Tornado Alley (PROG)

[F6]

nieves, and all -- very important re Fallon, agree, thanks nieves -- the source link for "The Man Between War and Peace", the Esquire article that comprises the bulk of nieves's post following the short AP announcement of Fallon's ouster at the start, is http://www.esquire.com/features/fox-fallon -- and the subhead now reads 'As the White House talked up conflict with Iran, the head of U.S. Central Command, William "Fox" Fallon, talked it down. Now he has resigned.' -- and just for kicks, the photo there of 'Fox' Fallon:



some key background from when it really did look imminent there for awhile just over a year ago (the following being the 'IPS reported last May' mentioned in the bold about halfway down in http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=23840624 -- do see also in particular [items linked in] that post and preceding and following, much more there, thanks Stephanie -- and BOREALIS, who's added to that string, includihng a cleaner/easier to read repost of the Eaquire piece on Fallon, with photo, at http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=27581739 ):


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Commander's Veto Sank Threatening Gulf Buildup

Gareth Porter*

WASHINGTON, May 15 (IPS) - Admiral William Fallon, then President George W. Bush's nominee to head the Central Command (CENTCOM), expressed strong opposition in February to an administration plan to increase the number of carrier strike groups in the Persian Gulf from two to three and vowed privately there would be no war against Iran as long as he was chief of CENTCOM, according to sources with access to his thinking.

Fallon's resistance to the proposed deployment of a third aircraft carrier was followed by a shift in the Bush administration's Iran policy in February and March away from increased military threats and toward diplomatic engagement with Iran. That shift, for which no credible explanation has been offered by administration officials, suggests that Fallon's resistance to a crucial deployment was a major factor in the intra-administration struggle over policy toward Iran.

The plan to add a third carrier strike group in the Gulf had been a key element in a broader strategy discussed at high levels to intimidate Iran by a series of military moves suggesting preparations for a military strike.

Admiral Fallon's resistance to a further buildup of naval striking power in the Gulf apparently took the Bush administration by surprise. Fallon, then Commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, had been associated with naval aviation throughout his career, and last January, Secretary of Defence Robert Gates publicly encouraged the idea that the appointment presaged greater emphasis on the military option in regard to the U.S. conflict with Iran.

Explaining why he recommended Fallon, Gates said, "As you look at the range of options available to the United States, the use of naval and air power, potentially, it made sense to me for all those reasons for Fallon to have the job."

Bush administration officials had just leaked to CBS News and the New York Times in December that the USS John C. Stennis and its associated warships would be sent to the Gulf in January six weeks earlier than originally planned in order to overlap with the USS Eisenhower and to "send a message to Tehran".

But that was not the end of the signaling to Iran by naval deployment planned by administration officials. The plan was for the USS Nimitz and its associated vessels, scheduled to sail into the Gulf in early April, to overlap with the other two carrier strike groups for a period of months, so that all three would be in the Gulf simultaneously.

Two well-informed sources say they heard about such a plan being pushed at high levels of the administration, and Newsweek's Michael Hirsh and Maziar Bahari reported Feb. 19 that the deployment of a third carrier group to the Gulf was "likely".

That would have brought the U.S. naval presence up to the same level as during the U.S. air campaign against the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq, when the Lincoln, Constellation and Kitty Hawk carrier groups were all present. Two other carrier groups helped coordinate bombing sorties from the Mediterranean.

The deployment of three carrier groups simultaneously was not part of a plan for an actual attack on Iran, but was meant to convince Iran that the Bush administration was preparing for possible war if Tehran continued its uranium enrichment programme.

At a mid-February meeting of top civilian officials over which Secretary of Defence Gates presided, there was an extensive discussion of a strategy of intimidating Tehran's leaders, according to an account by a Pentagon official who attended the meeting given to a source outside the Pentagon. The plan involved a series of steps that would appear to Tehran to be preparations for war, in a manner similar to the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

But Fallon, who was scheduled to become the CENTCOM chief Mar. 16, responded to the proposed plan by sending a strongly-worded message to the Defence Department in mid-February opposing any further U.S. naval buildup in the Persian Gulf as unwarranted.

"He asked why another aircraft carrier was needed in the Gulf and insisted there was no military requirement for it," says the source, who obtained the gist of Fallon's message from a Pentagon official who had read it.

Fallon's refusal to support a further naval buildup in the Gulf reflected his firm opposition to an attack on Iran and an apparent readiness to put his career on the line to prevent it. A source who met privately with Fallon around the time of his confirmation hearing and who insists on anonymity quoted Fallon as saying that an attack on Iran "will not happen on my watch".

Asked how he could be sure, the source says, Fallon replied, "You know what choices I have. I'm a professional." Fallon said that he was not alone, according to the source, adding, "There are several of us trying to put the crazies back in the box."

Fallon's opposition to adding a third carrier strike group to the two already in the Gulf represented a major obstacle to the plan. The decision to send a second carrier task group to the Gulf had been officially requested by Fallon's predecessor at CENTCOM, Gen. John Abizaid, according to a Dec. 20 report by the Washington Post's Peter Baker. But as Baker reported, the circumstances left little doubt that Abizaid was doing so because the White House wanted it as part of a strategy of sending "pointed messages" to Iran.

CENTCOM commander Fallon's refusal to request the deployment of a third carrier strike group meant that proceeding with that option would carry political risks. The administration chose not to go ahead with the plan. Two days before the Nimitz sailed out of San Diego for the Gulf on Apr. 1, a Navy spokesman confirmed that it would replace the Eisenhower, adding, "There is no plan to overlap them at all."

The defeat of the plan for a third carrier task group in the Gulf appears to have weakened the position of Cheney and other hawks in the administration who had succeeded in selling Bush on the idea of a strategy of coercive threat against Iran.

Within two weeks, the administration's stance had already begun to shift dramatically. On Jan. 12, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had dismissed direct talks with Iran in the absence of Tehran's suspension of its uranium enrichment programme as "extortion". But by the end of February, Rice had gotten authorisation for high level diplomatic contacts with Iran in the context of a regional meeting on Iraq in Baghdad.

The explanation for the shift offered by administration officials to the New York Times was that the administration now felt that it "had leverage" on Iran. But that now appears to have been a cover for a retreat from the more aggressive strategy previously planned.

Throughout March and April, the Bush administration avoided aggressive language and the State Department openly sought diplomatic engagement with Iran, culminating in the agreement confirmed by U.S. officials last weekend that bilateral talks will begin with Iran on Iraq.

Despite Vice President Dick Cheney's invocation of the military option from the deck of the USS John C. Stennis in the Persian Gulf last week, the strategy of escalating a threat of war to influence Iran has been put on the shelf, at least for now.

*Gareth Porter is an historian and national security policy analyst. His latest book, "Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam", was published in June 2005. (END/2007)

Copyright © 2008 IPS-Inter Press Service

http://www.ipsnews.net/print.asp?idnews=37738


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see also in particular:

Are We Closer to War?
By Dan Froomkin (i.e., MANY sources gathered and linked)
March 12, 2008
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2008/03/12/BL2008031201898.html

Military leaders cross swords over ‘surge’
September 10, 2007
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article2419340.ece

Among Top Officials, 'Surge' Has Sparked Dissent, Infighting
September 9, 2007
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/08/AR2007090801846.html


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and in addition to, again, (items linked in) the post to which this post is a reply and other following -- and also, of course, (items linked in) http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=27485225 and preceding and following, see also (items linked in):
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=27471091 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=26737679 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=26513385 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=26510716 and preceding
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=26297169
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=25141134 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=25074474
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=25061976 and preceding
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=24988666 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=24900439
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=24462047 and preceding
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=24269701
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=24215909
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=24057830 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=23840624 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=23101337 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=22443447 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=21332669 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=16971721 and preceding
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=16955784 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=15652578 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=13600182 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=13101721 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=12929006 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=12775460 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=12186213 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=10602786 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=9804670 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=9163631 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=7484289 and preceding
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=5547074 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=4594647 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=4394577 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=4393656 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=4226726 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=3928688 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=2912478
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=2769237 and preceding and following


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and see also:

Shifting Targets
The Administration’s plan for Iran.
by Seymour M. Hersh
October 8, 2007
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/10/08/071008fa_fact_hersh

CBS confirms 2006 Raw Story scoop: Plame's job was to keep nukes from Iran
October 20, 2007
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/CBS_confirms_2006_Raw_Story_scoop_1020.html

Attacking Iran for Israel?
Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice is at her mushroom-cloud hyperbolic best, and this time Iran is the target.
By Ray McGovern
10/31/07
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18645.htm

Pentagon plans unchanged by Iran report
Dec 7, 2007
http://uk.reuters.com/article/oilRpt/idUKN0731159620071207

Scott Ritter: Cheney’s Iran Policy Still Stands :
Audio: 12/06/07
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18851.htm

Israel unveils new strategy on Iran
12/14/2007
http://www.thejc.com/home.aspx?ParentId=m11s19&SecId=19&AId=56976&ATypeId=1

INTERVIEW WITH INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST SEYMOUR HERSH
'The President Has Accepted Ethnic Cleansing'
September 28, 2007
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,508394,00.html [also at http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18905.htm ]

The Folly of Attacking Iran:
Lessons from History
"We had a democracy here, until America came over and crushed it"
video - Posted 20/02/08
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19393.htm

The Increasing Encirclement of Iran
2/17/08
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19368.htm

MP for Hire?
3/3/08
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19455.htm

PM: Israel has strength, might to defend itself against Iran
3-4-08
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/960457.html

When Bush Comes to Iran
The view of American tough talk from Tehran
Sept. 3, 2007
http://www.slate.com/id/2173107/ [ http://www.slate.com/id/2173107/pagenum/all/#page_start ]