MILNET Brief
  Direct Action Against Iran, September 2004
Updated 02/16/07

"Iran has now declared that it will place the Natanz facility under IAEA inspection to ensure that its output is used only for non-military purposes; under existing IAEA rules Iran need not do the same for the Arak plant. But inspections will not solve the Iranian nuclear challenge..."

- Leonard Spector, YaleGlobal Online, 5/16/2003 1


"We have already made clear that we have already reprocessed 8,000 wasted fuel rods and transformed them into arms...We declared that we weaponized this."  Choe said North Korea has been left with "no other option but to possess a nuclear deterrent"

-Vice Foreign Minister Choe Su Hon, 9/27/2004  16

See Also the MILNET Briefing:  "Israeli Land Attack Plan Against Iran"

The difficulty in direct action against any nuclear program is the quality of intelligence and vulnerability of the targets.  MILNET has looked at several public sources and consulted with several tactical planners with the goal at figuring out how to eliminate or effectively imped the Iranian nuclear program. 

At the offset we should state that we did not take into account collateral damage to any degree.  We know that collateral damage would occur in any attack,  regardless of how accurate the weapons used are.  It is our believe, as cold hearted as it sounds (easy to be cold hearted from our easy chairs), the stakes involved when considering the alternatives to allowing Iran to complete a viable nuclear weapon far outweigh our conscience.  Especially if Iran has placed their nuclear weapons development facilities near innocents, a questionable public safety issue without consideration of the tactical situation.

Second, we ruled out the use of a tactical nuclear weapon bunker buster, a very sound technique for taking out buried and hardened facilities of the type that is likely to be encountered in our planning.  The rationale is simple, we find it difficult to imagine a political environment that would allow the deployment of any sort of nuclear weapon.  Technically, a tactical nuclear weapon can be recreated by use of multiple large bombs, and would be only slightly more damaging to the environment.  Long term radiation effects are also much less than any of the of the other actual bomb drops, Hiroshima or Nagasaki, due to "less dirty" technology.  However, this does not matter. Use of nuclear weapons is not politically viable.  10 MOABs are permissible however, and certainly will do similar damage to a surface target.  40 1000 pound bunker busters are also quite effective, and with precise placement could easily penetrate the walls of a two meter thick bunker, and destroy the contents from internal over pressure.

All this assumes, again, good intelligence.  Our analysts do not believe that the U.S. has the HUMINT necessary to pinpoint ALL the key facilities to eliminate the Iranian program.  This begs the question -- "Wouldn't a strike only delay the inevitable and foster renewed urgency to complete the very research we wish to eliminate?"  The answer of course is yes.  However, each delay is also accompanied with huge reconstruction costs, and perhaps more visible new facility creation activity and exposing links to suppliers of new equipment.  The overall result could very well lead to even more exposure of the program elements and thus provide either more targets for direct attack or sanctions.

Third this analysis ignores completely the grand debate society at the U.N.  Any attack on Iran's facilities would require a unilateral decision at worst and small coalition at best.  MILNET has consistently stated that the U.N. cannot be depended upon to advocate violence, even though in the real world violence is necessary to protect any nation's security.  Pacifists and anti-war protesters need not write, we have heard it all before and frankly, we believe those stances are as irrelevant as the U.N.


The Targets

In order to plan direct action, you need a list of targets.  The following list should provide the reader with a summary of possible targets.  We will attempt to link to satellite photos, however have not purchased any photos for our own use.  If the link dies, we apologize up front, it was a working link when we completed the article.  Note the material below is from public sources, ostensibly from the Michael Knights report and others as listed in the sources section.

Site
 Nuclear Use
 Method of Attack
Mining/Milling
Central Iran including Narigan, Khoshomi, Zarigan, Chah – juleh, Esfordi, Lakeh – Siah and Ariz,
Saghand 185 km ne of Yazd, yellow cake facility
Site 35 km north of Ardakan city by the of Isfahan- Chadormaloo also in Khorassan, Sistan va Baluchestan, and Hormozgan Provinces, and in Bandar e Abbas and Badar-e Lengeh
 Produces ore to be used in centrifuges
 Not viable unless you can permanent contaminate the ground such that material is unusable -- for instance a tactical nuclear weapon could be used but such a weapon is not politically viable.
UF 6 Facilities
Rudan Center at Shiraz (Fasa?)
28°56'19"N 53°38'58"E

 Uranium hexaflouride used in preparation of weapons grade material
 A primary target, however may require some precise targeting and multiple strikes.  It is thought that the actual conversion facility is underground, and a surface attack will only serve to destroy source and output lines, or gas storage tanks which can easily be replaced.
Cyclotron Facilities
Karaj Nuclear Facilities
Bonab Atomic Energy Research Center
 Calutron and Cyclotrons used in uranium enrichment
Uranium Enrichment,
Natanz
Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant (PFEP)
Large-scale commercial scale Fuel Enrichment Plant (FEP), 120 miles South of Tehran, 250 miles NE from nearest Iraqi border.
 1000+ centrifuges, estimated to reach 5000 by 2005.
 Centrifuge facilities are in hardened bunker behind, two meter thick walls.  Analysts believe however that while difficult, multiple strikes are able to penetrate.  This is not an easy task, but doable.
Fuel Fabrication and bomb assembly
Unknown
 Used to prepare the material for actual machining to fit the bombs framework
 No public source of information on the whereabouts of these facilities is likely to emerge unless someone writes to the Washington Post to leak it.  This is a hot target for intelligence gathering. Intelligence analysts do not believe the U.S. has HUMINT which is capable of getting close enough to uncover this information, and even if the U.S. did have such HUMINT, we'd never hear about it.
Plutonium Production
Heavy water reactors
Arak
heavy water production plant located 150 miles south of Tehran, 200 miles NE of nearest Iraqi border
Also a 40 MW IR-40
Bushehr
1000 MW nuclear power reactor in southwestern Iran (approx. 80 miles SE of Kuwait on the Persian Gulf)
Isafahan
UF6 facility 200 miles NE from nearest Iraqi Border, 200 miles south of Tehran
 Puts the big bang in the weapon
 Nuclear plants are the source for this material, and killing the source is easy, however, storage is easy and hard to find.  The time for this kind of attack has long since passed in terms of stopping the current bomb manufacturing activity, however, to prevent further manufacturing these sites are easily taken out with air power, may require a few bunker busters on containment vessels. High collateral damage, as radiation will be released on any active reactors.
Plutonium Reprocessing Plants
Unknown
 Part of enrichment program
 This is the ideal production step for mobile or quickly constructed sites that process than are disposed of.  Live span is under the time necessary to detect and mount an attack and are therefore not viable.
Zirconium Production Plant
15 kilometers south – east of Esfahan with Magnesium production unit nearby as well as large areas of engineering support
 Required material for construction of certain elements of nuclear plants
 Dual use technology and production, and most likely much of needed material has already been manufactured. However, a direct action program might still target Zirconium production facilities to delay or partially inhibit replacement of parts destroyed in an attack.
Waste Treatment Facilities
Karadj
40 km from the capital
Anarak
 		Required to process reactor facilities waste output,
Could also be used to provide input to a reprocessing centrifuge facility that would decrease the time necessary  produce weapons grade material.  In any case, damage to waste processing facilities requires cleanup time and expenditure of funds and resources that might detract from repair and regeneration of other attacked facilities. And clearly, if there is no waste processing facilities, reactors may have to be taken off line or waste to be dumped, decisions that should delay reactor operations.
Training Facilities
 Esfahan Nuclear Fuel Research and Processing Center
Small Uranium Conversion Facilities (UCF) and Zirconium Production Plant (ZPP)
Miniature Neutron Source reactor (MNSR); Light Water Sub-Critical Reactor (LWSCR); Heavy Water Zero Power Reactor (HWZPR); Fuel Fabrication Laboratory (FFL); Uranium Chemistry Laboratory (UCL); Graphite Sub-Critical Reactor, decommissioned (GSCR); and the Fuel Manufacturing Plant (FMP).
at  N32°40' E51°40'

The University of Isfahan has a unique location at the foot of the Kuh Sofeh (Sofeh mountain, 32°35'00"N 51°38'00"E)

Jaber Ibn Hayyan (JHL) Research Laboratory
Located in Tehran at the Tehran Nuclear Research Center, conducts nuclear research, process, engineering science, instrumental analysis and operation safety including UF6 and UF4 with "missing" gas excused as leaks.  Also has produced UO2
a.ka. Ibn Haytham Laboratories
Tehran Research Reactor (TRR)
location features a Molybdenum, Iodine and Xenon Radioisotope Production Facility (MIX Facility), and the Jabr Ibn Hayan Multipurpose Laboratories (JHL). conducts  uranium Laser enrichment and the inertial-confinement fusion are also studied. 		Required to train R &D and operational employees
 This target is a futures only target, that is, to reduce the number of knowledgeable employees in any future expansion of facilities.  Unfortunately, this facility can be temporarily replace with sophisticated simulation facilities hidden at any university or industrial complex, broadening the target list beyond the viable.  However, an attack here will force movement of training to clandestine locations will impede and delay the program.  For this reason the attacks should be designed to take out researchers and students to impede or destroy the later ability to reconstitute facilities in secret.
Engineering Resources
Pishgam Energy Industries Development Company
Supplies  architecture, Structure, Civil, Pressure Vessel and Tank Design, Piping, HVAC, Electrical Systems, Communication Systems, Process, Control and Instrumentation, Inspection and Non-Destructive-Testing (NDT) and also Supervision of construction and installation works of industrial projects		 Commercial contractors are required to build reactor and processing facilities
 Typically smaller countries do not have a multitude of second sources as is the case of Iran. Destroying this commercial entity would prevent, at a minimum, rapid reconstruction after an attack, thus could be a high value target.  The target would include warehousing and manufacturing facilities as well as locations of management and engineering teams.

Map
 Chart
3 Main Sites


More sites

The targets above are not listed in any particular order.  That is not adequate for targeting.  In order to build a targeting plan you need to prioritize targets based on such things as strategic value, value to the target nation in general, and of course monetary value.  For instance a full up nuclear power plant would cost billions to replace. And while Iran has more than adequate funds, those funds are perhaps spent on much more important things at present, and certainly no amount of funds can overcome sanctions and an increased sensitivity to nonproliferation.  Indeed if this was not the case, Iran's current program would have taken a lot less time than over twenty years to achieve.

Any intelligence that points with high probability as current active final enrichement or weapons build facilities should be targeted with the highest priority.  However, it is unlikely the bombs or bomb skeleton locations will ever be discovered until well after the first test of an Iranian nuclear device.

Any attack should be timed to ensure simultaneous destruction and to reduce alert of any air defense capabilities surrounding the targets.  Indeed, an assessment of clusters of air defense facilities might point to where to look for covert facilties.  Air Defense Suppression should be accomplished with a first wave of cruise missiles.

The table below lists the targets by priority and states the rationale:

#
 Site
 Reason
 Rationale
1
 Bushehr Financial
 Perhaps the most expensive facility and easily destroyed with a minimum of weapons, also quite ideal, for the most part, with cruise missiles.  Containment vessels may require a bunker buster, however, and MILNET does not have information that confirms a bunker buster capable cruise missile, thus requiring an attack with aircraft.  All other surface features can be oblitered with one or two MOABs placed properly making this a high availability as well as high priority target.  A large number of cruise missiles would be required to produce equivalent damage that an air-fuel designed weapon would deliver to surface features of the plant.  This needs to be a wide area destruction attack.
2
 Arak Financial
 This heavy water reactor is new technology and thus may be more expensive to replace, however, unless it is in production or near being put into production, the facility could wait and serve as a high value target that could be destroyed later -- using it as a lever to prevent Iran from retaliating against U.S. targets. A large number of cruise missiles would be required to produce equivalent damage that an air-fuel designed weapon would deliver to surface features of the plant.  This needs to be a wide area destruction attack.
3
 Natanz
 Strategic
Financial
Future
 This pilot fuel enrichment program site could easily be the number one priority and should receive separate and redundant targeting.  In any attack it is a MUST to be destroyed.  However, it is certainly not the only enrichment facility and indeed may be only one of several if not a dozen (smaller) sites that could be found throughout the country.  This facility is deep underground and will require successive attacks and ultimately bunker buster technology.  This will most certainly require high delivery aircraft such as B-52, B-1B, or B-2A bombers.
4
 Rudan
 Tactical
Future
 This UF6 facility is necessarily destroyed to prevent or delay future enrichment activity.  It should be attacked with numerous cruise missiles and at peak operating hours to ensure destruction of equipment and personnel.
5
 Pishgam Energy Industries Development Company Strategic
Tactical
Financial
Future		 The location is required for reconstitution of any facility destroyed in an attack as well as day to day engineering support for currently active operation of most nuclear facilities.  Several MOAB may be necessary or multiple smaller air-fuel type bombs could be used to eliminate surface facilities. Some on-site enginnering facilities at various nuclear sites may require bunker buster type technology. A large number of cruise missiles would be required to produce equivalent damage that an air-fuel designed weapon would deliver to surface features of the plant.  This needs to be a wide area destruction attack.
6
 TRR
 		Strategic
Future		 The Tehran Research Reactor is one of three targets in Tehran that must be eliminated, and if in the attack researchers are killed, than all the better. For this reason, the attack should be via cruise missile and during high workload hours with the majority of employees at work.  To be targeted would be buildings identified as the MIX and uranium Laser enrichment facilities as well as surrounding support buildings. A large number of cruise missiles would be required to produce equivalent damage that an air-fuel designed weapon would deliver to surface features of the plant.  This needs to be a wide area destruction attack.
7
 JHL
Strategic
Future		 The Jaber Ibn Hayyan (JHL) Research Laboratory has a number of sub components that must be elminated utterly. Multiple attacks with assessment between them to ensure obliteration is necessary.  Attention should also be paid to engineering support and prototype processing facilities as well as employees -- specificially research staff and students.  A large number of cruise missiles would be required to produce equivalent damage that an air-fuel designed weapon would deliver to surface features of the plant.  This needs to be a wide area destruction attack.
8
 Esfahan Strategic
Future		 The Esfahan facility is attached to the Isfahan University complex and is tightly integrated to that institution. Unfortunately that means that the student body becomes at risk.  This is a common plight of strategic planners -- the students make up, in a small part, the potential future scientists who would conduct research at the Esfahan facility and later at the various nuclear facilities in the country.  Therefore the strike should be implemented with cruise missiles and during the peak operating hours optimized to catch researchers and their students at work.
9
 Karaj
 Future
 Cyclotron facility used in enrichment becomes a target to disable future weapons production
10
 Bonab
 Future
 Cyclotron facility used in enrichment becomes a target to disable future weapons production
11
 ZPP
 Tactical
Future
 The Zirconium Production Plant east of Esfahan must also be eliminated, as part of a effort to prevent future reconstitution, the necessary production for current capabilities has most likely already occurred. A large number of cruise missiles would be required to produce equivalent damage that an air-fuel designed weapon would deliver to surface features of the plant.  This needs to be a wide area destruction attack.
12
 Karadj
 Tactical
Future
 The waste facility at this location must be destroyed to halt further large scale reactor production, hopefully to result in impeding or halting production of future weapons grade material. A large number of cruise missiles would be required to produce equivalent damage that an air-fuel designed weapon would deliver to surface features of the plant.  This needs to be a wide area destruction attack.
13
 Anarak
 Tactical
Future		 The waste facility at this location must be destroyed to halt further large scale reactor production, hopefully to result in impeding or halting production of future weapons grade material.  A large number of cruise missiles would be required to produce equivalent damage that an air-fuel designed weapon would deliver to surface features of the plant.  This needs to be a wide area destruction attack.




The Mission

The mission to take out Iranian nuclear facilities would be a six pronged attack using a combination of cruise missiles to suppress air defense facilities, as well as reduce U.S. (and coaliton if involved) losses.  Use of aircraft capable of carrying small air-fuel weapons would be highly desirable, or if air superiority is attained for a long enough period, larger MOAB carrying aircraft could be used.

The first element (4 aircraft or 20 cruise missiles) aircraft would attack the Bonab and Tabriz facilities by flying NE from Iraq with minimal collateral damage.

The second element (15 aircraft or 60 cruise missiles) would fly NE from Iraq to a point over the Caspian Sea, then head south to  attack  the Mollem Kalaych and Challush facilities NW of Tehran, and the Neka Facility NE of Tehran with low collateral damage.  Attacked next (or in parallel) would be the Tehran Research Reactor facility in Tehran with high collateral damage and the Karaj facility SW of Tehran with minimal collateral damage.  Cruise missiles would necessairly launched from ships in the Gulf or Mediteranean, the latter being, perhaps impossible due to the distance involved. 

The third element (8 aircraft or 32 cruise missiles) would fly East from Iraq split into two sub elements.  The first would attack the Araz facility and the Esfahan facility and the University of Isfahan research building housing nuclear research equipment.  The second sub-element would attack the  the Natanz, Saghand and Yazd facilities.  Aircraft could follow up to assess damage and eliminate any standing targets or deliver bunker busters to targets on the sites that cruise missiles would not be effective against. It is likely that the Narantz attack be mounted separately and earlier with heavy bombers (B-1, B-2 or B-52) in order to use a large number of bunker buster bombs using serial penetration methods to "dig" deeper into the underground facility and then use MOAB to obliterate any facilities and personnel exposed.

A fourth element (6 aircraft or 24 cruise missiles) would fly West from Afghanistan and attack the facility at Tabas

The fifth element (20 aircraft or 80 cruise missiles) would north from a carrier in the Persian Gulf and attack Bushehr and then turn east to attack the Fasa facility.  There is also the option of the naval element splitting and flying separately to Bushehr and Fasa.

A sixth element (10 to 20 aircraft) would focus on bunker busting, a 10 element B-1B or B-2A (or both) wing would attack underground bunker facilities, flying out of a base in Qatar.

A secondary target site for the Naval aircraft would be the Darkhovin facility.

Proposed Mission Tracks Legend
Direct Action Against Iran
   





The Results

At the completion of these elements of the mission, Iran's ability to reconstitute its weapons program would take years, and would cost billions.  However, stored materials might not be effected and therefore the weapons test program would be, worst case, only delayed by an unknown amount.

Continued attacks would be necessary every six months to ensure reconstitution of the facilities did not allow operation to resume.

The problematic Iranian response is difficult to predict, however it is clear that U.S. and coalition interests for which the U.S. has treaty obligations would all be at risk following such an attack. However, it is also clear that if Iran chose to retaliate, the U.S. would use that as an excuse for further attacks and also center on the government of Iraq and Iraqi Missile sites as targets, not just the nuclear facilities. 

This would involve first an air campaign for several months and perhaps movement into Tehran to eject the current leadership in Iraq, much like an Iraqi invasion.  However, that ground force attack could be put off indefinitely, as long as air attacks are deemed successful.  In the meantime, the U.S. would be under constant pressure to cease and desist from the U.N. security council.

The biggest danger however is not from attacks on U.S. targets, but to U.S. allies including Israel.  The U.S. does not have complete control over much of the land masses between Iran and Israel, therefore it is likely that Iranian aircraft could escape a cordon along its western and southern border.   On the other hand, those aircraft detected would surely be destroyed, further eliminating Iranian air power to the degree that only their missile forces would remain. 

Iranian missiles may already be capable of attacking Israel.  Ballistic missiles equivalent to the SCUD could do great damage and incite fear in Israeli citizens.  Any attack against Iran must have first been with a minimum of a notification to the Israeli government to allow them to inform their citizens as the attacks are under way, in order to prepare for retaliation.

Also at risk of retaliation are U.S. or U.S. supporting facilities in Qatar, Kuwait, and of course Iraq.

Jeffery White's assessment is that the U.S. would have to retain "escalation dominance", in that the U.S. would have to hold other high value targets in Iran at risk, forcing Iran to not retaliate.  The biggest question then is what targets would be deemed high value enough -- missile bases and manufacturing facilities, or perhaps the government buildings in Tehran.  An angry Iran might not consider either important enough against their bruised ego and hatred of the arrogant Americans.

White'e assessment is that the U.S. would have to prepare its allies in the region for retaliation and be prepared to do a truly magnificent job of protecting those allies.


Risk Balance Sheet

Idealists would have us believe that due to the definite high risk of Iranian retaliation, any attack against Iranian facilities by U.S. or coalition forces should prevent consideration of direct action.

However, the risk of allowing Iran to acquire nuclear weapons in the future simply means that a much more devastating attack from Iran is in the future for the region anyway.  Moreover, Iran's undisputed links to terrorism spells out the asymmetrical terrorist use of a nuclear weapon as a further unacceptable risk. 

Others will point to the portion of rationale used to invade Iraq and claim this is just another falsely based scenario. Nothing could be further from the truth.  The only reason the Iraq scenario ise deemed false today is because the failure to find WMD in Iraq.  There is no doubt about an Iranian nuclear program.  The question is how long do you wait for their so called peaceful program to reveal itself as a military weapons program?  MILNET counsels that we have waited far too long already.

The pacifist, anti-war ideals should not be a consideration in this risk analysis.  MILNET's analysis is that time for direct action against Iran is long overdue, and each month that goes by gets them closer to producing what they need to develop their first test device and that much closer to placing a nuclear device on an aircraft or a missile destined for Israel or any other U.S. ally in the region, or putting that nuclear weapon in the hands of terrorist.

While it might be political suicide to attack Iran, it is the right thing to do, and long overdue.

Updates:

2/16/07:  A series of articles citing British sources claim the U.S. has been working on a plan to attack not just Iranian nuclear facilities but to remove as much of the Iranian military might as possible.  The plan called TIRANNT, for Theatre Iran Near Term is supposedly a U.S. Central Command op-Plan that targets.  One such report from writer Dan Plesch  18 cites nuclear plans being considered and is discussed by authors Bill Arkin and Hans Kristensen.  Plesch's piece however focues on the conventional war scenarios making much of placement of U.S. carrier groups AND, more importantly, the placement of large Marine Expeditionary Support Groups with those task forces.  With enough airpower and Marines ready to go in should it be necessary to take temporary positions in a ground effort, Plesch believes, the U.S. ship movements have placed much needed strike capability in place.  This follows another story from the U.K. Telegraph that cites Israel requesting permission to use airspace over U.S. forces in the gulf and Iraq in order for Israeli attacks on Iran. 19

The articles cite the movement of the U.S. carriers as the key element in any U.S. strike against Iran.  The carrier battle groups are also quite handy to cover and protect an Israeli attack using the gulf as an entry point into Iran, and of course U.S. forces in Iraq would presumably not fire on Israeli overflights on their way to Iran either.

"Two carriers in the region, the USS John C Stennis and the USS Dwight D Eisenhower, could quickly be joined by three more now at sea: USS Ronald Reagan, USS Harry S Truman and USS Theodore Roosevelt, as well as by USS Nimitz. Each carrier force includes hundreds of cruise missiles."  18

The Plesch report also makes much of the U.S. Marine ESGs in the area:

" Today, marines have the USS Boxer and USS Bataan carrier forces in the Gulf and probably also the USS Kearsarge and USS Bonhomme Richard. Three others, the USS Peleliu, USS Wasp and USS Iwo Jima, are ready to join them. Earlier this year, HQ staff to manage these forces were moved from Virginia to Bahrain."  18


Dr. Paul Rodgers appears to agree with the assessment that the force in the region is a little excessive for just sword rattling.

"

Whatever happens in Iraq, a significant build-up of US forces in the Persian Gulf appear to have much more to do with a possible crisis with Iran. The previous column in this series pointed to four important recent military decisions:

The Ronald Reagan left San Diego on 27 January at the head of a powerful force that included the guided missile-cruiser USS Lake Champlain and the guided missile-destroyer USS Russell; both warships are reported to be equipped with scores of sea-launched cruise missiles.

The first is that the carrier only returned from its previous deployment to the Arabian Sea in July 2006, something usually followed by a longer period of home-porting; instead, the ship has since been taking part in exercises designed to maintain a high state of military readiness.

 the Kitty Hawk's three-month maintenance work is being undertaken by the crew, not external contractors, with the ship retaining the ability to deploy at short notice if need be. Furthermore, this maintenance started on 8 January, whereas the Ronald Reagan carrier battle-group will not even arrive in the area until mid-February. This does not seem to fit with standing in for the Kitty Hawk and does mean that another carrier battle-group could actually be deployed to the Gulf at short notice. Moreover, this is a strike group that has a crew experienced in recent operations in the Gulf.

A third carrier battle-group deployed to the region would be a clear sign that, at the very least, a major show of forces is in prospect; but in another sense, and from a rather different angle, that is beginning to happen already.

In addition to maintaining an aircraft carrier battle-group in the Persian Gulf region since the Iraq war began in 2003, the US navy has also tended to keep another type of naval force there as well. This is termed an "expeditionary strike group" (ESG): it comprises of a very large amphibious warfare ship, normally a Wasp-class 45,000 ton warship, accompanied usually by two smaller amphibious warfare ships - although even these are as large as the Royal Navy's two Albion-class vessels.

The current ESG in the Gulf is centred on the USS Boxer, together with the USS Dubuque and the USS Comstock, as well as a cruiser, a destroyer and other supporting vessels. This flotilla alone has well over 2,000 marines on board, equipped with helicopters, AV8B strike aircraft, landing craft, tanks, armoured vehicles, an array of logistics support and even military hovercraft. It is designed to be highly versatile but is particularly suited to coastal and near-coastal operations against defended positions. The Boxer ESG has been in the area since late October and, in the normal way of things, might have another two months to go before being replaced by another group." 21

Alan M. Arkin writing for the Washington Post points out that there are indeed standard strategic plans that exist and names CONOPLANs and TIRANT specifically...the military has to have plans in place that can quickly be pulled out and built into actual action plans.  Indeed he accuses the British Press of taking this old story and repolishing it as an effort to create panic -- and to his credit Arkin says this is irresponsible, only serving to create an environment where Iran might decide the U.S. IS indeed planning on immenient attack and thus pre-empt.  It is classic cold war theory and Arkin may have a point. 20

Michael Chossudovsky says CONPLAN 8022 (CONtingency PLAN 8022) also includes the options for use of tactical nuclear weapons, which has set off a firestorm of activity in conspiracy and anti-nuke circles.  22

11/10/2006:  An Israeli deputy defense minister, speaking both as a citizen and a former Israeli General Ephraim Sneh, and not in his official capacity opined that "I am not advocating an Israeli pre-emptive military action against Iran and I am aware of its possible repercussions...I consider it a last resort. But even the last resort is sometimes the only resort."  17


Sources:
  1. Iran's Secret Quest for the Bomb, Leonard Spector, Yale University's YaleGlobal Online, 5/16/2003
  2. Iran Nuclear Weapons, Part II, Operational Challenges, Michael Knights, Policywatch, 5/28/2003
  3. Iran Nuclear Weapons, Part III, How Might Iran Retaliate?, Jeffery White, Policywatch, 5/29/2003
  4. Iranian Nuclear Facilties:  Arak and Natanz, Richard Boucher, U.S. Department of State, 5/9/2003
  5. Iranian Nuclear Fuel Cycle Experience, M. Ghannadi-Maragheh, World Nuclear Association Annual Symposium, 2003,
  6. Iran Nuclear-Related Sites, Center for Nonproliferation Studies, the Monterey Institute of International Studies, undated
  7. Iran:  The Race Against Time, Compiled by Ryan Mauro, WorldThreats.COM, undated.
  8. Iran Building Nuclear Fuel Cycle Facilities: International Transparency Needed, David Albright and Corey Hinderstein, Institute for Science and International Security, 12/12/2002 
  9. Nuclear Terrorism, Institute for Science and International Security, undated
  10. Iran, Israel and Nuclear Weapons in the Middle East, Michael Donavan for the Center For Defense Information, 2/1/2002
  11. Esfahan/Isfahan Nuclear Technology Center, Federation of Amercian Scientists, 9/30/2000
  12. Tehran Nuclear Research Center, GlobalSecurity.com, undated
  13. Iran's Nuclear Program: Myth and Reality , Kenneth R. Timmerman, 6th Castiglioncello Conference, USPID, Milan,
  14. The Daniel Project - Israel's Strategic Future, NATIV, undated (MILNET Mirror)
  15. Iranian Nuclear Threat - Shalom Freedman (MILNET Mirror)
  16. Minister:  North Korea has Nuclear Deterrent, AP on Yahoo, 9/27/2004
  17. Israel Hints at Strike on Iran's Nuclear Program, A.P., Fox News, 11/10/06
  18. Iran - Ready to Attack, Dan Plesch, The Statesman (as found on the Information Clearing House), 02/19/07
  19. Israel Seeks All Clear for Iran Airstrike, Con Coughlin, U.K. Telegraph, 02/25/07
  20. Plans, But No Intention for War With Iran, Alan M. Arkin, Washington Post, 02/23/07
  21. The Persian Gulf: a war of position, Dr. Paul Rodgers, Open Democracy, 02/08/07
  22. "Theater Iran Near Term" (TIRANNT), Michael Chossudovsky, Global Research of Canada, 2/21/2007
  23. The March to War: Iran Preparing for US Air Attacks, Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, Payvand, 9/25/2006



-  Copyright ©, 2004-2007, Michael G. Crawford for MILNET