widening the Mideast war - to
arouse opposition to such a move by Bush and war advocates like
Cheney. Dreyfuss, meanwhile, in an article for the online journal
TomPaine.com, focuses on the talk of diplomacy in Bush's Monday UN
speech, not on his threats, and concludes that it means "the
realists have won" and that there will be no Iran
attack.
But all these war
skeptics may be whistling past the graveyard. After all, it must be
recalled that Bush also talked about seeking diplomatic solutions
the whole time he was dead-set on invading Iraq, and the current
situation is increasingly looking like a cheap Hollywood sequel. The
United States, according to Gardiner and others, already reportedly
has special forces operating in Iran, and now major ship movements
are looking ominous.
Representative
Maurice Hinchey, a leading Democratic critic of the Iraq War,
informed about the Navy PTDOs and about the orders for the full
Eisenhower Strike Group to head out to sea, said, "For some time
there has been speculation that there could be an attack on Iran
prior to November 7, in order to exacerbate the culture of fear that
the Administration has cultivated now for over five or six years.
But if they attack Iran it will be a very bad mistake, for the
Middle East and for the US. It would only make worse the antagonism
and fear people feel towards our country. I hope this Administration
is not so foolish and irresponsible." He adds, "Military people
are deeply concerned about the overtaxing of the military
already."
Calls for comment
from the White House on Iran war plans and on the order for the
Eisenhower Strike Group to deploy were referred to the National
Security Council press office, which declined to return this
reporter's phone calls.
McGovern, who had
first told a group of anti-Iraq War activists Sunday on the National
Mall in Washington, DC, during an ongoing action called "Camp
Democracy," about his being alerted to the strike group deployment,
warned, "We have about seven weeks to try and stop this next war
from happening."
One solid
indication that the dispatch of the Eisenhower is part of a force
buildup would be if the carrier Enterprise - currently in the
Arabian Sea, where it has been launching bombing runs against the
Taliban in Afghanistan, and which is at the end of its normal
six-month sea tour - is kept on station instead of sent back to the
United States. Arguing against simple rotation of tours is the fact
that the Eisenhower's refurbishing and its dispatch were rushed
forward by at least a month. A report from the Enterprise on the
Navy's official website referred to its ongoing role in the
Afghanistan fighting, and gave no indication of plans to head back
to port. The Navy itself has no comment on the ship's future
orders.
Jim Webb,
Secretary of the Navy in the Reagan Administration and currently a
Democratic candidate for Senate in Virginia, expressed some caution
about reports of the carrier deployment, saying, "Remember, carrier
groups regularly rotate in and out of that region." But he added, "I
do not believe that there should be any elective military action
taken against Iran without a separate authorization vote by the
Congress. In my view, the 2002 authorization which was used for the
invasion of Iraq should not extend to Iran."
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