Joint Chiefs Chairman Says U.S. Preparing Military Options Against
Iran
By Ann Scott Tyson,
Wa****ngton Post Staff Writer,
25 April, 2008.
The nation's top military officer said today that the Pentagon is
planning for "potential military courses of action" against Iran,
criticizing what he called the Tehran government's "increasingly
lethal and malign influence" in Iraq.
Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said a
conflict with Iran would be "extremely stressing" but not impossible
for U.S. forces, pointing specifically to reserve capabilities in the
Navy and Air Force.
"It would be a mistake to think that we are out of combat capability,"
he said at a Pentagon news conference.
Still, Mullen made clear that he prefers a diplomatic solution to the
tensions with Iran and does not foresee any imminent military action.
"I have no expectations that we're going to get into a conflict with
Iran in the immediate future," he said.
Mullen's statements and others by Defense Secretary Robert Gates
recently signal a new rhetorical onslaught by the Bush administration
against Iran, amid what officials say is increased Iranian provision
of weapons, training, and financing to Iraqi groups that are attacking
and killing Americans.
In a speech Monday at West Point, Gates said that Iran "is hell-bent
on acquiring nuclear weapons." He said a war with Iran would be
"disastrous on a number of levels. But the military option must be
kept on the table given the destabilizing policies of the regime and
the risks inherent in a future Iranian nuclear threat."
Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, who was nominated
this week to head all U.S. forces in the Middle East, is preparing a
briefing soon to lay out detailed evidence of increased Iranian
involvement in Iraq, Mullen said. The briefing will detail, for
example, the discovery in Iraq of weapons that were very recently
manufactured in Iran, he said.
"The Iranian government pledged to halt such activities some months
ago. It's plainly obvious they have not. Indeed, they seem to have
gone the other way," Mullen said.
He said recent unrest in the southern Iraqi city of Basra had
highlighted a "level of involvement" by Iran that had not been
understood by the U.S. military previously. "It became very, very
visible in ways that we hadn't seen before," he said.
But while Mullen and Gates have recently stated that the Tehran
government certainly must know of Iranian actions in Iraq, which they
say are led by Iran's Revolutionary Guard, or Quds Force, Mullen said
he has "no smoking gun which could prove that the highest leader****p
[of Iran] is involved in this."
Source:
http://www.wa****ngtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/25/AR2008042501480_pf.html
See Also:
'Was April 20th The Original Date Of The Planned U.S. 'Air Strike' On
Iran?'
http://www.mimico-by-the-lake.com/IRANPLAN.HTM
'Is A U.S./Israeli Air Strike On Iran Drawing Steadily Closer?' (News
Updates)
http://www.mimico-by-the-lake.com/IRANWAR.HTM
Will Israel finally bankrupt America with THIS war?
- o O o -
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