Cheney - the man after Iran's blood

June 12, 2006

Cheney - the man after Iran's blood


By PV Vivekanand

Vice-President Dick Cheney had manoeuvred the US into considering
miilitary action against Iran in mid-2007 but was thwarted by Pentagon officials who stood firm against the idea citing the unpredictable consequences of such action, according to new revelations.
Cheney, one of the key architects of the neo-con inspired US invasion and occupation of Iraq, suggested "limited" military action against the Iranians but it was perceived that he was using it as a ploy to provoke Iranian retaliation that could used to justify a strategic attack on Iran, including possibly involving the use of tactical nuclear weapons.
However, that does not mean that Cheney has failed in his drive against Iran. He could still swing things around in the final months of the Bush administration, experts argue.
What has not been established beyond question yet is how far President George W Bush was and is ready to order military action against Iran. Surely, someone somewhere in the White House would definitely talk and offer more insights after Bush bows out next year. However, it is generally perceived that Bush does not need much persuasion to order military strikes against Iran.
What we do know is that in and around mid-2007, there was an air of expectation that US military action against Iran was immiment, with "leaked" information that senior commanders had already received orders to be ready to go into action at short notice. A strong US naval force was in the region, with reports suggesting that Iran would be subjected to mainly sea- and air-based strikes but there would not be an invasion by land.
Israel, the key proponent of military strikes against Iran, was keeping stepped-up pressure insisting that the Iranians were almost on the verge of a nuclear breakthrough and it was high time the country's "suspect" atomic processing facilities were bombed out.
There was a frenzy among European countries to find a negotiated end to the nuclear dispute with Iran. Perhaps, their intelligence agencies knew that Cheney and other Washington hawks were pushing for strikes against Iran, starting with Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) whom he accused of producing and supplying the highly lethal explosively formed projectiles (EFPs) and training to Iraqi guerrillas waging the anti-US war in Iraq.
According to the Interpress news agency (IPS), Cheney used his alliance with the US commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, to advance his "EFP case" against Iran after Petraeus assumed his post in Iraq in early 2007.
IPS says that Cheney used Petraeus "to do an end run about the Washington national security bureaucracy to establish the propaganda line that Iran was manufacturing EFPs and shipping them to the Mahdi Army militiamen.