‘We Are Conducting Military Operations Inside Iran Right Now...'

[deminks]

Retired Colonel: ‘We Are Conducting Military Operations Inside Iran Right Now. The Evidence Is Overwhelming.’

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/09/18/gardiner-iran/

Just now on CNN, Air Force Col. Sam Gardiner (Ret.) said, “We are conducting military operations inside Iran right now. The evidence is overwhelming.”

Gardiner, who taught at the U.S. Army’s National War College, has previously suggested that U.S. forces were already on the ground in Iran. Today he added several additional new points:

1) The House Committee on Emerging Threats recently called on State and Defense Department officials to testify on whether U.S. forces were in Iran. The officials didn’t come to the hearing.

2) “We have learned from Time magazine today that some U.S. naval forces had been alerted for deployment. That is a major step.”

3) “The plan has gone to the White House. That’s not normal planning. When the plan goes to the White House, that means we’ve gone to a different state.”

transcript here

http://thinkprogress.org/col-sam-gardiner-on-cnn-91806/

[POAS]

1. In short, it isn't if anymore. Now it is when.

Edited to add: before the elections in November!

[mopinko]

17. only impeachment can stop this war

a solid grassroots impeachment campaign is the only thing that will give ANYONE, congress, military, nato, UN, anyone pause to stand up to this junta. we cannot wait to see what the october surprise is.

[sweetheart]

2. Iran would be a fucking disaster of a conflict to start

Bush can't possibly be that fool, its got to be cheney's rotten ticker advising...

[peacebird]

3. is there no way to stop this madness?

[NoodleyAppendage]

5. Sure, but it would prompt a visit from the Secret Service... n/t

J

[mmonk]

25. That would require the American people

to become aware of their surroundings and to suddenly have some sort of intellectual capacity not skewed by propaganda. Yes, that sounds like an "liberal elite" position, but it is a reality position.

[msongs]

4. US military can't even handle Iraq right now...FDR won WW2 in

less time than Bush has used to lose Afghanistan and is losing Iraq (with allies help, of course).

not sure how the military figures it can add a war on Iran into the mix.

Msongs
www.msongs.com/political-shirts.htm

[Joanne98]

6. Boy! I bet the military's happy about this!

[IChing]

9. Some are of course, the navy brass haven't been getting their wicks wet.

Since the beginning of the Iraqi war as much as they would like, to show off their new toys and naval capabilities.

[Solo_in_MD]

11. Ahhh, you have that backwards

Naval aviation and special ops have been used extensively, as have the sealift guys. Not much surface action, but then again, there never is.

The USAF are the ones really been feeling left out...

[xchrom]

14. your comment re:new toys and capabilities is more spot on

than i care to think.

i've always thought that 50% of the reason for our involvement in the former yugoslav conflict was so the airforce could work out their tactics for a hardcore air campaign -- and their new technology.


so that comment re: the navy i think bears an awful amount of thinking about.

we spend millions every year in new hard ware -- and hundreds of man hours theorizing tactics -- they do no good sitting around and gathering dust.

besides -- the u.s. is always trying to get china and russia to ''get the point''.
and iraq isn't delivering that point they way they would like.

[FrenchieCat]

7. This could be real....but also being "leaked" out there to make the

voters fearful.....cause when Bush thinks Americans are in fear, he think that they will vote GOP!

[cspanlovr]

8. Have we passed the point of no return? I believe bush feels that way.

[IChing]

10. I am hoping that Russian satelite and intelligence

Will alert the world on this.
It is not in their interest to let this happen, let alone the world's.

[hvn_nbr_2]

12. Blitzer's very first question is revealing

BLITZER: How likely is the U.S. strike against Iran?

Blitzer already knows. If he were asking a real hypothetical question, the normal phrasing would be "How likely is a U.S. strike?" The definite article "the" refers to "the" one that Wolfie already knows is already in progress, not "a" strike that might happen next month, or "a" strike that might happen just before the election, or "a" strike that might happen next year, or "a" hypothetical strike that might happen at some undetermined time and under some circumstances in the future. He's referring to "the" one that is already in progress.

[SlavesandBulldozers]

15. good catch

[Supersedeas]

29. Blitzer knows and is preparing the public to 'soften' the blow

[SlavesandBulldozers]

13. finally

we are gonna get some revenge for all the Iranians that attacked us on 9-11, never forget.

:sarcasm:

[hvn_nbr_2]

21. I can't wait to hear Chimpie trying to say Ahmadinejad911

Ahmadinejad-9-11 terra-terra-Ahmadinejad-9-11 911Ahmadinejad ... the way he's been saying Saddam911 911Saddam for the last few years.

That cokejaw will get a new gear.

[SlavesandBulldozers]

28. seriously.

i hate to joke about this stuff, but I really can't believe they have the nerve to try this again.

[hvn_nbr_2]

31. It's worked for them so far, it's the only game they know.

The experience of this administration is just one whole series of things that no rational person could ever believe they would try to get away with, but they brazen it through, the brown-shirts in Congress cheer it, the peep-spines in Congress go along, and the ministry of propaganda normalizes it.

[Blackhatjack]

16. The Constitution Reserves To Congress Power To Declare War...

...and this may be just the time to reassert this power on behalf of Congress.

There was no clear and present danger pressing Bush to send troops into Iran, and position forces and deploy attack regimens. Congressional oversight cannot be jettisoned because it is inconvenient to tell Congress, and it sure as heck is not to preserve the element of surprise since the rest of the world has been aware of Bush's plans for the last year or longer.

[autorank]

18. IMPEACHMENT...if this is going on, more than enough cause.

...oh, don't tell me, they'll take prisoners and we'll have to send in people to get them.

IF THIS IS TRUE, they've outdone themselves.

IMPEACHMENT TIME....

[KittyWampus]

19. And DU collectively ignored Cheney & Co. faking Iran Intel last week

Two articles last week and DU collectively yawned.

No group effort to get the Media to cover the faked intelligence.

[MzNov]

20. If this is true and we're in Iran planning military strikes,

we must all start SCREAMING to our honorable elected representatives. This is unacceptable. And he continues to get away with it !!!! These bastards have got to go, NOW.

:mad:

[eagler]

22. They are really putting on the snow job now

right before the election

[Philosoraptor]

23. Naw...surely not.

Here we go again

[magellan]

24. This drives me BATSHIT

GARDINER: It’s possible. It’s also possible that this path was selected a long time ago. You recall that even before Gulf II that a time when the president said we have no plan. I have no plan on my desk. In the summer of 2002 we began bombing Iraq. Operation Southern Focus, without congressional approval, without the U.N. sanctions, we went ahead and began bombing.

BLITZER: The argument at that time is if there were violations of the no-fly zone, U.S. war planes were flying in the north and the south and there were rockets or anti-aircraft fire going up, they could take those out.

That's all Blitzer says on it. Totally whitewashes it. No reference to the truth. His lying ass is one of the reasons we'll be in over our heads with Iran next.

The Sunday Times (UK)
May 29, 2005

'RAF bombing raids tried to goad Saddam into war'
Michael Smith

THE RAF and US aircraft doubled the rate at which they were dropping bombs on Iraq in 2002 in an attempt to provoke Saddam Hussein into giving the allies an excuse for war, new evidence has shown.

The attacks were intensified from May, six months before the United Nations resolution that Tony Blair and Lord Goldsmith, the attorney-general, argued gave the coalition the legal basis for war. By the end of August the raids had become a full air offensive.

The details follow the leak to The Sunday Times of minutes of a key meeting in July 2002 at which Blair and his war cabinet discussed how to make “regime change” in Iraq legal.

Geoff Hoon, then defence secretary, told the meeting that “the US had already begun ‘spikes of activity’ to put pressure on the regime”.

more....

The Nation - article | posted June 1, 2005 (web only)
'The Other Bomb Drops'

Jeremy Scahill

It was a huge air assault: Approximately 100 US and British planes flew from Kuwait into Iraqi airspace. At least seven types of aircraft were part of this massive operation, including US F-15 Strike Eagles and Royal Air Force Tornado ground-attack planes. They dropped precision-guided munitions on Saddam Hussein's major western air-defense facility, clearing the path for Special Forces helicopters that lay in wait in Jordan. Earlier attacks had been carried out against Iraqi command and control centers, radar detection systems, Revolutionary Guard units, communication centers and mobile air-defense systems. The Pentagon's goal was clear: Destroy Iraq's ability to resist. This was war.

But there was a catch: The war hadn't started yet, at least not officially. This was September 2002--a month before Congress had voted to give President Bush the authority he used to invade Iraq, two months before the United Nations brought the matter to a vote and more than six months before "shock and awe" officially began.

At the time, the Bush Administration publicly played down the extent of the air strikes, claiming the United States was just defending the so-called no-fly zones. But new information that has come out in response to the Downing Street memo reveals that, by this time, the war was already a foregone conclusion and attacks were no less than the undeclared beginning of the invasion of Iraq.

more...

[PsychoDad]

26. The officials didn’t come to the hearing.

1) The House Committee on Emerging Threats recently called on State and Defense Department officials to testify on whether U.S. forces were in Iran. The officials didn’t come to the hearing.

Wouldn't that be contempt of congress, and punishable as such?

Peace

[pecwae]

27. I have no doubt.

The minute the public chest beating began SOF were already emplaced.

[Flying Dream Blues]

30. And the beat goes on...go to Starbucks, go to work, eat, TV, bed. Repeat.