[Peace-discuss] Scott Ritter talk

[Morton K. Brussel]

I'm not sure where Ritter gets his information, but what he has to  
say is interesting, if not alarming. --mkb

Scott Ritter: 'The US war with Iran has already begun'
Date: Monday, June 20 @ 09:37:03 EDT
Topic: War & Terrorism

By Scott Ritter, Aljazeera

Americans, along with the rest of the world, are starting to wake up  
to the uncomfortable fact that President George Bush not only lied to  
them about the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq (the ostensible  
excuse for the March 2003 invasion and occupation of that country by  
US forces), but also about the very process that led to war.

On 16 October 2002, President Bush told the American people that "I  
have not ordered the use of force. I hope that the use of force will  
not become necessary."

We know now that this statement was itself a lie, that the president,  
by late August 2002, had, in fact! , signed off on the 'execute'  
orders authorising the US military to begin active military  
operations inside Iraq, and that these orders were being implemented  
as early as September 2002, when the US Air Force, assisted by the  
British Royal Air Force, began expanding its bombardment of targets  
inside and outside the so-called no-fly zone in Iraq.

These operations were designed to degrade Iraqi air defence and  
command and control capabilities. They also paved the way for the  
insertion of US Special Operations units, who were conducting  
strategic reconnaissance, and later direct action, operations against  
specific targets inside Iraq, prior to the 19 March 2003 commencement  
of hostilities.



President Bush had signed a covert finding in late spring 2002, which  
authorised the CIA and US Special Operations forces to dispatch  
clandestine units into Iraq for the purpose of removing Saddam  
Hussein from power.

The fact is that the Iraq war had begun by the b! eginning of summer  
2002, if not earlier.

This timeline of events has ramifications that go beyond historical  
trivia or political investigation into the events of the past.

It represents a record of precedent on the part of the Bush  
administration which must be acknowledged when considering the  
ongoing events regarding US-Iran relations. As was the case with Iraq  
pre-March 2003, the Bush administration today speaks of "diplomacy"  
and a desire for a "peaceful" resolution to the Iranian question.

But the facts speak of another agenda, that of war and the forceful  
removal of the theocratic regime, currently wielding the reigns of  
power in Tehran.

As with Iraq, the president has paved the way for the conditioning of  
the American public and an all-too-compliant media to accept at face  
value the merits of a regime change policy regarding Iran, linking  
the regime of the Mullah's to an "axis of evil" (together with the  
newly "liberated" Iraq and! North Korea), and speaking of the  
absolute requirement for the spread of "democracy" to the Iranian  
people.

"Liberation" and the spread of "democracy" have become none-too- 
subtle code words within the neo-conservative cabal that formulates  
and executes American foreign policy today for militarism and war.

By the intensity of the "liberation/democracy" rhetoric alone,  
Americans should be put on notice that Iran is well-fixed in the  
cross-hairs as the next target for the illegal policy of regime  
change being implemented by the Bush administration.

But Americans, and indeed much of the rest of the world, continue to  
be lulled into a false sense of complacency by the fact that overt  
conventional military operations have not yet commenced between the  
United States and Iran.

As such, many hold out the false hope that an extension of the  
current insanity in Iraq can be postponed or prevented in the case of  
Iran. But this is a fool's dream.
The reality is that the US war with Iran has already begun. As we  
speak, American over flights of Iranian soil are taking place, using  
pilotless drones and other, more sophisticated, capabilities.

The violation of a sovereign nation's airspace is an act of war in  
and of itself. But the war with Iran has gone far beyond the  
intelligence-gathering phase.

President Bush has taken advantage of the sweeping powers granted to  
him in the aftermath of 11 September 2001, to wage a global war  
against terror and to initiate several covert offensive operations  
inside Iran.

The most visible of these is the CIA-backed actions recently  
undertaken by the Mujahadeen el-Khalq, or MEK, an Iranian opposition  
group, once run by Saddam Hussein's dreaded intelligence services,  
but now working exclusively for the CIA's Directorate of Operations.

It is bitter irony that the CIA is using a group still labelled as a  
terrorist organisation, a group trained in t! he art of explosive  
assassination by the same intelligence units of the former regime of  
Saddam Hussein, who are slaughtering American soldiers in Iraq today,  
to carry out remote bombings in Iran of the sort that the Bush  
administration condemns on a daily basis inside Iraq.

Perhaps the adage of "one man's freedom fighter is another man's  
terrorist" has finally been embraced by the White House, exposing as  
utter hypocrisy the entire underlying notions governing the ongoing  
global war on terror.

But the CIA-backed campaign of MEK terror bombings in Iran are not  
the only action ongoing against Iran.

To the north, in neighbouring Azerbaijan, the US military is  
preparing a base of operations for a massive military presence that  
will foretell a major land-based campaign designed to capture Tehran.

Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld's interest in Azerbaijan may  
have escaped the blinkered Western media, but Russia and the Caucasus  
nations underst! and only too well that the die has been cast  
regarding Azerbaijan's role in the upcoming war with Iran.

The ethnic links between the Azeri of northern Iran and Azerbaijan  
were long exploited by the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and this  
vehicle for internal manipulation has been seized upon by CIA  
paramilitary operatives and US Special Operations units who are  
training with Azerbaijan forces to form special units capable of  
operating inside Iran for the purpose of intelligence gathering,  
direct action, and mobilising indigenous opposition to the Mullahs in  
Tehran.

But this is only one use the US has planned for Azerbaijan.  American  
military aircraft, operating from forward bases in Azerbaijan, will  
have a much shorter distance to fly when striking targets in and  
around Tehran.

In fact, US air power should be able to maintain a nearly 24-hour a  
day presence over Tehran airspace once military hostilities commence.

No longer will the United ! States need to consider employment of  
Cold War-dated plans which called for moving on Tehran from the Arab  
Gulf cities of Chah Bahar and Bandar Abbas.  US Marine Corps units  
will be able to secure these towns in order to protect the vital  
Straits of Hormuz, but the need to advance inland has been eliminated.

A much shorter route to Tehran now exists - the coastal highway  
running along the Caspian Sea from Azerbaijan to Tehran.

US military planners have already begun war games calling for the  
deployment of multi-divisional forces into Azerbaijan.

Logistical planning is well advanced concerning the basing of US air  
and ground power in Azerbaijan.

Given the fact that the bulk of the logistical support and command  
and control capability required to wage a war with Iran is already  
forward deployed in the region thanks to the massive US presence in  
Iraq, the build-up time for a war with Iran will be significantly  
reduced compared ! to even the accelerated time tables witnessed with  
Iraq in 2002-2003.

America and the Western nations continue to be fixated on the ongoing  
tragedy and debacle that is Iraq. Much needed debate on the reasoning  
behind the war with Iraq and the failed post-war occupation of Iraq  
is finally starting to spring up in the United States and elsewhere.

Normally, this would represent a good turn of events. But with  
everyone's heads rooted in the events of the past, many are missing  
out on the crime that is about to be repeated by the Bush  
administration in Iran - an illegal war of aggression, based on false  
premise, carried out with little regard to either the people of Iran  
or the United States.

Most Americans, together with the mainstream American media, are  
blind to the tell-tale signs of war, waiting, instead, for some  
formal declaration of hostility, a made-for-TV moment such as was  
witnessed on 19 March 2003.

We now know that the war had st! arted much earlier. Likewise,  
history will show that the US-led war with Iran will not have begun  
once a similar formal statement is offered by the Bush  
administration, but, rather, had already been under way since June  
2005, when the CIA began its programme of MEK-executed terror  
bombings in Iran.

Scott Ritter is a former UN weapons inspector in Iraq, 1991-1998, and  
author of Iraq Confidential: The Untold Story of America's  
Intelligence Conspiracy, to be published by I B Tauris in October 2005.

© 2005 Aljazeera.Net






-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.chambana.net/cgi-bin/private/peace-discuss/attachments/20050620/372d6667/attachment.html