The US War With Iran Has Already BegunBy Scott Ritter06/19/05
"
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 beginning 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 the 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 understand 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 Persian 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 started 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.
Copyright: Aljazeera
