The US began planning a full-scale military campaign against Iran that involves missile strikes, a land invasion and a naval operation to establish control over the Strait of Hormuz even before the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, a former US intelligence analyst disclosed yesterday.
William Arkin, who served as the US Army's top intelligence mind on West Berlin in the 1970s and accurately predicted US military operations against Iraq, said the plan is known in military circles as TIRANNT, an acronym for "Theater Iran Near Term."
It includes a scenario for a land invasion led by the US Marine Corps, a detailed analysis of the Iranian missile force and a global strike plan against any Iranian weapons of mass destruction, Arkin wrote in the Washington Post.
US and British planners have already conducted a Caspian Sea war game as part of these preparations, the scholar said.
"According to military sources close to the planning process, this task was given to Army General John Abizaid, now commander of CENTCOM, in 2002," Arkin wrote, referring to the Florida-based US Central Command.
Preparations under TIRANNT began in earnest in May 2003 and never stopped, he said. The plan has since been updated using information collected in Iraq.
Air Force planners have modeled attacks against Iranian air defenses, while Navy planners have evaluated coastal targets and drawn up scenarios for keeping control of the Strait of Hormuz.
A follow-on TIRANNT analysis, which began in October 2003, calculated the results of different scenarios to provide options to commanders, Arkin wrote.
The Marines, meanwhile, have come up with their own document called "Concept of Operations" that explores the possibility of moving forces from ship to shore without establishing a beachhead first.
"Though the Marine Corps enemy is described only as a deeply religious revolutionary country named Karona, it is -- with its Revolutionary Guards, WMD and oil wealth -- unmistakably meant to be Iran," Arkin said.
Various scenarios involving Iran's missile force have also been examined in another study, initiated in 2004 and known as BMD-I, which is short for "Ballistic Missile Defense -- Iran," Arkin said.
In June 2004, US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld alerted the US Strategic Command in Omaha, Nebraska, to be prepared to implement CONPLAN 8022, a global strike plan that includes Iran, according to Arkin.
"The new task force, sources have told me, mostly worries that if it were called upon to deliver `prompt' global strikes against certain targets in Iran under some emergency circumstances, the president might have to be told that the only option is a nuclear one," Arkin said.
The US military has been involved in contingency planning against Iran since at least the presidency of Jimmy Carter, who undertook a failed commando operation to rescue US hostages in Tehran in 1980.
Following the 1996 bombing of an apartment building used by the US Air Force in Khobar, Saudi Arabia, which was reportedly traced to Iranian agents, the administration of then-president Bill Clinton considered a bombing campaign, according to Richard Clarke and Steven Simon, who held at the time high-level counterterrorism positions at the National Security Council.
"But after long debate, the highest levels of the military could not forecast a way in which things would end favorably for the United States," the two experts wrote in yesterday's New York Times.
They warned Iran could retaliate against the US by using its terrorist networks "that are far superior to anything al-Qaeda was ever able to field."
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in