German media: U.S. prepares Iran strike

ALL FOR THE SAKE OF ISRAEL
U.S. planning new Mideast war
German media: U.S. prepares Iran strike

By MARTIN WALKER

UPI Editor

UPI Friday, 30 December 2005

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration is preparing its NATO allies for a possible military strike against suspected nuclear sites in Iran in the new year, according to German media reports, reinforcing similar earlier suggestions in the Turkish media.

The Berlin daily Der Tagesspiegel this week quoted "NATO intelligence sources," who claimed that the NATO allies had been informed that the United States is currently investigating all possibilities of bringing the mullah-led regime into line, including military options. This "all options are open" line has been President George W. Bush's publicly stated policy throughout the past 18 months.

But the respected German weekly Der Spiegel notes "What is new here is that Washington appears to be dispatching high-level officials to prepare its allies for a possible attack rather than merely implying
the possibility as it has repeatedly done during the past year."

Turks get green light for attack on Kurds

The German news agency DDP cited "Western security sources" to claim that CIA Director Porter Goss asked Turkey's premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan to provide political and logistic support for air strikes against Iranian nuclear and military targets. Goss, who visited Ankara nd met Erdogan on Dec. 12, was also reported to have to have asked for special cooperation from Turkish intelligence to help prepare and monitor the operation.

The DDP report added that Goss had delivered to the Turkish prime minister and his security aides a series of dossiers, one on the latest status of Iran's nuclear development and another containing intelligence on new links between Iran and al-Qaida.

DDP cited German security sources who added that the Turks had been assured of a warning in advance if and when the military strikes took place, and had also been given "a green light" to mount their own attacks on the bases in Iran of the PKK, (Kurdish Workers party), which Turkey sees as a separatist group responsible for terrorist attacks inside Turkey.

Goss's visit to the Turkish capital followed the rising international concern over recent statements by the new Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that Israel should be "wiped off the map," denying the existence of Holocaust, and suggesting that Israel's Jewish population might be re-located to Europe.

'Americans have to attack Iran'

In a December 23 report, the DDP agency quoted an anonymous but "high-ranking German military official" telling their reporter: "I would be very surprised if the Americans, in the mid-term, didn't take advantage of the opportunity delivered by Tehran. The Americans have to attack Iran before the country can develop nuclear weapons. After that would be too late."

The DDP report also said that several friendly Arab governments, including Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Oman and Pakistan, had also been informed in general terms that the Pentagon was preparing contingency plans, including "the option of air strikes," in the event of the new Iranian government precipitating a crisis.

Arab diplomatic sources have told United Press International that they have been given no briefings on any policy change beyond President Bush's "all option are open."

Bush's most recent such statement in public came on Aug. 13, during an interview at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, when he told Israeli TV: "As I say, all options are on the table. The use of force is the last option for any president and, you know, we've used force in the recent past to secure our country."

High-profile visits to Turkey

Other NATO sources have told United Press International that "all this may be mood music, a way to step up the diplomatic pressure on Tehran."

It is possible that leaks from NATO and German security sources are part of a ploy to convince the Iranian government that the Americans and their NATO allies are in dead earnest when they say a nuclear-armed Iran would not be tolerated, and that Iran had better start negotiating seriously.

But the German media speculation about the supposed U.S. plans has been fueled by a number of high-profile visits to Turkey this month, including trips by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, by the CIA's Porter Goss and by the FBI Director Robert Mueller, who also delivered U.S. intelligence reports on Iranian backing for PKK operations aimed against Turkey. There have also been some significant Turkish visits to Washington, as reported by Der Spiegel.

"Two weeks ago, Yasar Buyukanit, the commander of the Turkish army and probable future chief of staff of the country's armed forces, flew to Washington. After the visit he made a statement that relations between the Turkish army and the American army were once again on an excellent footing," Der Spiegel reported Friday.

"Buyukanit's warm and fuzzy words, contrasted greatly with his past statements that if the United States and the Kurds in northern Iraq proved incapable of containing the PKK in the Kurd-dominated northern part of the country and preventing it from attacking Turkey, Buyukanit would march into northern Iraq himself," the German weekly added.

German reporter under scrutiny for disclosing secrets

The CIA Director's Dec. 12 call on the Turkish prime minister last for over an hour, far longer than customary for a mere courtesy call, and followed an even longer meeting with senior staff of MIT, Turkish intelligence. The Turkish Daily Cumhuriyet reported on December 13: "Goss also asked Ankara to be ready for a possible U.S. air operation against Iran and Syria."

Der Spiegel noted Friday that the latest high-level visitor to the Turkish premier was NATO Secretary-General Jaap De Hoop Scheffer. This is not unusual, since Turkey is a member of NATO, but the coincidence of these various trips prompted Spiegel to comment "the number of American and NATO security officials heading to Ankara has increased dramatically."

"In Berlin, the issue is largely being played down," Der Spiegel reported Friday. "During his inaugural visit with U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in Washington last week, the possibility of a U.S. air strike against Iran 'had not been an issue,' for new German Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung, a Defense Ministry spokesman told Spiegel."

The original story in the German press which provoked the wider media furore was written for the DDP agency by a veteran reporter on security and intelligence matters, Udo Ulfkotte, who has in the past been criticized in the German media for being "too close to sources at Germany's foreign intelligence agency, the BND" (Bundesnachrichtendienst).

At the same time, Ulfkotte has himself come under scrutiny by German security services, and his home and offices have been repeatedly searched in the course of inquiries into allegations that he had published official secrets.

http://www.upi.com/SecurityTerrorism/view.php?StoryID=20051230-112208-8968r

September 29, 2005

Scott Ritter, former U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq, made a strong case that the Bush administration is preparing to take the war to Iran in a speech he gave at the United Church on the Green in New Haven on Sept. 17 before an attentive crowd of about 250.

The gathering, sponsored by Squeaky Wheel Productions, Between the Lines Radio Newsmagazine, WPKN and the Yale Coalition for Peace, was perfectly timed. Ritter spoke the day before the visit of Cindy Sheehan, the mother who still wants President George W. Bush to tell her why her son died. In his speech, titled "Parallel Deceptions: The Bush Agenda for War in Iraq and Iran," Ritter made it clear that her son died because of deceptions by the Bush administration that led to the Iraq war and that are preparing us for war in Iran. It is all laid out in the Wolfowitz-Cheney gang's document "Project for a New American Century" where the neocons plan for military domination of the Middle East.

Scott Ritter is an imposing man. Big and burly, he still looks like the Marine Corps leader who led a dozen men in combat. He began his speech by remarking wryly that he could never have imagined being sponsored by peace groups. He was and is a military man, a card-carrying member of the American Legion. "I still believe in war," he said. "It's just that this is an illegal war and every day it takes us further from our goals of peace."

Ritter's controlled anger at the Bush administration was apparent. This is not the anger of a peacenik, but of a military man who has been deceived by his leadership. "It's not the fault of the military men on the scene in Iraq," he said. "They are just taking orders. When you and your 12 men are face to face against the enemy, you have to focus on staying alive and winning your mission. The military men and women are doing what we as a country have asked them to do."

"Iraq is a nation on fire," Ritter asserted. "And our troops are the fuel that feeds that fire." Make no mistake about it, he added, today is the best day that we are going to have in Iraq. It is only going to get worse. Why not get out of Iraq on the best day? We do not need to wait until it gets worse.

Ritter summed up the current Iraq conflict as an "illegal" war that is the result of a decade of deception by the U.S. government and the CIA. After Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, the U.N. Resolution called for the removal of Iraqi forces from Kuwait. This was done. Colin Powell, who was then Joint Chief of Staff of the military, told the president not to take over Iraq because we did not have a plan for managing the aftermath; and without a plan there would be ethnic bloodshed. Bush took his advice. The CIA told the president that with economic sanctions, we could squeeze the Iraqis until they deposed Saddam Hussein. The CIA thought it would take six months.

Weapons of mass destruction were used as a justification for the economic sanctions on Iraq after Kuwait was liberated. But, Ritter noted, the first Gulf War came close to destroying all of Iraq's capabilities. These were only "high school-like programs" to develop WMD, Ritter said. However, the U.S. government hyped up the threat to make the economy collapse so that Hussein would be thrown out. Bush signed the order to the CIA that made getting rid of Saddam Hussein goal No. 1.

During the run up to the Iraq War, the Iraqis were letting arms inspectors into the country, Ritter explained. The Iraqis said they had destroyed much of their capabilities. Ritter said inspectors had evidence of most of the destroyed capabilities, but they could not verify the last remaining weapons. "It's impossible to prove a negative," he said. "The CIA kept saying that some remained and at the time we could not prove them completely wrong. Now we know.

"The CIA said there were 140 SCUD missiles in Iraq and we proved them wrong," he added. "The CIA reduced that number to 14 missiles and said they would not budge from that number. And they were right about one thing--they never budged from that number. But it was politically motivated from the beginning."

On to Iran. Ritter maintains that the Bush administration plans to go to war with Iran over its nuclear energy program. Our government says we can't trust the Iranians because an oil rich nation does not need nuclear energy. But in 1976 (when Donald Rumsfield was Secretary of Defense and Dick Cheney was the Chief of Staff under Gerald Ford's presidency), the Shah of Iran told the United States that he needed nuclear energy to diversify his country's energy program for security reasons, in case the Persian Gulf were militarily blocked or if there was massive damage--natural or manmade--to its oil wells. The U.S. government agreed with the Shah's logic then, but has since changed its position, because, as Ritter noted, the neocon strategy is for regime change throughout the Middle East, despite the fact that the same people who once approved of Iran's nuclear energy program, are now opposed to it.

Iran has been complying with all international laws in regards to international inspections of its nuclear energy program. There is no legal way to oppose it, so the Bush administration is saying that it's a front for weapons of mass destruction, according to Ritter. If the United States asks Iran to shut down its nuclear energy program, and this request goes to the U.N. Security Council, Russia and China have said that they will oppose the request. In that scenario, Ritter said, the United States can fall back on Bush's Sept. 17, 2002 New Security Agreement and say that U.S. security is threatened and that the only solution is war.

Ritter said that one reason we cannot find a way out of the Iraq War is that so many members of Congress voted for the war and are afraid to change their position. The only solution is for the American people to vote out of office every elected official--Republican or Democrat--who refuses to change his or her position to one of immediate withdrawal. This includes Democrats like Hillary Rodham Clinton and Joseph Biden, who are sticking by their pro-war positions as they run for president. Until we purge all of these people from office, they will send us to war in Iran, Ritter predicted.

Following his speech, Ritter took questions from the audience. One person asked about the permanent military bases in Iraq. Ritter said that the United States started with 120 military bases and is consolidating them to 40 with the plan to consolidate further to 14 and then to four major bases outside of the population zones. Iraq will become our "lily pad" in the Middle East, he said. It will allow us to withdraw our troops from Saudi Arabia, but still provide us with the capability to strike in Iran, Syria, etc. However, the Iraqi people want us out of their country completely, he said. They will not accept these permanent American military bases.

A second person asked Ritter what he could tell his high-school-aged children. Ritter responded, "I have two girls, 12-year-old twins. We need to make this world safe for them and their children. When I speak at high schools around the nation, I tell the students that my generation has failed them. Yes, we have failed them. They should not listen to us, because we have created a world of permanent war, and because we lie to them on a regular basis. Do not trust your government, I tell them. Trust yourself. Question authority. Take responsibility for the world. Take action. Only you can save the world."

Back to the section on the Jewish war against Iran