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U.S. ordered Brits to attack Iran
Brits refused
Mid-East
Realities - MER - www.MiddleEast.Org - 30 June 2004:
The order was given in secret by the U.S.
commander in Iraq, General Ricardo Sanchez, who was already scheduled
to be replaced, quite likely because of his involvement in the
horrendous Iraqi torture scandal. But anyone who thinks General
Sanchez gave the order without checking first with his neocon bosses
back at the Pentagon -- Wolfowitz and Feith, who then of course check
with Rumsfeld who then tells the President, Condi, and Colin -- just
doesn't understand even at this late date how the invasion/occupation of Iraq came about nor
how the Pentagon planning has been progressing for Iran, Syria, North
Korea, just as soon as the excuses can be managed.
The Americans worked to weaken Iraq for a
decade, all the while trying to foment a coup or assassination, then
seizing upon the 9/11 excuse when all else had failed. They are
following the same pattern with regard to Iran, including considerable media manipulation and black ops.
Remember as well, the top neocons now in
charge in Washington tried hard in 1996 to get the Israelis, then with
their main man Bibi Netanyahu at the helm as Prime Minister, to come up
with some excuse for attacking Iraq and igniting a war which the
Americans would not then have been able to resist. Clinton
was hesitant as then was Netanyahu...but only to wait for a better
day. Then the same 'almost war' played itself out again in 1998 when
the then out-of-power neocons and their powerful Israeli-Jewish lobby
again tried hard to ignite war with and 'regime change' in Iraq.
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Attack Iran, US chief ordered British
By Michael
Smith, Defence Correspondent
Telegraph - UK -
30/06/2004: America's military commander in Iraq
ordered British troops to prepare a full-scale ground offensive against
Iranian forces that had crossed the border and grabbed disputed
territory, a senior officer has disclosed.
An attack would almost certainly have provoked
open conflict with Iran. But the British chose instead to resolve the
matter through diplomatic channels.
"If we had attacked the Iranian positions, all
hell would have broken loose," a defence source said yesterday.
"We would have had the Iranians to our front and
the Iraqi insurgents picking us off at the rear."
The incident was disclosed by a senior British
officer at a conference in London last week and is reported in today's
edition of Defence Analysis. The identity of the officer is not given.
"Some Iranian border and observation posts were
re-positioned over the border, broadly a kilometre into Iraq," a
Ministry of Defence spokesman said.
The incident began last July when Revolutionary
Guards pushed about a kilometre into Iraq to the north and east of
Basra in an apparent attempt to reoccupy territory which they claimed
belonged to Iran.
Lt Gen Ricardo Sanchez then ordered the British
to prepare to send in several thousand troops to attack the
Revolutionary Guard positions.
The Revolutionary Guard Corps has 125,000
soldiers, making it 25 per cent larger than the entire British Army,
and is equipped with 500 tanks, 600 armoured personnel carriers and 360
artillery weapons.
The incident is reminiscent of the exchange
during the Kosovo conflict between the American general, Wesley Clark,
the supreme allied commander Europe, and Gen Sir Mike Jackson, the
British commander.
When Gen Clark told Gen Jackson to send British
troops into Pristina airport to prevent Russian troops from taking
control Gen Jackson refused. He was reported to have said: "I am not
going to start World War Three for you."
The Iran-Iraq incident lasted around a week and
was resolved by a telephone conversation between Jack Straw, the
Foreign Secretary, and Kamal Kharrazi, his Iranian counterpart, British
officials said.
"It did look rather nasty at the time," one
official said. "But we were always confident it was a mistake and could
be resolved by diplomatic means. We got in touch with Baghdad and said,
'Don't do anything silly; we are talking to the Iranians.' "
While Mr Straw was trying to resolve the issue
peacefully, British military commanders on the ground were calming
their Iranian counterparts, the ministry said.
The Revolutionary Guard was believed to be
behind the seizure of eight Royal Navy and Royal Marines personnel last
week after they strayed across the disputed border between Iraq and
Iran.
The eight men, who were delivering patrol boats
to the Iraqi riverine patrol service, were released - but not before
they were paraded blindfolded on Iranian television.
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June 2004
About the new MiddleEast.Org (June 30, 2004)
U.S. Ordered Brits to Attack Iran - Brits Balked (June 30, 2004)
The order was given in secret by the U.S. commander in Iraq, General Ricardo Sanchez, who was already scheduled to be replaced, quite likely because of his involvement in the horrendous Iraqi torture scandal. But anyone who thinks General Sanchez gave the order without checking first with his neocon bosses back at the Pentagon -- Wolfowitz and Feith, who then of course check with Rumsfeld who then tells the President, Condi, and Colin -- just doesn't understand even at this late date how the invasion/occupation of Iraq came about nor how the Pentagon planning has been progressing for Iran, Syria, North Korea, just as soon as the excuses can be managed.
Bush and U.S. Exposed - book by book by book (June 30, 2004)
This list of books exposing the Bush presidency for what it really is all about is an essential corrective to all the propaganda and TV clips constantly bombarding the American people... In many ways though some of these books are more significant, however in a TV/Movie age even collectively they will not have the same impact though they do help set a climate for skepticism and anxiety. This particular list was compiled a few months ago by USA Today so it's hardly complete at this point. But it is a good starting place for those wanting to choose a little holiday reading, however depressive, sometimes shocking, surely politically and historically depressing.
America's Baghdad - Corruption, Barricades, Boozing, Fear and Incompetence (June 29, 2004)
Baghdad is awash with stories of the corruption, cronyism and incompetence of the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority, which was dissolved this week.
Brits Departed Palestine Leaving Civil War - MER FlashBack (June 29, 2004)
"Contrary to contemporary assertions, the British and the Americans have done far more to prevent democracy in the Middle East, and to inhibit independent economic development as well, then they will ever admit."
Bremer Slinks Away; CIA Slinks Forward (June 28, 2004)
Thus now Bremer hastily and rather shamefully
slinks away without much fanfare, a few days
early so they say, even as Iraq continues to
seeth in hatred and a slow-simmer civil war.
Baghdad Shuffle (June 28, 2004)
It's historic alright. A huge historic bungle that is quite literally exploding in their faces as they try to appear to go but actually stay with their carefully chosen Iraqi faces now out front. Over the weekend on ABC News one of the neocon political commentators made a little mistake and clearly called the American-appointed 'interim Iraqi Prime Minister' a "CIA agent" -- it was a rare moment of candor in public in today's confused, uptight, and secretive Washington.
Kurds on 'the return' - Palestinians into ghettos (June 27, 2004)
Substitute "Palestinians" for Kurds, and "Israelis" for Arabs, and there is a whole different twist to 'the return' of the Kurds featured in this front-page New York Times article last Sunday. Another great irony of our times is that even as the Americans and the Israelis help facilitate what the Kurds are doing in Iraq they demand the Palestinians give up their 'right of return' even though it is enshrined in many U.N. Security Council resolutions going back to 1947...
Worst Crisis Since WWII? (June 26, 2004)
"the most foolhardy civilian leadership in the
modern history of the United States." (Newsweek) "A vacuum has opened up at the heart of world politics where US leadership ought to be found." (Financial Times) "The unpalatable truth is that the Bush administration has failed in almost everything it has touched."
The Historical Moment - MER Flashback Four Years (June 25, 2004)
MER FLASHBACK to 25 June 2001: Months before what is now known as "9/11" MER published these articles indicating that a major strike by Osama
Bin-Laden against the U.S. was imminent and that the Israelis were more determined than ever to subjugate the Palestinians. We wrote at the time: "In these conditions any spark can ignite the blaze; and sometimes such giant fires consume more than was originally anticipated, sometimes even those who start them."
BBC Hired by British Government to Broadcast TV to Middle East (June 24, 2004)
More Readers' Comments from Around the World (June 24, 2004)
Just some of the many Readers's Comments continually pouring in to MER from around the world.
Thank you for previewing the new MiddleEast.Org (June 23, 2004)
Cheney and Rumseld "linked to murder" of CIA scientist in cold war years (June 23, 2004)
Secret documents have revealed US Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld are "linked to the murder" of a senior CIA scientist.
It's Now the Second Half of 1948 (June 23, 2004)
As always Professor Tanya Reinhart from Tel Aviv University writes with extraordinary insight.
"...the Israeli military and political leadership are aiming, eventually, at a total destruction of the Palestinian authority, and, with it, the process of Oslo, which is now dominantly considered by them a 'historical mistake'."
Information Warfare - Israel Wins Big (June 22, 2004)
For 10 years Tim Llewellyn was the BBC's Middle East correspondent. In this passionately argued polemic he accuses British broadcasters, including his former employer, of systematic bias in covering the Arab-Israeli conflict, giving undue prominence to the views of the Israelis while all but disregarding the roots of the crisis and what is being done to the Palestinians.
Gearing Up for IRAN and North Korea (June 21, 2004)
"...waiting to confront Iraq would have allowed the
United States to confront more immediate dangers....
Because our military is stretched so thin in Iraq, we cannot threaten military action in Iran or North Korea." Martin Peretz and The New Republic
REVOLT in WASHINGTON (June 20, 2004)
Nader Speaks to Buchanon (June 15, 2004)
He's going after the real conservative vote, so he says.
Crusade II - Reagan first brought the neocons to power (June 09, 2004) Cheney, Wolfowitz, Perle, Abrams, Bush...and the list goes on. Those who have recently led the crusade to invade Iraq, subjugate the Palestinians, and fight Islam, were brought to power in Washington for the first time some 23 years ago when Ronald Reagan of the once far-right was victorious over Jimmy Carter of the once mid-left in American politics. And some now forget that the man who greatly helped bring Ronald Reagan to power was none other than George Herbert Walker Bush, former head of the CIA, who now became Vice-President for the next eight years and then himself succeeded Reagan as President in 1989.
Realities of the "Reagan Plan" for the Middle East (June 06, 2004) The seeds for the Intifada and for Israel's increasingly aggressive escalating occupation of and dispossession of the Palestinian people were sown in the years of the Reagan Presidency. Indeed it was Ronald Reagan who first brought what we today call the "neocons" to power in Washington, and the right-wing Republicans who forged such a close alliance with the Israeli Likud of Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Shamir, and Ariel Sharon which had come to power in Israel in 1977 for the first time.
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