Bush Determined to Hit Iran

Senior intelligence and defense officials have expressed concerns that Bush and his inner circle are quietly repeating the same steps they took to sell the Iraq invasion; this time in order to sell an outright attack on Iran. The belief is that he does not want to leave office without first ensuring that Iran is not capable of developing a nuclear weapon.

In a chilling scenario of how war might come, a senior intelligence officer warned that public denunciation of Iranian meddling in Iraq - arming and training militants - would lead to cross border raids on Iranian training camps and bomb factories. This is hardly a mere scenario - this has already been playing out in real life over the summer.

The obvious target, the Fajr base in southern Iran, is home to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and is the manufacturing site for armour-piercing projectiles that some have claimed to have been used against British and US forces.



Under the theory - which is gaining credence in Washington security circles - US action would provoke a major Iranian response, perhaps in the form of moves to cut off Gulf oil supplies, providing a trigger for air strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities and even its armed forces. Indeed, Pentagon planners have already developed a list of up to 2,000 bombing targets in Iran.



Intelligence reports state that the US military has "two major contingency plans" for air strikes on Iran:

"One is to bomb only the nuclear facilities. The second option is for a much bigger strike that would - over two or three days - hit all of the significant military sites as well. This plan involves more than 2,000 targets."