Iraq was always just the prelude to the Iran war, the blue touch
paper that will inflame the middle east in an unsuccessful attempt
to destroy Israel. 

Whether it happens in July 2005, in response to a US-led invasion, 
or whether Iran and allies seek to act preemptively, time will tell.

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Sleepwalking to disaster in Iran

By Scott Ritter 

03/30/05 "Aljazeera" - - Late last year, in the aftermath of the 2004
Presidential election, I was contacted by someone close to the Bush
administration about the situation in Iraq. There was a growing
concern inside the Bush administration, this source said, about the
direction the occupation was going. 

The Bush administration was keen on achieving some semblance of
stability in Iraq before June 2005, I was told. 

When I asked why that date, the source dropped the bombshell: because
that was when the Pentagon was told to be prepared to launch a massive
aerial attack against Iran, Iraq's neighbour to the east, in order to
destroy the Iranian nuclear programme. 

Why June 2005?, I asked. 'The Israelis are concerned that if the
Iranians get their nuclear enrichment programme up and running, then
there will be no way to stop the Iranians from getting a nuclear
weapon. June 2005 is seen as the decisive date.'

To be clear, the source did not say that President Bush had approved
plans to bomb Iran in June 2005, as has been widely reported. 

The President had reviewed plans being prepared by the Pentagon to
have the military capability in place by June 2005 for such an attack,
if the President ordered. 

But when Secretary of State Condi Rice told America's European allies
in February 2005, in response to press reports about a pending June
2005 American attack against Iran, she said that 'the question [of a
military strike] is simply not on the agenda at this point -- we have
diplomatic means to do this.' 

President Bush himself followed up on Rice's statement by stating that
'This notion that the United States is getting ready to attack Iran is
simply ridiculous.' He quickly added, 'Having said that, all options
are on the table.'

In short, both the President and the Secretary of State were being
honest, and disingenuous, at the same time. 

Truth to be told, there is no American military strike on the agenda;
that is, until June 2005. 

It was curious that no one in the American media took it upon
themselves to confront the President or his Secretary of State about
the June 2005 date, or for that matter the October 2004 review by the
President of military plans to attack Iran in June 2005. 

The American media today is sleepwalking towards an American war with
Iran with all of the incompetence and lack of integrity that it
displayed during a similar path trodden during the buildup to our
current war with Iraq.

On the surface, there is nothing extraordinary about the news that the
President of the United States would order the Pentagon to be prepared
to launch military strikes on Iran in June 2005 . 

That Iran has been a target of the Bush administration's ideologues is
no secret: the President himself placed Iran in the 'axis of evil'
back in 2002, and has said that the world would be a better place with
the current Iranian government relegated to the trash bin of history. 

(snip / snip)

Scott Ritter former UN Chief Weapons inspector in Iraq, 1991-1998
author of 'Iraq Confidential: The Untold Story of America's
Intelligence Conspiracy', published by I.B.

(c) 2003 - 2005 Aljazeera.Net

Full article at Information Clearinghouse ...
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8408.htm

Cheers, Steve..

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