Gates urges Gulf region to counter Iran

Source: Associated Press

By LOLITA C. BALDOR, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 21 minutes ago

MANAMA, Bahrain - Persian Gulf countries must work together to counter Iranian threats and terrorist behavior that destabilize the region, Defense Secretary Robert Gates will tell leaders Saturday at a security conference.

U.S. officials said Friday that Gates planned to urge the Gulf nations to communicate and cooperate more so they better can handle threats from Iran, including as nuclear and ballistic missile dangers.

"Their behavior has really been a problem, and to the extent that it destabilizes the region, which it does, then it becomes a problem for us," said Adm. William Fallon, chief of U.S. Central Command, which includes the Persian Gulf area.

Defense officials have said that Iran's delivery of weapons and other support into Iraq and Afghanistan and the detention of British sailors earlier this year are key activities that threaten security in the region.

And Gulf country leaders, Fallon said, have told him that their concern "is more the pressure that they feel from Iran as they want to dominate this area."

Gates' speech will follow on the heels of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's assertions Friday that the United States would continue along a two-track strategy to deal with Iran, pressing for new sanctions and holding talks to convince Tehran to come clean about its nuclear program. But Russia ignored her calls to punish Iran.

Despite strong support from NATO allies in the wake of a new U.S. intelligence report that concludes Iran actually stopped atomic weapons development in 2003, the top U.S. diplomat was unable to persuade Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on the urgency of fresh sanctions.

Rice said her talks with Lavrov were "an extension of other conversations we have had," suggesting the two didn't see eye to eye.

A senior defense official traveling with Gates said the secretary will tell the national leaders at the conference that they have shared commercial interests, shared security interests — and that the more we cooperate, the more the world will benefit. One key area would be shared efforts in an early warning system due to the ballistic missile threats from Iran.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issues.

A U.S. Navy commander, meanwhile, said that Iranian threats to close the Strait of Hormuz, a vital commercial waterway at the tip of the Persian Gulf, is the greatest concern for Naval security in the region.

more...



Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071207/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/gates_iran_3

If the gulf states decide to counter Iran by developing their own nuclear weapons?

It would be something else.

Aren't you glad you approved this war monger as Secretary of Defense?

Source: The Huffington Post

December 7, 2007 01:14 PM EST | AP

WASHINGTON — A new intelligence estimate downplaying Iran's nuclear ambitions has not changed the way the Defense Department views the country that has been long criticized by the Bush administration for fostering instability in Iraq, senior Pentagon officials said Friday.

"There has been no course correction _ slowdown, speedup _ given to us inside the Joint Staff" for military crisis planning on Iran, based on the intelligence report released Monday, said Marine Corps Lt. Gen. John Sattler, the director of strategic plans and policy for the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Sattler said Defense Secretary Robert Gates planned to address the Iran issue in a speech at an international security conference in the Persian Gulf nation of Bahrain on Saturday.

Asked whether the Pentagon considers Iran less of a threat, in light of the intelligence report which said that Iran once had a covert nuclear weapons program but halted it in 2003, Sattler said that matter was under discussion within the U.S. government, but he would not comment further.

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20071207/us-iran-iraq/

I think I've got a new submission for Mr. Scorpio's oxymoron thread.

The Pentagon have never been ones to let a few unpalatable facts get in the way of good, honest warmongering.

Pentagon and no change. Go figure.

and making huge shitloads of money war-profiteering.

Just as the MFers knew Iraq had nothing to do with 911, had no nukes, no "wmd", was no threat, that didn't change their "thinking" either.

The only surprise is how deeply stupid so many Americans are.

MANAMA (AFP) - Gulf countries, cautious about the nuclear standoff between the United States and Iran, signalled loudly at a regional security conference on Saturday their opposition to any military option against Tehran.

Washington, wrong-footed by its own National Intelligence Estimate in its accusations that Iran wanted nuclear weapons, has emphasised that no options have been ruled out in forcing it to end its nuclear enrichment programme.

The NIE on Tuesday said that Iran, which insists its current programme is for peaceful power generation, had halted a secret nuclear weapons programme four years ago.

"We want the military factor (of Iran's nuclear programme) to be eliminated," the secretary general of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Abdulrahman al-Attiyah told AFP on Saturday.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071208/wl_mideast_afp/gulfusirannuclearpolitics