http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=C3HY5I431EHHRQFIQMGSFFWAVCBQWIV0?xml=/news/2006/04/09/wbush09.xml&sSheet=/portal/2006/04/09/ixportaltop.html

Quote :

"Bush 'is planning nuclear strikes on Iran's secret sites' The Bush administration is planning to use nuclear weapons against Iran, to prevent it acquiring its own atomic warheads, claims an investigative writer with high-level Pentagon and intelligence contacts. President George W Bush is said to be so alarmed by the threat of Iran's hard-line leader, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, that privately he refers to him as "the new Hitler", says Seymour Hersh, who broke the story of the Abu Ghraib Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal. Some US military chiefs have unsuccessfully urged the White House to drop the nuclear option from its war plans, Hersh writes in The New Yorker magazine. The conviction that Mr Ahmedinejad would attack Israel or US forces in the Middle East, if Iran obtains atomic weapons, is what drives American planning for the destruction of Teheran's nuclear programme. Hersh claims that one of the plans, presented to the White House by the Pentagon, entails the use of a bunker-buster tactical nuclear weapon, such as the B61-11, against underground nuclear sites. One alleged target is Iran's main centrifuge plant, at Natanz, 200 miles south of Teheran. Although Iran claims that its nuclear programme is peaceful, US and European intelligence agencies are certain that Teheran is trying to develop atomic weapons. In contrast to the run-up to the Iraq invasion, there are no disagreements within Western intelligence about Iran's plans. This newspaper disclosed recently that senior Pentagon strategists are updating plans to strike Iran's nuclear sites with long-distance B2 bombers and submarine-launched missiles. And last week, the Sunday Telegraph reported a secret meeting at the Ministry of Defence where military chiefs and officials from Downing Street and the Foreign Office discussed the consequences of an American-led attack on Iran, and Britain's role in any such action. The military option is opposed by London and other European capitals. But there are growing fears in No 10 and the Foreign Office that the British-led push for a diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear stand-off, will be swept aside by hawks in Washington. Hersh says that within the Bush administration, there are concerns that even a pummelling by conventional strikes, may not sufficiently damage Iran's buried nuclear plants. Iran has been developing a series of bunkers and facilities to provide hidden command centres for its leaders and to protect its nuclear infrastructure. The lack of reliable intelligence about these subterranean facilities, is fuelling pressure for tactical nuclear weapons to be included in the strike plans as the only guaranteed means to destroy all the sites simultaneously. The attention given to the nuclear option has created serious misgivings among the joint chiefs of staff, and some officers have talked about resigning, Hersh has been told. The military chiefs sought to remove the nuclear option from the evolving war plans for Iran, without success, a former senior intelligence officer said. The Pentagon consultant on the war on terror confirmed that some in the administration were looking seriously at this option, which he linked to a resurgence of interest in tactical nuclear weapons among defence department political appointees. The election of Mr Ahmedinejad last year, has hardened attitudes within the Bush Administration. The Iranian president has said that Israel should be "wiped off the map". He has drafted in former fellow Revolutionary Guards commanders to run the nuclear programme, in further signs that he is preparing to back his threats with action. Mr Bush and others in the White House view him as a potential Adolf Hitler, a former senior intelligence official told Hersh. "That's the name they're using. They say, 'Will Iran get a strategic weapon and threaten another world war?' " Despite America's public commitment to diplomacy, there is a growing belief in Washington that the only solution to the crisis is regime change. A senior Pentagon consultant said that Mr Bush 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". Publicly, the US insists it remains committed to diplomacy to solve the crisis. But with Russia apparently intent on vetoing any threat of punitive action at the UN, the Bush administration is also planning for unilateral military action. Hersh repeated his claims that the US has intensified clandestine activities inside Iran, using special forces to identify targets and establish contact with anti-Teheran ethnic-minority groups. The senior defence officials said that Mr Bush is "determined to deny Iran the opportunity to begin a pilot programme, planned for this spring, to enrich uranium"."

As if the legacy of Iraq isn't enough...

4/8/2006 9:04:13 PM

salasburywhat

4/8/2006 9:07:24 PM

WTF are you talking about?

4/8/2006 9:16:03 PM

I don't even have to read this. The U.S. will not strike first with nukes, tactical or otherwise.

4/8/2006 9:25:40 PM

Raw Story's running this, saying that the NY Times will run a similar story tomorrow:

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/NY_Times_Four_officials_deny_report_0408.html

Quote :

"Excerpts from the article written by Eric Schmitt: # But four Pentagon, military, and administration officials who participate in high-level deliberations on Iran and who were granted anonymity to speak candidly rejected the article's contention that the Bush administration was considering nuclear weapons in a possible strike against Iran. The article asserts that American carrier-based attack planes have been flying simulated nuclear-bomb runs within range of Iranian coastal radars. A Pentagon official said he was unaware of any such flights, but added that within the last three weeks Iran had ratcheted up its air defenses so high that it accidentally attacked one of its own aircraft. Senior administration officials, while emphasizing that their preferred path is diplomatic, have not ruled out military attacks if negotiations should fail. Senior officers and Pentagon officials said that war planners, in particular Air Force targeting teams, have updated contingencies for dealing with Iran's nuclear ambitions, as they periodically do. But they emphasized that this did not reflect any guidance from the civilian leadership to prepare for military confrontation. Hersh is a well-known journalist credited with uncovering major stories including the My Lai massacre in Vietnam in 1969 and details of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib in Iraq. Some military and political officials have contested details of some of his articles, and some critics say he is too eager to report assertions critical of the government that are difficult to fully substantiate."

You may be right. I certainly hope so.

4/8/2006 9:32:00 PM

.....BUT ALL OPTIONS ARE ON THE TABLE LOL

4/8/2006 9:41:01 PM

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12225188/from/RSS/

4/9/2006 12:09:44 AM

although first use of nuclear weapons is never off the table

I would be SHOCKED if the US ever did in fact use nuclear weapons first

aside from WWII of course...

4/9/2006 12:35:24 AM

...attack planes have been flying simulated ...

We are just barking to try to establish that we are alpha male. Doing that before biting is the part of diplomacy thats done after friendly chats don’t work out, so we can move on to more serious chats. We are still definitely in a chatting phase.

4/9/2006 12:41:26 AM

at least i was curteous enough to use a href links instead of stretching the page out

bucket my thread up yo

4/9/2006 11:28:10 AM

this thread is pretty shitty by gamecat standards

seriously dont fucking talk about the us attacking some other country until the whole debacle in iraq is fixed

4/9/2006 4:58:29 PM

^ You're kidding right? W. doesn't see Iraq as a dobacle. He sees it was the road to freedom on his "Global War on Terror". Iran is definatly in his sights. And we have arleady seen that Bush could care less what the UN thinks and if the IAEA doesn't do what the US wants in regards to Iran then he will take matters into his own hands because he doesn't fear repirsal.

4/9/2006 5:15:45 PM

Quote :

"seriously dont fucking talk about the us attacking some other country until the whole debacle in iraq is fixed"

we attacked iraq before finding bin laden. why be shocked?

4/9/2006 5:42:14 PM

Quote :

"A senior Pentagon consultant"

what does that mean anyway?

they use that shit all the time

4/9/2006 5:48:00 PM

That means the writer's cousin's daughter's fianceé who happens to live near Washington.

4/9/2006 5:52:52 PM

Quote :

"The article asserts that American carrier-based attack planes have been flying simulated nuclear-bomb runs within range of Iranian coastal radars."

Actually, this one is more puzzling.

What's the difference between a nuclear bomb run and a regular bomb run? How do they know it's actually a "simulated bombing run"? What are they using as simulated targets? What is within range of Iranian Coastal radar (Bahrain?)

And why the hell would you use a carrier-based plane with a.) a radar signature and b.) a small payload when you could get a B-2 to do the same thing?

[Edited on April 9, 2006 at 6:02 PM. Reason : .]

4/9/2006 5:54:19 PM

Quote :

"ShortnSlim: this thread is pretty shitty by gamecat standards"

Funny you should say that. I felt like I was riding the fence on this one; posting one article asserting the "OMF WE'RE ALL GONNA DIEEEEE" story and another one totally refuting it.

How is this "shitty?"

Oh wait...

Quote :

"ShortnSlim: seriously dont fucking talk about the us attacking some other country until the whole debacle in iraq is fixed"

...

Quote :

"RevoltNow: we attacked iraq before finding bin laden. why be shocked?"

My sentiments exactly.

Politically speaking, it'd be guaranteed to take the public's attention off Iraq; just as Iraq took the public's attention off Bin Laden. And what's more, we have ten times the number of justifications, even legitimate justifications, for attacking Iran as we did for attacking Iraq, so it'd be an equivalent conflict without nearly the outcry against it--except of course, from the armchair generals who'd say we're overextending ourselves. Not to mention the more salient point about it being the wrong time for a move like that.

Quote :

"ShortnSlim: what does that mean anyway?"

You do realize they hire think tanks to conduct analysis over these kinds of things, correct?

Quote :

"Maverick: And why the hell would you use a carrier-based plane with a.) a radar signature and b.) a small payload when you could get a B-2 to do the same thing?"

My guess, and I stress how purely it's a guess, is that it's a strategic "See those planes? We're not fucking around here..." move. IOW - the most overt the test runs are, the clearer the message is. We're not afraid to do this in the open because we WILL fuck you up.

Sends a message.

4/9/2006 7:16:31 PM

they KNOW we'd fuck them up. they are well aware of our capabilities, as we are of theirs.

this sort of show doesn't make any sense.

if we wanted to really make them shit, we'd start a countdown and put it in seconds on a big fucking billboard on an iranian facing beach on bahrain.

4/9/2006 7:22:42 PM

Quote :

"And why the hell would you use a carrier-based plane with a.) a radar signature and b.) a small payload when you could get a B-2 to do the same thing?"

well if we are really doing those practice runs its because we want iran to see us doing them
its a show of force

4/9/2006 7:26:43 PM

Didn't the idea of nukes get thrown around before Iraq?

This really just seems to be a scare tactic.

It would look really hypocritical that the US responds to a guy that says "Israel should be wiped off the map" by wiping him off the map (not that that's what a tactical nuke literally will do, but symbolically).

4/9/2006 7:26:53 PM

The only thing I think they're hedging on in Iran is that we won't strike now. They may think we wouldn't dare extend ourselves further into the region until Iraq is stabilized. They're quite wrong about that, but it's the only consideration of theirs I can think of.

4/9/2006 7:28:10 PM

i for one think we SHOULD use nukes if we need to. obviously the world has become a lot less stable in the past decade, and we need to show people who like to blow up buildings that we will not be afraid to use the weapons we have when we need to.

you suicide bomb us, your family gets nuked kind of thing.

4/9/2006 8:00:43 PM

Quote :

"they KNOW we'd fuck them up. they are well aware of our capabilities, as we are of theirs. this sort of show doesn't make any sense."

dude

we're talking about IRAN, and THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION here. What the fuck does SENSE have to do with anything?

4/9/2006 9:10:43 PM

judging by the issues in iraq, and where the insurgents are coming from, invading iran would probably lead to two things.
iraq would be perfectly fine because everyone would go fight us in iran instead.
OR
syria and/or the insurgents would take over iraq.

4/9/2006 9:19:11 PM

Quote :

"you suicide bomb us, your family gets nuked kind of thing."

somewhere on http://www.thedurkadurkaweb.com someone just posted

"you nuke us, your family gets suicide bombed kind of thing"

4/9/2006 10:06:19 PM

^ I guess those are equivalent...

4/9/2006 10:18:29 PM

Seymore Hersh is a goddamn commie bastard terrorist loving sonuvabitch, and he needs to be thrown in a dark hole in Gitmo Bay while soldiers piss on his beloved Koran.

giving comfort and aid to the enemy, thats what hes doing.

and you people are terrorist lovers too, just for reading his filth.

4/9/2006 10:46:33 PM

4/9/2006 10:54:25 PM

There's a couple of ways to look at this.

On the one hand, I'd like for us to have a plan for every possible contingency involving every possible threat on the earth. In other words, I'm not opposed to having a plan for Iran that involves nuclear weapons, because you never know if it will come down to that.

Having said that, I haven't seen anything that leads me to believe that our nuclear arsenal is in the same ballpark -- hell, the same sport -- as our current situation with that country. There's simply no reason that a conventional strike of some kind wouldn't work.

So, if we actually use the bomb, I'll be upset, and if we don't think about using it, I'll also be upset. I know, it's seemingly self-contradictory, but I hope my thought process is reasonable-sounding enough. I also don't have any reason as yet to suspect that this is an option we're seriously considering. No matter how big an idiot Bush may be, he has to realize that using nukes will come with serious consequences.

4/10/2006 2:28:20 AM

man if they hire think tanks for that shit i hope they dont spend a lot of money on them for as shitty as the country has been run the past 6 years

4/10/2006 5:23:33 AM

^You don't have to be smart to think.

4/10/2006 7:56:34 AM

^^^

we need to have a plan for every contingency, that's what the military's job basically is, right?

the nukes they are talking about are special "bunker buster" nukes that WILL do the job that conventional weapons can not do

that being said, the use of nuclear weapons by the united states, in the modern era, for any use other than a massive retalitory strike (or killing aliens) is unthinkable

this is a scare tactic

4/10/2006 9:33:39 AM

"oh, lets not destroy that bunker even though we have the ability to do it so we don't use NOOOOOCLEAR weapons!!!1"


that's retarded. if there is a militarty target that we have the means to destroy with limited civilian casualties, we should do it.
it's not like we'd be dropping a 10Mt bomb in the center of Tehran or anything.

4/10/2006 11:25:31 AM

could we just nuke the entire country as to create a communication blackout over all of Iran? Then when someone finally goes to investigate why no one in Iran is talking back, they will find it completely and utterly destroyed. They will point the fingers at us and then we can just be like...what? We didnt do that! Prove it!!!

4/10/2006 11:34:04 AM

If we attack Iran while in Iraq, we will be thoroughly sorry.

4/10/2006 11:38:26 AM

Quote :

"could we just nuke the entire country as to create a communication blackout over all of Iran? Then when someone finally goes to investigate why no one in Iran is talking back, they will find it completely and utterly destroyed. They will point the fingers at us and then we can just be like...what? We didnt do that! Prove it!!!"

so you really think that no one would ever notice a country being nuked until somebody doesn't answer their cell when dominos calls to verify their delivery?

4/10/2006 11:53:35 AM

i mean really... how else would we know??

4/10/2006 12:04:35 PM

i mean

its not like you can't see a mushroom cloud for miles away

and plus

nobody cares that russia is missing a few nuclear warheads

when they ask us to inventory our shit
we'll just be like "IT MUST BE WHERE THE RUSSIANS WENT"
and just hang up the phone

ITS THE PERFECT CRIME!

4/10/2006 1:38:08 PM

Well.. opening up with some tactical nuclear strikes wouldn't be a bad idea... if we were really going to attempt a takedown on Iran. Unfortunately, it would be a total commital; we'd HAVE to finish this one. You don't nuke a country, then a few years later be like... "Oops.. sorry... our bad. We're getting out of here."

Plus, whoever said that it would be a small loss of life is probably correct. Assuming this is in a bunker somewhere, it's more than likely NOT in a major city. A small yield nuclear warhead would definitely destroy the infrastructure needed to produce nuclear weapons, and it would provide a fair amount of our infamous 'shock and awe'.

Another side effect, all the attention would go to Iran, and the American people would forget about Iraq. We have the collective attention span of 5 year olds.

Lastly, this is a great option for Bush, because there is no accountability. He'd start the bruhaha... and then leave office, where no doubt the American people would refuse to let any international body get their hands on him. Whoever comes in next, has to clean up. I feel sorry for them.

4/10/2006 3:54:36 PM

I'll do you one better.

It'd practically hand the '08 presidential election to the GOP candidate.

4/10/2006 4:10:23 PM

If Bush allows the use of nukes, I smell assasination attempts.

4/10/2006 4:29:20 PM

There's no way Shrubya is this stupid...

...?

4/10/2006 5:11:46 PM

^^

4/10/2006 5:12:43 PM

^^^ dude, you just put the US Secret Service's top two target words in the same sentence. ever heard of Echelon?

hope you like sleep deprivation. let us know how your trip goes.

4/11/2006 1:24:52 AM

Quote :

"I'll do you one better. It'd practically hand the '08 presidential election to the GOP candidate. "

Do you really think so?

I could see it going either way at that point.

But, I don't think the use of nukes will ever happen, because a lot of the other international community would be against us. Even if tactical nukes are relatively small explosions, just the concept that a nuke was used would piss of a lot of people, possibly inciting the terrorist even more, or other nuclear-capable countries.

4/11/2006 1:27:31 AM

Correct me if I'm wrong, but haven't we already used similar weapons in Iraq?

4/11/2006 11:22:51 AM

Similar to nukes are you saying?

In regards to the "show of force", I have this hunch that Iran is acting like that pesky annoying neighbor that likes to make all sorts of claims of trouble when there is none. The "practice bombing runs" sounds a little too far-fetched for me (and too strange a term, IMHO).

4/11/2006 11:40:20 AM

The use of Nuclear Weapons without international support would be the worst and most boneheaded thing the administration could do. I really can't write well enough to convey how amazingly huge of a blunder that would be.

4/11/2006 11:47:44 AM

^^ No, I mean similar to the nuclear-tipped bunker busters they're talking about using in Iran. Not full-scale nuclear weapons a la Hiroshima. Seems like I read an article a while back about their use, or it might've been that the Pentagon was discussing using them.

[Edited on April 11, 2006 at 12:04 PM. Reason : ...]

4/11/2006 11:52:19 AM

NO

not the same thing

i believe you are confusing nuclear weapons with depleted uranium rounds

the "new" types of nuclear weapons that have come out are the low yeild mini-nukes (low kiloton yield) and a bunker buster high penetration nuke (will drive down 10s of feet into target and set off a nuclear explosion). The "bunker buster" may be considered a type of mini-nuke if it has particularly low yield.

the weapons that the administration are talking about are the bunker buster weapons

[Edited on April 11, 2006 at 1:32 PM. Reason : not sure about the yield]

4/11/2006 1:24:48 PM