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US prepares military blitz against Iran's
nuclear sites
By Philip Sherwell
in Washington
(Filed: 12/02/2006)
Strategists at the
Pentagon are drawing up plans for
devastating bombing raids backed by submarine-launched ballistic
missile attacks against Iran's nuclear sites as a "last resort" to
block Teheran's efforts to develop an atomic bomb.
Central Command and
Strategic Command planners are
identifying targets, assessing weapon-loads and working on logistics
for an operation, the Sunday Telegraph has learnt.
They are reporting to
the office of Donald Rumsfeld,
the defence secretary, as America updates plans for action if the
diplomatic offensive fails to thwart the Islamic republic's nuclear
bomb ambitions. Teheran claims that it is developing only a civilian
energy programme.
"This is more than just
the standard military
contingency assessment," said a senior Pentagon adviser. "This has
taken on much greater urgency in recent months."
The prospect of military
action could put Washington
at odds with Britain which fears that an attack would spark violence
across the Middle East, reprisals in the West and may not cripple
Teheran's nuclear programme. But the steady flow of disclosures about
Iran's secret nuclear operations and the virulent anti-Israeli threats
of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has prompted the fresh assessment of
military options by Washington. The most likely strategy would involve
aerial bombardment by long-distance B2 bombers, each armed with up to
40,000lb of precision weapons, including the latest bunker-busting
devices. They would fly from bases in Missouri with mid-air refuelling.
The Bush administration
has recently announced plans
to add conventional ballistic missiles to the armoury of its nuclear
Trident submarines within the next two years. If ready in time, they
would also form part of the plan of attack.
Teheran has dispersed
its nuclear plants, burying some
deep underground, and has recently increased its air defences, but
Pentagon planners believe that the raids could seriously set back
Iran's nuclear programme.
Iran was last weekend
reported to the United Nations
Security Council by the International Atomic Energy Agency for its
banned nuclear activities. Teheran reacted by announcing that it would resume full-scale uranium enrichment -
producing material that could arm nuclear devices.
The White House says
that it wants a diplomatic
solution to the stand-off, but President George W Bush has refused to
rule out military action and reaffirmed last weekend that Iran's
nuclear ambitions "will not be tolerated".
Sen John McCain, the
Republican front-runner to
succeed Mr Bush in 2008, has advocated military strikes as a last
resort. He said recently: "There is only only one thing worse than the
United States exercising a military option and that is a nuclear-armed
Iran."
Senator Joe Lieberman, a
Democrat, has made the same case and Mr Bush is expected to be faced by
the decision within two years.
By then, Iran will be
close to acquiring the knowledge
to make an atomic bomb, although the construction will take longer. The
President will not want to be seen as leaving the White House having
allowed Iran's ayatollahs to go atomic.
In Teheran yesterday,
crowds celebrating the
anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution chanted "Nuclear technology
is our inalienable right" and cheered Mr Ahmadinejad when he said that
Iran may reconsider membership of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
He was defiant over
possible economic sanctions.
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