Any wagers on when we invade Iran

[JoesHO]

I am saying right here and Now, I think we will be engaged Iran before the end of June 2006. I will put $100.00 into a pot ( closest one to te day wins the pot)

so my day is 6/28/06

[Nickatilynx]

IMHO , this means we are headed towards WW3.

I believe the Mayan astrological calender says the world ends Dec 23 2012.

:(

[Mike AI]

http://debka.com/article.php?aid=940

Better be sooner then later

To Destroy Iran’s Nuclear Bomb Program, 350 Targets Must Be Hit

DEBKAfile Special Report

November 19, 2004, 9:41 PM (GMT+02:00)


Covert "shaved" site show here was moved to Nour nuclear suburb.


No one familiar with Iran’s record of broken promises on its hidden nuclear weapons program will be surprised by the allegations leveled against Tehran this week.

On Wednesday, November 17, outgoing US secretary of state Colin Powell said to reporters during a South American tour: US has intelligence that Iran is working to adapt missiles for the delivery of nuclear weapons. “I have seen information that they not only have the missiles but are working hard to put the two together.”

The highly classified, unverified information Powell referred to was described in more detail by the Washington Post the next day: According to one official with access to the material, a “walk-in” source approached US intelligence earlier this month with more than 1,000 pages purported to be Iranian drawings and technical documents, including a nuclear warhead design and modifications to enable Iranian ballistic missiles to delivery an atomic strike. The warhead design is based on implosion and adjustments aimed at fitting the warhead on existing Iranian missiles.

DEBKAfile’s military experts believe the data referred to the Shehab-3 and its improved version, the Shehab-4.

The US official said he would not have revealed this much had not Powell alluded to the intelligence publicly. If the information is confirmed, it would mean the Islamic republic is further along than previously known in developing a nuclear weapon and the means to deliver it.

It would also mean that Tehran has been stringing along the International Atomic Energy Agency – the IAEA – and the three European powers, Britain, France and Germany, in months of negotiation. The upshot was an Iranian promise to the three, which was trumpeted this week, to suspend uranium enrichment for an indefinite period in three days time, in return for magnanimous incentives. Such promises have been made before and never last long. Three days later, on November 25, the International Atomic Energy Agency – the IAEA – holds a board meeting in Vienna. It must decide whether to accept Iran’s latest promise or refer Iran’s nuclear breaches to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions.

Teheran therefore delivered its pledge in a race for time to save itself from sanctions that could threaten the Islamic republic’s regime’s survival.

DEBKA-Net-Weekly 182 just out on Friday, November 19, was the first publication to name the Nour garden suburb of Lavizan in northeast Tehran as yet another covert site Iran has concealed from the IAEA. There, not only is enrichment going forward but also tests on lethal gases and weaponized biological agents.

According to DEBKAfile’s Washington sources, the Pentagon’s most recent game model on military measures to dispose of Iran’s nuclear threat concludes it will be necessary to topple the Islamic republic’s regime at the same time.

The first stage would be a bombing mission against the regime’s primary prop, the Revolutionary Guards.

The second stage would be the destruction of known and probable nuclear sites – a much harder mission given the hundreds of sites known and unknown number and carefully camouflaged underground behind cunning window-dressing. US intelligence estimates as many as 350 sites. It does not have precise knowledge of which are the most important or even which are active.

Regime change in stage three would entail ground action.

At present, there are no air bases within range for carrying out stages two and three. Sufficient US troops for overthrowing the regime would pose a problem given Iran’s land area of four times that of Iraq.

Furthermore, there is no assurance that Iran would wait for stages 2 or even 3. Iranian agents may well pre-empt US action or retaliate by sabotage strikes or terrorist action inside America.

Co-opting Israel’s air might to the operation poses problems too. The Israelis are found to know as little about the locations of installations as the Americans. To reach Iran, Israeli warplanes would have to fly east over Saudi Arabia and Jordan, or north over Turkey. The distance of some targets, such as Iran’s nuclear sites in the Caspian Sea region, is too great for Israeli planes to make the round trip.

Notwithstanding these impediments, America cannot afford to give up its military option and must keep it afloat as a deterrent, say the authors of the Pentagon game model.

A sample out of Iran’s bag of hide-and-seek tricks with the international nuclear watchdog was exposed in DEBKA-Net-Weekly 160 on June 4, 2004:

The most secret section of the latest report the International Atomic Energy Agency’s director Mohammed ElBaradai has drafted on Iran’s nuclear program is also the most embarrassing for the international nuclear watchdog. We reveal exclusively that when inspectors arrived in Iran in mid-May and asked to revisit installations they saw in February or April, they were astonished to find empty spaces. When they questioned their Iranian escorts, they were greeted with blank stares. “What installations?” the officials asked.

The inspectors pulled out photos from previous visits and showed the Iranian officials what had been there before. The Iranians dismissed them as having been shot in other places that looked the same - or grafted there by “hostile intelligence bodies.”

When the inspectors persevered and reported the existence of aerial photos showing the exact location of the missing facilities, the Iranians shrugged.

The amazing fact is that the Iranians had dismantled and swept away all the structures containing incriminating evidence of continuing uranium enrichment for weapons production so completely that there was no sign a building had ever stood there. The fresh flowerbeds were still in the same places as before but lawns had been extended to cover the sites, most probably with thick layers of earth. All the inspectors could do was to remove soil samples and take them away.

According to our sources, US officials involved in the Iranian nuclear issue have no doubt that the installations were not destroyed but removed to secret subterranean sites probably built under military bases scattered around the country and that the Iranians are industriously advancing their forbidden programs.

Five months later, we have discovered one of those clandestine destinations to be the Nour “nuclear suburb” of Tehran.

[JoesHO]

I am guessing the strategy is to keep fighting in Iraq, and afghanistan,
in order to justify buidling bigger and bigger forces, and once that is achieved, i bet we strike!!

The real question is will we be prepared to hold south Korea, and or Taiwan, if other societies decide that they do not want us to have the full power of ruling the strategic middle east, with out giving up some other power spots in order to still achieve balance. is it that hard of a step to think that one of those two, if not both will rise up and look to make that move rather than to sit idle and watch and wonder if and when it is their turn?

should we still go in unilateral? and without SOLID proof....?

[JoesHO]

Remember the last time Powell made such reckless circumstantial statements, it was proven that he lied ( wilfully or unintentional is still out for debate) but the fact is he was wrong...

should we do that as a policy rather than at least try to maintain some discretion in our statemnts? or do we believe we are intimidating the enemy?

[Almighty Colin]

Originally posted by JoesHO1@Nov 19 2004, 08:21 PM
Remember the last time Powell made such reckless circumstantial statements, it was proven that he lied ( wilfully or unintentional is still out for debate) but the fact is he was wrong...

should we do that as a policy rather than at least try to maintain some discretion in our statemnts? or do we believe we are intimidating the enemy?
Such statements are not new in any adminstration. The Clinton administration, for example, made the same statements about Iraqi WMD development as Bush's. So did the rest of the world. Google to ya. Same thing on Iran. Sanctions were placed on Iran in the mid 1990s because it was deemed likely that they were attempting to develop nuclear weapons. This was economic warfare based on "intelligence". Wars have started as a result of such events. Why did Pearl Harbor happen? Even the invasion of a country on the basic of intelligence is not new. It's even happened in the US before. How did the Spanish American War start?

I think the US, like everyone else, should continue to make such statements.

The UN and IAEA have stated non proliferation as their goals. What should be the consequences of developing nuclear programs in defiance of these organizations? I think it is the greatest issue of our times. I think it was for the past 50 years and it has already been screwed up multiple times. Should we continue to let the world arm? I am worried that "Mutual Assured Destruction" will only lead to "Mutual Assured Destruction". Maybe it won't. Who knows? Why take chances? Most of the world is already on board with the principle of non-proliferation.

I am not advocating invading Iran on circumstantial or any other such evidence. I really don't know the solution and i'm not going to pretend there is a solution. What is the proper response to state sponsored terror and proliferation? Reagan's solution was to bomb, Clinton's solution was to bomb, Bush's solution was to invade. Who knows? Maybe we go back to bombing.

If the security council would agree on more vigorous and unlimited inspection terms backed up by the willingness to intervene with military action I think proliferation would stop. If a nation fails to comply with inspections at any time, military action would remove the leaders of that nation. I think this would have prevented Saddam from his continual decade of noncompliance and all the bombings and eventual invasion. The full weight of the security council would lend the authority neccessary to force compliance. As it is right now, the security council's greatest threat is pushing paper and that - as always - is having no effect.

The US failed in that it invaded a nation that had no WMDs based on "intelligence". The UN failed in that it threatened Saddam's continual noncompliance with nothing but more words.

I prefer Bush's unilateral interventions - and Clinton's more limited ones for that matter - and a divided UN to the prospect of a nuclear Iran, Syria, or North Korea. I'd much prefer that the UN Security Council realize signing papers isn't going to stop these nations from developing WMDs. Is there anyone that disagrees that the UN paperworks factory is not going to stop such states from defiantly developing WMDs. We have paper but the other guys have scissors. We can stop them with rocks.

The UN exists not just to stop wars from happening. It exists to prevent the security fears such as those that lead to World War I and many other wars for that matter. After 9/11, the world's most powerful nation now has a security fear that the UN seems unwilling or unable to resolve. The possible combination of WMDs developed by a state getting into the hands of powerful and well-funded international terrorist organization is now the security issue of the millenium. What will the UN do to ease this situation? If nothing, it has failed as an organization and wars will be the result.

I think the US has an obligation to get this point across better with the UN and attempt to affect a fundamental change in how the organization handles such threats. I don't think the US has done a good job yet (neither in the 90s or the 00s). If it is not possible - if the world does not agree on the seriousness of the thread - continued unilateral actions are likely to be the rule of the day leading to a possible failure and maybe even dissolution of the UN. I believe this is the choice the world faces. I don't think any of that will change in 2008.

[Almighty Colin]

Originally posted by Colin@Nov 20 2004, 06:41 AM
continued unilateral actions are likely to be the rule of the day
My apologies to the Brits and Australians on this board and all their nation's soldiers. Of course, there was no "unilateral" action. I was almost brainwashed there. That was a close one.

[PeerPatrick]

I heard osama is there, hiding, laughing at us! Let's go get em!

Ever notice the first warhawks to ugre attack, demand retribution and make "sacrifices" are always too old and impotent to actually do any of the killing and dying?

"Here Demagogue eat my children, rip their heads off and drink deep from their neck the rich red goodness. Don't worry about their lives, I'll just make more."

What if everyone who voted for Bush had the chance/pleasure/honor to give their childrens lives to his bone machine...poetic or pathetic?

"There was one who was great by virtue of his power, and one who was great by virtue of his hope, and one who was great by virtue of his love, but Abraham was the greatest of all, great by that power whose strength is powerlessness, great by that wisdom which is foolishness, great by that hope whose form is madness, great by the love that is hatred to oneself. :salute: -->Søren Kierkegaard
"Fear and Trembling- Eulogy on Abraham"

[PeerPatrick]

hey Joe, back to your question, i got a Benjamin on 1Q 2005. the sheeples will need something to divert their minds from the impending economic collapse.

[Almighty Colin]

Originally posted by PeerPatrick@Nov 20 2004, 08:24 AM
Ever notice the first warhawks to ugre attack, demand retribution and make "sacrifices" are always too old and impotent to actually do any of the killing and dying?
I don't think you've discovered anything of note here. You have to be 30 to be a US Senator. Unless you want to go back to the times of when the leaders of nations led on the battlefields too. That was a long time ago though.

[JoesHO]

Originally posted by PeerPatrick@Nov 20 2004, 05:32 AM
hey Joe, back to your question, i got a Benjamin on 1Q 2005. the sheeples will need something to divert their minds from the impending economic collapse.
Right on, so the Pot is at $200.00

[Almighty Colin]

Originally posted by PeerPatrick@Nov 20 2004, 08:32 AM
hey Joe, back to your question, i got a Benjamin on 1Q 2005. the sheeples will need something to divert their minds from the impending economic collapse.
Yup, people who agree with me are educated and well-informed. Those who disagree are sheep, cattle and lemmings, oh my! That's ingenious. Who'd you copy it from?

So are you referring to the pending economic collapse predicted in the 70s, 80s, or 90s? Or is this a new one?

[SykkBoy]

Originally posted by Colin@Nov 20 2004, 08:57 AM
Yup, people who agree with me are educated and well-informed. Those who disagree are sheep, cattle and lemmings, oh my! That's ingenious. Who'd you copy it from?

MikeAI?
;-)))