[Mb-civic] The Iran Plans By Seymour M. Hersh The New Yorker

[Michael Butler]

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    The Iran Plans
    By Seymour M. Hersh
    The New Yorker

    17 April 20006 Issue

    Would President Bush go to war to stop Tehran from getting the bomb?

    The Bush Administration, while publicly advocating diplomacy in order to
stop Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon, has increased clandestine
activities inside Iran and intensified planning for a possible major air
attack. Current and former American military and intelligence officials said
that Air Force planning groups are drawing up lists of targets, and teams of
American combat troops have been ordered into Iran, under cover, to collect
targeting data and to establish contact with anti-government ethnic-minority
groups. The officials say that President Bush is determined to deny the
Iranian regime the opportunity to begin a pilot program, planned for this
spring, to enrich uranium.

    American and European intelligence agencies, and the International
Atomic Energy Agency (I.A.E.A.), agree that Iran is intent on developing the
capability to produce nuclear weapons. But there are widely differing
estimates of how long that will take, and whether diplomacy, sanctions, or
military action is the best way to prevent it. Iran insists that its
research is for peaceful use only, in keeping with the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty, and that it will not be delayed or deterred.

    There is a growing conviction among members of the United States
military, and in the international community, that President Bush's ultimate
goal in the nuclear confrontation with Iran is regime change. Iran's
President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has challenged the reality of the Holocaust
and said that Israel must be "wiped off the map." Bush and others in the
White House view him as a potential Adolf Hitler, a former senior
intelligence official said. "That's the name they're using. They say, 'Will
Iran get a strategic weapon and threaten another world war?' "

    A government consultant with close ties to the civilian leadership in
the Pentagon said that Bush was "absolutely convinced that Iran is going to
get the bomb" if it is not stopped. He said that the President believes that
he must do "what no Democrat or Republican, if elected in the future, would
have the courage to do," and "that saving Iran is going to be his legacy."

    One former defense official, who still deals with sensitive issues for
the Bush Administration, told me that the military planning was premised on
a belief that "a sustained bombing campaign in Iran will humiliate the
religious leadership and lead the public to rise up and overthrow the
government." He added, "I was shocked when I heard it, and asked myself,
'What are they smoking?' "

    The rationale for regime change was articulated in early March by
Patrick Clawson, an Iran expert who is the deputy director for research at
the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and who has been a supporter
of President Bush. "So long as Iran has an Islamic republic, it will have a
nuclear-weapons program, at least clandestinely," Clawson told the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee on March 2nd. "The key issue, therefore, is: How
long will the present Iranian regime last?"

    When I spoke to Clawson, he emphasized that "this Administration is
putting a lot of effort into diplomacy." However, he added, Iran had no
choice other than to accede to America's demands or face a military attack.
Clawson said that he fears that Ahmadinejad "sees the West as wimps and
thinks we will eventually cave in. We have to be ready to deal with Iran if
the crisis escalates." Clawson said that he would prefer to rely on sabotage
and other clandestine activities, such as "industrial accidents." But, he
said, it would be prudent to prepare for a wider war, "given the way the
Iranians are acting. This is not like planning to invade Quebec."

    One military planner told me that White House criticisms of Iran and the
high tempo of planning and clandestine activities amount to a campaign of
"coercion" aimed at Iran. "You have to be ready to go, and we'll see how
they respond," the officer said. "You have to really show a threat in order
to get Ahmadinejad to back down." He added, "People think Bush has been
focussed on Saddam Hussein since 9/11," but, "in my view, if you had to name
one nation that was his focus all the way along, it was Iran." (In response
to detailed requests for comment, the White House said that it would not
comment on military planning but added, "As the President has indicated, we
are pursuing a diplomatic solution"; the Defense Department also said that
Iran was being dealt with through "diplomatic channels" but wouldn't
elaborate on that; the CIA said that there were "inaccuracies" in this
account but would not specify them.)

    "This is much more than a nuclear issue," one high-ranking diplomat told
me in Vienna. "That's just a rallying point, and there is still time to fix
it. But the Administration believes it cannot be fixed unless they control
the hearts and minds of Iran. The real issue is who is going to control the
Middle East and its oil in the next ten years."

    A senior Pentagon adviser on the war on terror expressed a similar view.
"This White House believes that the only way to solve the problem is to
change the power structure in Iran, and that means war," he said. The
danger, he said, was that "it also reinforces the belief inside Iran that
the only way to defend the country is to have a nuclear capability." A
military conflict that destabilized the region could also increase the risk
of terror: "Hezbollah comes into play," the adviser said, referring to the
terror group that is considered one of the world's most successful, and
which is now a Lebanese political party with strong ties to Iran. "And here
comes Al Qaeda."

    In recent weeks, the President has quietly initiated a series of talks
on plans for Iran with a few key senators and members of Congress, including
at least one Democrat. A senior member of the House Appropriations
Committee, who did not take part in the meetings but has discussed their
content with his colleagues, told me that there had been "no formal
briefings," because "they're reluctant to brief the minority. They're doing
the Senate, somewhat selectively."

    The House member said that no one in the meetings "is really objecting"
to the talk of war. "The people they're briefing are the same ones who led
the charge on Iraq. At most, questions are raised: How are you going to hit
all the sites at once? How are you going to get deep enough?" (Iran is
building facilities underground.) "There's no pressure from Congress" not to
take military action, the House member added. "The only political pressure
is from the guys who want to do it." Speaking of President Bush, the House
member said, "The most worrisome thing is that this guy has a messianic
vision."

    Some operations, apparently aimed in part at intimidating Iran, are
already under way. American Naval tactical aircraft, operating from carriers
in the Arabian Sea, have been flying simulated nuclear-weapons delivery
missions - rapid ascending maneuvers known as "over the shoulder" bombing -
since last summer, the former official said, within range of Iranian coastal
radars.

    Last month, in a paper given at a conference on Middle East security in
Berlin, Colonel Sam Gardiner, a military analyst who taught at the National
War College before retiring from the Air Force, in 1987, provided an
estimate of what would be needed to destroy Iran's nuclear program. Working
from satellite photographs of the known facilities, Gardiner estimated that
at least four hundred targets would have to be hit. He added:

    I don't think a US military planner would want to stop there. Iran
probably has two chemical-production plants. We would hit those. We would
want to hit the medium-range ballistic missiles that have just recently been
moved closer to Iraq. There are fourteen airfields with sheltered aircraft.
. . . We'd want to get rid of that threat. We would want to hit the assets
that could be used to threaten Gulf shipping. That means targeting the
cruise-missile sites and the Iranian diesel submarines. . . . Some of the
facilities may be too difficult to target even with penetrating weapons. The
US will have to use Special Operations units.

    One of the military's initial option plans, as presented to the White
House by the Pentagon this winter, calls for the use of a bunker-buster
tactical nuclear weapon, such as the B61-11, against underground nuclear
sites. One target is Iran's main centrifuge plant, at Natanz, nearly two
hundred miles south of Tehran. Natanz, which is no longer under I.A.E.A.
safeguards, reportedly has underground floor space to hold fifty thousand
centrifuges, and laboratories and workspaces buried approximately
seventy-five feet beneath the surface. That number of centrifuges could
provide enough enriched uranium for about twenty nuclear warheads a year.
(Iran has acknowledged that it initially kept the existence of its
enrichment program hidden from I.A.E.A. inspectors, but claims that none of
its current activity is barred by the Non-Proliferation Treaty.) The
elimination of Natanz would be a major setback for Iran's nuclear ambitions,
but the conventional weapons in the American arsenal could not insure the
destruction of facilities under seventy-five feet of earth and rock,
especially if they are reinforced with concrete.

    There is a Cold War precedent for targeting deep underground bunkers
with nuclear weapons. In the early nineteen-eighties, the American
intelligence community watched as the Soviet government began digging a huge
underground complex outside Moscow. Analysts concluded that the underground
facility was designed for "continuity of government" - for the political and
military leadership to survive a nuclear war. (There are similar facilities,
in Virginia and Pennsylvania, for the American leadership.) The Soviet
facility still exists, and much of what the US knows about it remains
classified. "The 'tell' " - the giveaway - "was the ventilator shafts, some
of which were disguised," the former senior intelligence official told me.
At the time, he said, it was determined that "only nukes" could destroy the
bunker. He added that some American intelligence analysts believe that the
Russians helped the Iranians design their underground facility. "We see a
similarity of design," specifically in the ventilator shafts, he said.

    A former high-level Defense Department official told me that, in his
view, even limited bombing would allow the US to "go in there and do enough
damage to slow down the nuclear infrastructure - it's feasible." The former
defense official said, "The Iranians don't have friends, and we can tell
them that, if necessary, we'll keep knocking back their infrastructure. The
United States should act like we're ready to go." He added, "We don't have
to knock down all of their air defenses. Our stealth bombers and standoff
missiles really work, and we can blow fixed things up. We can do things on
the ground, too, but it's difficult and very dangerous - put bad stuff in
ventilator shafts and put them to sleep."

    But those who are familiar with the Soviet bunker, according to the
former senior intelligence official, "say 'No way.' You've got to know
what's underneath - to know which ventilator feeds people, or diesel
generators, or which are false. And there's a lot that we don't know." The
lack of reliable intelligence leaves military planners, given the goal of
totally destroying the sites, little choice but to consider the use of
tactical nuclear weapons. "Every other option, in the view of the nuclear
weaponeers, would leave a gap," the former senior intelligence official
said. " 'Decisive' is the key word of the Air Force's planning. It's a tough
decision. But we made it in Japan."

    He went on, "Nuclear planners go through extensive training and learn
the technical details of damage and fallout - we're talking about mushroom
clouds, radiation, mass casualties, and contamination over years. This is
not an underground nuclear test, where all you see is the earth raised a
little bit. These politicians don't have a clue, and whenever anybody tries
to get it out" - remove the nuclear option - "they're shouted down."

    The attention given to the nuclear option has created serious misgivings
inside the offices of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he added, and some officers
have talked about resigning. Late this winter, the Joint Chiefs of Staff
sought to remove the nuclear option from the evolving war plans for Iran -
without success, the former intelligence official said. "The White House
said, 'Why are you challenging this? The option came from you.' "

    The Pentagon adviser on the war on terror confirmed that some in the
Administration were looking seriously at this option, which he linked to a
resurgence of interest in tactical nuclear weapons among Pentagon civilians
and in policy circles. He called it "a juggernaut that has to be stopped."
He also confirmed that some senior officers and officials were considering
resigning over the issue. "There are very strong sentiments within the
military against brandishing nuclear weapons against other countries," the
adviser told me. "This goes to high levels." The matter may soon reach a
decisive point, he said, because the Joint Chiefs had agreed to give
President Bush a formal recommendation stating that they are strongly
opposed to considering the nuclear option for Iran. "The internal debate on
this has hardened in recent weeks," the adviser said. "And, if senior
Pentagon officers express their opposition to the use of offensive nuclear
weapons, then it will never happen."

    The adviser added, however, that the idea of using tactical nuclear
weapons in such situations has gained support from the Defense Science
Board, an advisory panel whose members are selected by Secretary of Defense
Donald Rumsfeld. "They're telling the Pentagon that we can build the B61
with more blast and less radiation," he said.

    The chairman of the Defense Science Board is William Schneider, Jr., an
Under-Secretary of State in the Reagan Administration. In January, 2001, as
President Bush prepared to take office, Schneider served on an ad-hoc panel
on nuclear forces sponsored by the National Institute for Public Policy, a
conservative think tank. The panel's report recommended treating tactical
nuclear weapons as an essential part of the US arsenal and noted their
suitability "for those occasions when the certain and prompt destruction of
high priority targets is essential and beyond the promise of conventional
weapons." Several signers of the report are now prominent members of the
Bush Administration, including Stephen Hadley, the national-security
adviser; Stephen Cambone, the Under-Secretary of Defense for Intelligence;
and Robert Joseph, the Under-Secretary of State for Arms Control and
International Security.

    The Pentagon adviser questioned the value of air strikes. "The Iranians
have distributed their nuclear activity very well, and we have no clue where
some of the key stuff is. It could even be out of the country," he said. He
warned, as did many others, that bombing Iran could provoke "a chain
reaction" of attacks on American facilities and citizens throughout the
world: "What will 1.2 billion Muslims think the day we attack Iran?"

    With or without the nuclear option, the list of targets may inevitably
expand. One recently retired high-level Bush Administration official, who is
also an expert on war planning, told me that he would have vigorously argued
against an air attack on Iran, because "Iran is a much tougher target" than
Iraq. But, he added, "If you're going to do any bombing to stop the nukes,
you might as well improve your lie across the board. Maybe hit some training
camps, and clear up a lot of other problems."

    The Pentagon adviser said that, in the event of an attack, the Air Force
intended to strike many hundreds of targets in Iran but that "ninety-nine
per cent of them have nothing to do with proliferation. There are people who
believe it's the way to operate" - that the Administration can achieve its
policy goals in Iran with a bombing campaign, an idea that has been
supported by neoconservatives.

    If the order were to be given for an attack, the American combat troops
now operating in Iran would be in position to mark the critical targets with
laser beams, to insure bombing accuracy and to minimize civilian casualties.
As of early winter, I was told by the government consultant with close ties
to civilians in the Pentagon, the units were also working with minority
groups in Iran, including the Azeris, in the north, the Baluchis, in the
southeast, and the Kurds, in the northeast. The troops "are studying the
terrain, and giving away walking-around money to ethnic tribes, and
recruiting scouts from local tribes and shepherds," the consultant said. One
goal is to get "eyes on the ground" - quoting a line from "Othello," he
said, "Give me the ocular proof." The broader aim, the consultant said, is
to "encourage ethnic tensions" and undermine the regime.

    The new mission for the combat troops is a product of Defense Secretary
Rumsfeld's long-standing interest in expanding the role of the military in
covert operations, which was made official policy in the Pentagon's
Quadrennial Defense Review, published in February. Such activities, if
conducted by CIA operatives, would need a Presidential Finding and would
have to be reported to key members of Congress.

    " 'Force protection' is the new buzzword," the former senior
intelligence official told me. He was referring to the Pentagon's position
that clandestine activities that can be broadly classified as preparing the
battlefield or protecting troops are military, not intelligence, operations,
and are therefore not subject to congressional oversight. "The guys in the
Joint Chiefs of Staff say there are a lot of uncertainties in Iran," he
said. "We need to have more than what we had in Iraq. Now we have the green
light to do everything we want."

    The President's deep distrust of Ahmadinejad has strengthened his
determination to confront Iran. This view has been reinforced by allegations
that Ahmadinejad, who joined a special-forces brigade of the Revolutionary
Guards in 1986, may have been involved in terrorist activities in the late
eighties. (There are gaps in Ahmadinejad's official biography in this
period.) Ahmadinejad has reportedly been connected to Imad Mughniyeh, a
terrorist who has been implicated in the deadly bombings of the US Embassy
and the US Marine barracks in Beirut, in 1983. Mughniyeh was then the
security chief of Hezbollah; he remains on the FBI's list of most-wanted
terrorists.

    Robert Baer, who was a CIA officer in the Middle East and elsewhere for
two decades, told me that Ahmadinejad and his Revolutionary Guard colleagues
in the Iranian government "are capable of making a bomb, hiding it, and
launching it at Israel. They're apocalyptic Shiites. If you're sitting in
Tel Aviv and you believe they've got nukes and missiles - you've got to take
them out. These guys are nuts, and there's no reason to back off."

    Under Ahmadinejad, the Revolutionary Guards have expanded their power
base throughout the Iranian bureaucracy; by the end of January, they had
replaced thousands of civil servants with their own members. One former
senior United Nations official, who has extensive experience with Iran,
depicted the turnover as "a white coup," with ominous implications for the
West. "Professionals in the Foreign Ministry are out; others are waiting to
be kicked out," he said. "We may be too late. These guys now believe that
they are stronger than ever since the revolution." He said that,
particularly in consideration of China's emergence as a superpower, Iran's
attitude was "To hell with the West. You can do as much as you like."

    Iran's supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, is considered by
many experts to be in a stronger position than Ahmadinejad. "Ahmadinejad is
not in control," one European diplomat told me. "Power is diffuse in Iran.
The Revolutionary Guards are among the key backers of the nuclear program,
but, ultimately, I don't think they are in charge of it. The Supreme Leader
has the casting vote on the nuclear program, and the Guards will not take
action without his approval."

    The Pentagon adviser on the war on terror said that "allowing Iran to
have the bomb is not on the table. We cannot have nukes being sent
downstream to a terror network. It's just too dangerous." He added, "The
whole internal debate is on which way to go" - in terms of stopping the
Iranian program. It is possible, the adviser said, that Iran will
unilaterally renounce its nuclear plans - and forestall the American action.
"God may smile on us, but I don't think so. The bottom line is that Iran
cannot become a nuclear-weapons state. The problem is that the Iranians
realize that only by becoming a nuclear state can they defend themselves
against the US Something bad is going to happen."

    While almost no one disputes Iran's nuclear ambitions, there is intense
debate over how soon it could get the bomb, and what to do about that.
Robert Gallucci, a former government expert on nonproliferation who is now
the dean of the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown, told me, "Based on
what I know, Iran could be eight to ten years away" from developing a
deliverable nuclear weapon. Gallucci added, "If they had a covert nuclear
program and we could prove it, and we could not stop it by negotiation,
diplomacy, or the threat of sanctions, I'd be in favor of taking it out. But
if you do it" - bomb Iran - "without being able to show there's a secret
program, you're in trouble."

    Meir Dagan, the head of Mossad, Israel's intelligence agency, told the
Knesset last December that "Iran is one to two years away, at the latest,
from having enriched uranium. From that point, the completion of their
nuclear weapon is simply a technical matter." In a conversation with me, a
senior Israeli intelligence official talked about what he said was Iran's
duplicity: "There are two parallel nuclear programs" inside Iran - the
program declared to the I.A.E.A. and a separate operation, run by the
military and the Revolutionary Guards. Israeli officials have repeatedly
made this argument, but Israel has not produced public evidence to support
it. Richard Armitage, the Deputy Secretary of State in Bush's first term,
told me, "I think Iran has a secret nuclear-weapons program - I believe it,
but I don't know it."

    In recent months, the Pakistani government has given the US new access
to A. Q. Khan, the so-called father of the Pakistani atomic bomb. Khan, who
is now living under house arrest in Islamabad, is accused of setting up a
black market in nuclear materials; he made at least one clandestine visit to
Tehran in the late nineteen-eighties. In the most recent interrogations,
Khan has provided information on Iran's weapons design and its time line for
building a bomb. "The picture is of 'unquestionable danger,' " the former
senior intelligence official said. (The Pentagon adviser also confirmed that
Khan has been "singing like a canary.") The concern, the former senior
official said, is that "Khan has credibility problems. He is suggestible,
and he's telling the neoconservatives what they want to hear" - or what
might be useful to Pakistan's President, Pervez Musharraf, who is under
pressure to assist Washington in the war on terror.

    "I think Khan's leading us on," the former intelligence official said.
"I don't know anybody who says, 'Here's the smoking gun.' But lights are
beginning to blink. He's feeding us information on the time line, and
targeting information is coming in from our own sources - sensors and the
covert teams. The CIA, which was so burned by Iraqi W.M.D., is going to the
Pentagon and the Vice-President's office saying, 'It's all new stuff.'
People in the Administration are saying, 'We've got enough.' "

    The Administration's case against Iran is compromised by its history of
promoting false intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. In a
recent essay on the Foreign Policy Web site, entitled "Fool Me Twice,"
Joseph Cirincione, the director for nonproliferation at the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace, wrote, "The unfolding administration
strategy appears to be an effort to repeat its successful campaign for the
Iraq war." He noted several parallels:

    The vice president of the United States gives a major speech focused on
the threat from an oil-rich nation in the Middle East. The US Secretary of
State tells Congress that the same nation is our most serious global
challenge. The Secretary of Defense calls that nation the leading supporter
of global terrorism.

    Cirincione called some of the Administration's claims about Iran
"questionable" or lacking in evidence. When I spoke to him, he asked, "What
do we know? What is the threat? The question is: How urgent is all this?"
The answer, he said, "is in the intelligence community and the I.A.E.A." (In
August, the Washington Post reported that the most recent comprehensive
National Intelligence Estimate predicted that Iran was a decade away from
being a nuclear power.)

    Last year, the Bush Administration briefed I.A.E.A. officials on what it
said was new and alarming information about Iran's weapons program which had
been retrieved from an Iranian's laptop. The new data included more than a
thousand pages of technical drawings of weapons systems. The Washington Post
reported that there were also designs for a small facility that could be
used in the uranium-enrichment process. Leaks about the laptop became the
focal point of stories in the Times and elsewhere. The stories were
generally careful to note that the materials could have been fabricated, but
also quoted senior American officials as saying that they appeared to be
legitimate. The headline in the Times' account read, "RELYING ON COMPUTER,
US SEEKS TO PROVE IRAN'S NUCLEAR AIMS."

    I was told in interviews with American and European intelligence
officials, however, that the laptop was more suspect and less revelatory
than it had been depicted. The Iranian who owned the laptop had initially
been recruited by German and American intelligence operatives, working
together. The Americans eventually lost interest in him. The Germans kept
on, but the Iranian was seized by the Iranian counter-intelligence force. It
is not known where he is today. Some family members managed to leave Iran
with his laptop and handed it over at a US embassy, apparently in Europe. It
was a classic "walk-in."

    A European intelligence official said, "There was some hesitation on our
side" about what the materials really proved, "and we are still not
convinced." The drawings were not meticulous, as newspaper accounts
suggested, "but had the character of sketches," the European official said.
"It was not a slam-dunk smoking gun."

    The threat of American military action has created dismay at the
headquarters of the I.A.E.A., in Vienna. The agency's officials believe that
Iran wants to be able to make a nuclear weapon, but "nobody has presented an
inch of evidence of a parallel nuclear-weapons program in Iran," the
high-ranking diplomat told me. The I.A.E.A.'s best estimate is that the
Iranians are five years away from building a nuclear bomb. "But, if the
United States does anything militarily, they will make the development of a
bomb a matter of Iranian national pride," the diplomat said. "The whole
issue is America's risk assessment of Iran's future intentions, and they
don't trust the regime. Iran is a menace to American policy."

    In Vienna, I was told of an exceedingly testy meeting earlier this year
between Mohamed ElBaradei, the I.A.E.A.'s director-general, who won the
Nobel Peace Prize last year, and Robert Joseph, the Under-Secretary of State
for Arms Control. Joseph's message was blunt, one diplomat recalled: "We
cannot have a single centrifuge spinning in Iran. Iran is a direct threat to
the national security of the United States and our allies, and we will not
tolerate it. We want you to give us an understanding that you will not say
anything publicly that will undermine us. "

    Joseph's heavy-handedness was unnecessary, the diplomat said, since the
I.A.E.A. already had been inclined to take a hard stand against Iran. "All
of the inspectors are angry at being misled by the Iranians, and some think
the Iranian leadership are nutcases - one hundred per cent totally certified
nuts," the diplomat said. He added that ElBaradei's overriding concern is
that the Iranian leaders "want confrontation, just like the neocons on the
other side" - in Washington. "At the end of the day, it will work only if
the United States agrees to talk to the Iranians."

    The central question - whether Iran will be able to proceed with its
plans to enrich uranium - is now before the United Nations, with the
Russians and the Chinese reluctant to impose sanctions on Tehran. A
discouraged former I.A.E.A. official told me in late March that, at this
point, "there's nothing the Iranians could do that would result in a
positive outcome. American diplomacy does not allow for it. Even if they
announce a stoppage of enrichment, nobody will believe them. It's a dead
end."

    Another diplomat in Vienna asked me, "Why would the West take the risk
of going to war against that kind of target without giving it to the
I.A.E.A. to verify? We're low-cost, and we can create a program that will
force Iran to put its cards on the table." A Western Ambassador in Vienna
expressed similar distress at the White House's dismissal of the I.A.E.A. He
said, "If you don't believe that the I.A.E.A. can establish an inspection
system - if you don't trust them - you can only bomb."

    There is little sympathy for the I.A.E.A. in the Bush Administration or
among its European allies. "We're quite frustrated with the
director-general," the European diplomat told me. "His basic approach has
been to describe this as a dispute between two sides with equal weight. It's
not. We're the good guys! ElBaradei has been pushing the idea of letting
Iran have a small nuclear-enrichment program, which is ludicrous. It's not
his job to push ideas that pose a serious proliferation risk."

    The Europeans are rattled, however, by their growing perception that
President Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney believe a bombing campaign
will be needed, and that their real goal is regime change. "Everyone is on
the same page about the Iranian bomb, but the United States wants regime
change," a European diplomatic adviser told me. He added, "The Europeans
have a role to play as long as they don't have to choose between going along
with the Russians and the Chinese or going along with Washington on
something they don't want. Their policy is to keep the Americans engaged in
something the Europeans can live with. It may be untenable."

    "The Brits think this is a very bad idea," Flynt Leverett, a former
National Security Council staff member who is now a senior fellow at the
Brookings Institution's Saban Center, told me, "but they're really worried
we're going to do it." The European diplomatic adviser acknowledged that the
British Foreign Office was aware of war planning in Washington but that,
"short of a smoking gun, it's going to be very difficult to line up the
Europeans on Iran." He said that the British "are jumpy about the Americans
going full bore on the Iranians, with no compromise."

    The European diplomat said that he was skeptical that Iran, given its
record, had admitted to everything it was doing, but "to the best of our
knowledge the Iranian capability is not at the point where they could
successfully run centrifuges" to enrich uranium in quantity. One reason for
pursuing diplomacy was, he said, Iran's essential pragmatism. "The regime
acts in its best interests," he said. Iran's leaders "take a hard-line
approach on the nuclear issue and they want to call the American bluff,"
believing that "the tougher they are the more likely the West will fold."
But, he said, "From what we've seen with Iran, they will appear
superconfident until the moment they back off."

    The diplomat went on, "You never reward bad behavior, and this is not
the time to offer concessions. We need to find ways to impose sufficient
costs to bring the regime to its senses. It's going to be a close call, but
I think if there is unity in opposition and the price imposed" - in
sanctions - "is sufficient, they may back down. It's too early to give up on
the U.N. route." He added, "If the diplomatic process doesn't work, there is
no military 'solution.' There may be a military option, but the impact could
be catastrophic."

    Tony Blair, the British Prime Minister, was George Bush's most
dependable ally in the year leading up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. But he
and his party have been racked by a series of financial scandals, and his
popularity is at a low point. Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, said last
year that military action against Iran was "inconceivable." Blair has been
more circumspect, saying publicly that one should never take options off the
table.

    Other European officials expressed similar skepticism about the value of
an American bombing campaign. "The Iranian economy is in bad shape, and
Ahmadinejad is in bad shape politically," the European intelligence official
told me. "He will benefit politically from American bombing. You can do it,
but the results will be worse." An American attack, he said, would alienate
ordinary Iranians, including those who might be sympathetic to the US "Iran
is no longer living in the Stone Age, and the young people there have access
to US movies and books, and they love it," he said. "If there was a charm
offensive with Iran, the mullahs would be in trouble in the long run."

    Another European official told me that he was aware that many in
Washington wanted action. "It's always the same guys," he said, with a
resigned shrug. "There is a belief that diplomacy is doomed to fail. The
timetable is short."

    A key ally with an important voice in the debate is Israel, whose
leadership has warned for years that it viewed any attempt by Iran to begin
enriching uranium as a point of no return. I was told by several officials
that the White House's interest in preventing an Israeli attack on a Muslim
country, which would provoke a backlash across the region, was a factor in
its decision to begin the current operational planning. In a speech in
Cleveland on March 20th, President Bush depicted Ahmadinejad's hostility
toward Israel as a "serious threat. It's a threat to world peace." He added,
"I made it clear, I'll make it clear again, that we will use military might
to protect our ally Israel."

    Any American bombing attack, Richard Armitage told me, would have to
consider the following questions: "What will happen in the other Islamic
countries? What ability does Iran have to reach us and touch us globally -
that is, terrorism? Will Syria and Lebanon up the pressure on Israel? What
does the attack do to our already diminished international standing? And
what does this mean for Russia, China, and the U.N. Security Council?"

    Iran, which now produces nearly four million barrels of oil a day, would
not have to cut off production to disrupt the world's oil markets. It could
blockade or mine the Strait of Hormuz, the thirty-four-mile-wide passage
through which Middle Eastern oil reaches the Indian Ocean. Nonetheless, the
recently retired defense official dismissed the strategic consequences of
such actions. He told me that the US Navy could keep shipping open by
conducting salvage missions and putting mine- sweepers to work. "It's
impossible to block passage," he said. The government consultant with ties
to the Pentagon also said he believed that the oil problem could be managed,
pointing out that the US has enough in its strategic reserves to keep
America running for sixty days. However, those in the oil business I spoke
to were less optimistic; one industry expert estimated that the price per
barrel would immediately spike, to anywhere from ninety to a hundred dollars
per barrel, and could go higher, depending on the duration and scope of the
conflict.

    Michel Samaha, a veteran Lebanese Christian politician and former
cabinet minister in Beirut, told me that the Iranian retaliation might be
focussed on exposed oil and gas fields in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, and
the United Arab Emirates. "They would be at risk," he said, "and this could
begin the real jihad of Iran versus the West. You will have a messy world."

    Iran could also initiate a wave of terror attacks in Iraq and elsewhere,
with the help of Hezbollah. On April 2nd, the Washington Post reported that
the planning to counter such attacks "is consuming a lot of time" at US
intelligence agencies. "The best terror network in the world has remained
neutral in the terror war for the past several years," the Pentagon adviser
on the war on terror said of Hezbollah. "This will mobilize them and put us
up against the group that drove Israel out of southern Lebanon. If we move
against Iran, Hezbollah will not sit on the sidelines. Unless the Israelis
take them out, they will mobilize against us." (When I asked the government
consultant about that possibility, he said that, if Hezbollah fired rockets
into northern Israel, "Israel and the new Lebanese government will finish
them off.")

    The adviser went on, "If we go, the southern half of Iraq will light up
like a candle." The American, British, and other coalition forces in Iraq
would be at greater risk of attack from Iranian troops or from Shiite
militias operating on instructions from Iran. (Iran, which is predominantly
Shiite, has close ties to the leading Shiite parties in Iraq.) A retired
four-star general told me that, despite the eight thousand British troops in
the region, "the Iranians could take Basra with ten mullahs and one sound
truck."

    "If you attack," the high-ranking diplomat told me in Vienna,
"Ahmadinejad will be the new Saddam Hussein of the Arab world, but with more
credibility and more power. You must bite the bullet and sit down with the
Iranians."

    The diplomat went on, "There are people in Washington who would be
unhappy if we found a solution. They are still banking on isolation and
regime change. This is wishful thinking." He added, "The window of
opportunity is now."

 

    Go to Original

    US Is Studying Military Strike Options on Iran
    By Peter Baker, Dafna Linzer and Thomas E. Ricks
    The Washington Post

    Sunday 09 April 2006

    Any mix of tact, threats alarms critics.

    The Bush administration is studying options for military strikes against
Iran as part of a broader strategy of coercive diplomacy to pressure Tehran
to abandon its alleged nuclear development program, according to US
officials and independent analysts.

    No attack appears likely in the short term, and many specialists inside
and outside the US government harbor serious doubts about whether an armed
response would be effective. But administration officials are preparing for
it as a possible option and using the threat "to convince them this is more
and more serious," as a senior official put it.

    According to current and former officials, Pentagon and CIA planners
have been exploring possible targets, such as the uranium enrichment plant
at Natanz and the uranium conversion facility at Isfahan. Although a land
invasion is not contemplated, military officers are weighing alternatives
ranging from a limited airstrike aimed at key nuclear sites, to a more
extensive bombing campaign designed to destroy an array of military and
political targets.

    Preparations for confrontation with Iran underscore how the issue has
vaulted to the front of President Bush's agenda even as he struggles with a
relentless war in next-door Iraq. Bush views Tehran as a serious menace that
must be dealt with before his presidency ends, aides said, and the White
House, in its new National Security Strategy, last month labeled Iran the
most serious challenge to the United States posed by any country.

    Many military officers and specialists, however, view the saber rattling
with alarm. A strike at Iran, they warn, would at best just delay its
nuclear program by a few years but could inflame international opinion
against the United States, particularly in the Muslim world and especially
within Iran, while making US troops in Iraq targets for retaliation.

    "My sense is that any talk of a strike is the diplomatic gambit to keep
pressure on others that if they don't help solve the problem, we will have
to," said Kori Schake, who worked on Bush's National Security Council staff
and teaches at the US Military Academy at West Point, N.Y.

    Others believe it is more than bluster. "The Bush team is looking at the
viability of airstrikes simply because many think airstrikes are the only
real option ahead," said Kurt Campbell, a former Pentagon policy official.

    The intensified discussion of military scenarios comes as the United
States is working with European allies on a diplomatic solution. After tough
negotiations, the U.N. Security Council issued a statement last month urging
Iran to re-suspend its uranium enrichment program. But Russia and China,
both veto-wielding council members, forced out any mention of consequences
and are strongly resisting any sanctions.

    US officials continue to pursue the diplomatic course but privately seem
increasingly skeptical that it will succeed. The administration is also
coming under pressure from Israel, which has warned the Bush team that Iran
is closer to developing a nuclear bomb than Washington thinks and that a
moment of decision is fast approaching.

    Bush and his team have calibrated their rhetoric to give the impression
that the United States may yet resort to force. In January, the president
termed a nuclear-armed Iran "a grave threat to the security of the world,"
words that echoed language he used before the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Vice
President Cheney vowed "meaningful consequences" if Iran does not give up
any nuclear aspirations, and U.N. Ambassador John R. Bolton refined the
formula to "tangible and painful consequences."

    Although Bush insists he is focused on diplomacy for now, he volunteered
at a public forum in Cleveland last month his readiness to use force if
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad tries to follow through on his
statement that Israel should be "wiped off the map."

    "The threat from Iran is, of course, their stated objective to destroy
our strong ally, Israel," Bush said. "That's a threat, a serious threat. . .
. I'll make it clear again that we will use military might to protect our
ally Israel."

    Bush has also been privately consulting with key senators about options
on Iran as part of a broader goal of regime change, according to an account
by Seymour M. Hersh in the New Yorker magazine.

    The US government has taken some preliminary steps that go beyond
planning. The Washington Post has reported that the military has been
secretly flying surveillance drones over Iran since 2004 using radar, video,
still photography and air filters to detect traces of nuclear activity not
accessible to satellites. Hersh reported that US combat troops have been
ordered to enter Iran covertly to collect targeting data, but sources have
not confirmed that to The Post.

    The British government has launched its own planning for a potential US
strike, studying security arrangements for its embassy and consular offices,
for British citizens and corporate interests in Iran and for ships in the
region and British troops in Iraq. British officials indicate their
government is unlikely to participate directly in any attacks.

    Israel is preparing, as well. The government recently leaked a
contingency plan for attacking on its own if the United States does not, a
plan involving airstrikes, commando teams, possibly missiles and even
explosives-carrying dogs. Israel, which bombed Iraq's Osirak nuclear plant
in 1981 to prevent it from being used to develop weapons, has built a
replica of Natanz, according to Israeli media, but US strategists do not
believe Israel has the capacity to accomplish the mission without nuclear
weapons.

    Iran appears to be taking the threat seriously. The government, which
maintains its nuclear activity is only for peaceful, civilian uses, has
launched a program to reinforce key sites, such as Natanz and Isfahan, by
building concrete ceilings, tunneling into mountains and camouflaging
facilities. Iran lately has tested several missiles in a show of strength.

    Israel points to those missiles to press their case in Washington.
Israeli officials traveled here recently to convey more urgency about Iran.
Although US intelligence agencies estimate Iran is about a decade away from
having a nuclear bomb, Israelis believe a critical breakthrough could occur
within months. They told US officials that Iran is beginning to test a more
elaborate cascade of centrifuges, indicating that it is further along than
previously believed.

    "What the Israelis are saying is this year -- unless they are pressured
into abandoning the program -- would be the year they will master the
engineering problem," a US official said. "That would be a turning point,
but it wouldn't mean they would have a bomb."

    But various specialists and some military officials are resisting
strikes.

    "The Pentagon is arguing forcefully against it because it is so
constrained" in Iraq and Afghanistan, said Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former CIA
Middle East specialist. A former defense official who stays in touch with
colleagues added, "I don't think anybody's prepared to use the military
option at this point."

    As the administration weighs these issues, two main options are under
consideration, according to one person with contacts among Air Force
planners. The first would be a quick and limited strike against
nuclear-related facilities accompanied by a threat to resume bombing if Iran
responds with terrorist attacks in Iraq or elsewhere. The second calls for a
more ambitious campaign of bombing and cruise missiles leveling targets well
beyond nuclear facilities, such as Iranian intelligence headquarters, the
Revolutionary Guard and some in the government.

    Any extended attack would require US forces to cripple Iran's air
defense system and air force, prepare defenses for US ground forces in Iraq
and Afghanistan and move Navy ships to the Persian Gulf to protect shipping.
US forces could launch warplanes from aircraft carriers, from the Diego
Garcia island base in the Indian Ocean and, in the case of stealth bombers,
from the United States. But if generals want land-based aircraft in the
region, they face the uphill task of trying to persuade Turkey to allow use
of the US air base at Incirlik.

    Planners also are debating whether launching attacks from Iraq or using
Iraqi airspace would exacerbate the political cost in the Muslim world,
which would see it as proof that the United States invaded Iraq to make it a
base for military conquest of the region.

    Unlike the Israeli air attack on Osirak, a strike on Iran would prove
more complex because Iran has spread its facilities across the country,
guarded some of them with sophisticated antiaircraft batteries and shielded
them underground.

    Pentagon planners are studying how to penetrate eight-foot-deep targets
and are contemplating tactical nuclear devices. The Natanz facility consists
of more than two dozen buildings, including two huge underground halls built
with six-foot walls and supposedly protected by two concrete roofs with sand
and rocks in between, according to Edward N. Luttwak, a specialist at the
Center for Strategic and International Studies.

    "The targeteers honestly keep coming back and saying it will require
nuclear penetrator munitions to take out those tunnels," said Kenneth M.
Pollack, a former CIA analyst. "Could we do it with conventional munitions?
Possibly. But it's going to be very difficult to do."

    Retired Air Force Col. Sam Gardiner, an expert in targeting and war
games who teaches at the National Defense University, recently gamed an Iran
attack and identified 24 potential nuclear-related facilities, some below 50
feet of reinforced concrete and soil.

    At a conference in Berlin, Gardiner outlined a five-day operation that
would require 400 "aim points," or targets for individual weapons, at
nuclear facilities, at least 75 of which would require penetrating weapons.
He also presumed the Pentagon would hit two chemical production plants,
medium-range ballistic missile launchers and 14 airfields with sheltered
aircraft. Special Operations forces would be required, he said.

    Gardiner concluded that a military attack would not work, but said he
believes the United States seems to be moving inexorably toward it. "The
Bush administration is very close to being left with only the military
option," he said.

    Others forecast a more surgical strike aimed at knocking out a single
"choke point" that would disrupt the Iranian nuclear program. "The process
can be broken at any point," a senior administration official said. "But
part of the risk is: We don't know if Natanz is the only enrichment
facility. We could bomb it, take the political cost and still not set them
back."

    Joseph Cirincione of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said
a more likely target might be Isfahan, which he visited last year and which
appeared lightly defended and above-ground. But he argued that any attack
would only firm up Iranian resolve to develop weapons. "Whatever you do," he
said, "is almost certain to accelerate a nuclear bomb program rather than
destroy it."