[NYTr] Cheney mulled luring Iran into war with Israel: report

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

[It's really hard to know who is pulling whom's strings. Was Israel
gung-ho for an attack on Iraq? Or did they want the US to go after
Iran?  Or is Cheney trying to manipulate ISRAEL into a war with IRAN?
Perhaps all of the above or perhaps none of the above. There is so 
much disinfo floating around that it almost doesn't pay to read the
mainstream "news." -NYTr]


sent by Dave Muller (southnews) - Sep 25, 2007

Newsweek - Oct 1, 2007 issue
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20920341/site/newsweek/page/0/

The Whispers of War

By Dan Ephron and Mark Hosenball

Oct. 1, 2007 issue - Sam Gardiner plays war for a living. A former Air 
Force colonel who helped write contingency plans for the U.S. military, 
Gardiner has spent the 20 years since his retirement staging 
war-simulation exercises for military and policy wonks within and on
the fringes of government (he keeps his client list confidential).
Lately, more of his work has focused on Iran and its nuclear program.
Gardiner starts by gathering various experts in a room to play the
parts of government principalsthe CIA director, the secretary of State,
leaders of other countriesand presents them with a scenario: Iran, for
example, has made a dramatic nuclear advance. Then he sits back and
watches the cycle of action and reaction, occasionally lobbing new
information at the participants.

In Gardiner's war games, the conduct of Iran's nemesis, Israel, is
often the hardest to predict. Are Israeli intelligence officials
exaggerating when they say Iran will have mastered the technology to
make nuclear weapons by next year? Will Israel stage its own attack on
Iran if Washington does not? Or is it posturing in order to goad
America into military action? The simulations have led Gardiner to an
ominous conclusion: though the United States is now emphasizing
sanctions and diplomacy as the means of compelling Tehran to stop
enriching uranium, an Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear facilities could
end up dragging Washington into a war. "Even if Israel goes it alone,
we will be blamed," says Gardiner. "Hence, we would see retaliation
against U.S. interests."

How far will Israel go to keep Iran from getting the bomb? The question 
gained new urgency this month when Israeli warplanes carried out a 
mysterious raid deep in Syria and then threw up a nearly impenetrable 
wall of silence around the operation. Last week opposition leader 
Benjamin Netanyahu chipped away at that wall, saying Israel did in fact 
attack targets in Syrian territory. His top adviser, Mossad veteran Uzi 
Arad, told NEWSWEEK: "I do know what happened, and when it comes out it 
will stun everyone."

Official silence has prompted a broad range of speculation as to what 
exactly took place. One former U.S. official, who like others quoted in 
this article declined to be identified discussing sensitive matters, 
says several months ago Israel presented the Bush administration with 
reconnaissance images and information from secret agents alleging North 
Korea had begun to supply nuclear-related material to Syria. Some U.S. 
intelligence reporting, including electronic signal intercepts,
appeared to support the Israeli claims. But other U.S. officials remain
skeptical about any nuclear link between Syria and North Korea. One
European security source told NEWSWEEK the target might have been a
North Korean military shipment to Iran that was transiting Syria. But a
European intelligence official said it wasn't certain Israel had struck
anything at all.

While the Bush administration appears to have given tacit support to
the Syria raid, Israel and the United States are not in lockstep on
Iran. For Israel, the next three months may be decisive: either Tehran 
succumbs to sanctions and stops enriching uranium or it must be dealt 
with militarily. (Iran says its program is for peaceful purposes only.) 
"Two thousand seven is the year you determine whether diplomatic
efforts will stop Iran," says a well-placed Israeli source, who did not
want to be named because he is not authorized to speak for the
government. "If by the end of the year that's not working, 2008 becomes
the year you take action."

In Washington, on the other hand, the consensus against a strike is 
firmer than most people realize. The Pentagon worries that another war 
will break America's already overstretched military, while the 
intelligence community believes Iran is not yet on the verge of a 
nuclear breakthrough. The latter assessment is expected to appear in a 
secret National Intelligence Estimate currently nearing completion, 
according to three intelligence officials who asked for anonymity when 
discussing nonpublic material. The report is expected to say Iran will 
not be able to build a nuclear bomb until at least 2010 and possibly 
2015. One explanation for the lag: Iran is having trouble with its 
centrifuge-enrichment technology, according to U.S. and European
officials.

Twice in the past year, the United States has won U.N. Security Council 
sanctions against Tehran. More measures might come up at Security 
Council discussions later this year, and recently French Foreign 
Minister Bernard Kouchner warned that European nations might impose 
their own sanctions. One U.S. official who preferred not to be 
identified discussing sensitive policy matters said he took part in a 
meeting several months ago where intelligence officials discussed a 
"public diplomacy" strategy to accompany sanctions. The idea was to 
periodically float the possibility of war in public comments in order
to keep Iran off balance. In truth, the official said, no war
preparations are underway.

There are still voices pushing for firmer action against Tehran, most 
notably within Vice President Dick Cheney's office. But the steady 
departure of administration neocons over the past two years has also 
helped tilt the balance away from war. One official who pushed a 
particularly hawkish line on Iran was David Wurmser, who had served 
since 2003 as Cheney's Middle East adviser. A spokeswoman at Cheney's 
office confirmed to NEWSWEEK that Wurmser left his position last month 
to "spend more time with his family." A few months before he quit, 
according to two knowledgeable sources, Wurmser told a small group of 
people that Cheney had been mulling the idea of pushing for limited 
Israeli missile strikes against the Iranian nuclear site at Natanzand 
perhaps other sitesin order to provoke Tehran into lashing out. The 
Iranian reaction would then give Washington a pretext to launch strikes 
against military and nuclear targets in Iran. (Wurmser's remarks were 
first reported last week by Washington foreign-policy blogger Steven 
Clemons and corroborated by NEWSWEEK.) When NEWSWEEK attempted to reach 
Wurmser for comment, his wife, Meyrav, declined to put him on the phone 
and said the allegations were untrue. A spokeswoman at Cheney's office 
said the vice president "supports the president's policy on Iran."

In Iran, preparations for war are underway. "Crisis committees" have 
been established in each government ministry to draw up contingency 
plans, according to an Iranian official who asked for anonymity in
order to speak freely. The regime has ordered radio and TV stations to
prepare enough prerecorded programming to last for months, in case the
studios are sabotaged or employees are unable to get to work. The
ministries of electricity and water are working on plans to maintain
service under war conditions. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has
also sent envoys to reach out to European negotiators recently, in the
hopes of heading off further sanctions or military action.

The question may not be whether America is ready to attack, but whether 
Israel is. The Jewish state has cause for worry. Iranian President 
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vows regularly to destroy the country; former 
president Hashemi Rafsanjani, considered a moderate, warned in 2001
that Tehran could do away with Israel with just one nuclear bomb. In
Tel Aviv last week, former deputy Defense minister Ephraim Sneh
concurred. Sneh, a dovish member of Israel's Parliament and a retired
brigadier general, took a NEWSWEEK reporter to the observation deck
atop the 50-story Azrieli Center. "There is Haifa just over the
horizon, Ben-Gurion airport over there, the Defense Ministry down
below," he said, to show how small the country is. "You can see in this
space the majority of our intellectual, economic, political assets are
concentrated. One nuclear bomb is enough to wipe out Israel."

But can the Israelis destroy Iran's nuclear program? Gardiner, the 
war-gamer, says they would not only need to hit a dozen nuclear sites 
and scores of antiaircraft batteries; to prevent a devastating 
retaliation, they would have to knock out possibly hundreds of 
long-range missiles that can carry chemical warheads. Just getting to 
distant Iran will be tricky for Israel's squadrons of American-made 
F-15s and F-16s. Danny Yatom, who headed Mossad in the 1990s, says the 
planes would have to operate over Iran for days or weeks. Giora Eiland, 
Israel's former national-security adviser, now with Tel Aviv's
Institute of National Security Studies, ticked off the drawbacks:
"Effectiveness, doubtful. Danger of regional war. Hizbullah will
immediately attack [from Lebanon], maybe even Syria." Yet Israelis
across the political spectrum, including Eiland and Yatom, believe the
risk incurred by inaction is far greater. "The military option is
not the worst option," Yatom says. "The worst option is a nuclear Iran."

The idea of a pre-emptive strike also has popular support. When Prime 
Minister Ehud Olmert ordered the raid on Syria earlier this month, his 
approval rating was in the teens. Since then, it has jumped to nearly
30 percent. And though Olmert may not believe Israeli warplanes can get
to all the targets, he might be willing to gamble on even a limited 
success. "No one in their right mind thinks that there's a clinical way 
to totally destroy the Iranian nuclear facilities," says the
well-placed Israeli source. "You strike at some and set the project
back. You play for time and hope Ahmadinejad will eventually fall."

Alternatively, Israel might count on Tehran to retaliate against 
American targets as well, drawing in the superpower. To avoid that 
outcome, Gardiner believes, Washington must prevent Israel from 
attacking in the first place. "The United States does not want to turn 
the possibility of a general war in the Middle East over to the
decision making in Israel," he says. Does not want to, certainlybut
might not have a choice.

[With Rod Nordland in Jerusalem, Christopher Dickey in New York and
John Barry in Washington.]

                      Cheney mulled luring Iran into war with Israel: report

AFP (no URL provided)

WASHINGTON (AFP) - - US Vice President Richard Cheney has considered 
provoking an exchange of military strikes between Iran and Israel in 
order to give the United States a pretext to attack Iran, Newsweek 
magazine reported in its Monday issue.

But the weekly said the steady departure of neoconservatives from the 
administration over the past two years had helped tilt the balance away 
from war.

One official who pushed a particularly hawkish line on Iran was David 
Wurmser, who had served since 2003 as Cheney's Middle East adviser, the 
report said.

A spokeswoman at Cheney's office confirmed to Newsweek that Wurmser
left his position last month to "spend more time with his family."

A few months before he quit, Wurmser told a small group of people that 
Cheney had been mulling the idea of pushing for limited Israeli missile 
strikes against the Iranian nuclear site at Natanz -- and perhaps other 
sites -- in order to provoke Tehran into lashing out, the magazine 
reported, citing two unnamed "knowledgeable sources."

The Iranian reaction would then give Washington a pretext to launch 
strikes against military and nuclear targets in Iran, Newsweek reported.

When Newsweek attempted to reach Wurmser for comment, his wife, Meyrav, 
declined to put him on the phone and said the allegations were untrue, 
the report said.

A spokeswoman at Cheney's office told the weekly the vice president 
"supports the president's policy on Iran.