Cheney, Lieberman and Iran War Conspiracy

Submitted by davidswanson on Fri, 2007-08-17 13:19. Iran
By Gareth Porter, Huffington Post

I was never one of those who believed the Bush administration was getting ready to attack Iran in 2006 or early 2007. But it is now clear that at least Vice President Dick Cheney is conspiring to push through a specific plan for war with Iran. And Senator Joe Lieberman is an active part of that conspiracy.

We have known for a long time that Cheney wants a major air attack on Iranian nuclear sites and other military and economic targets. But an August 9 story published by McClatchy newspapers reveals that, instead of waiting for a decision to go ahead with such a strategic attack against Iran, Cheney now hopes to get Bush to approve an attack on camps in Iran where Iraqi Shiite militiamen have allegedly been trained in recent years.

The McClatchy story says Cheney proposed such a strike within the administration "several weeks ago," citing "two U.S. officials who are involved in Iran policy." The official sources say Cheney "argued for military action if hard new evidence emerges of Iran's complicity in supporting anti-American forces in Iraq." An example of such "hard new evidence," according to one of the official sources of the report, would be "catching a truckload of fighters or weapons crossing into Iraq from Iran."

The story also indicates that the same officials say Condoleezza Rice "opposes this idea" and suggest that Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates agrees with her position.

The Cheney proposal for an airstrike against three bases in Iran can have only one purpose -- to provoke an Iranian retaliation that would then make it possible to unleash a full-fledged strategic air attack against Iran. The provocation strategy would be an obvious way around the political obstacles in the way of an unprovoked attack.

This is not the first time that such a provocation strategy has been attributed to the Bush administration. In February 2007, Hillary Mann, the National Security Council director for Iran and Persian Gulf Affairs until 2004, told CNN that the Bush administration was "pushing a series of increasing provocations against the Iranians in, I think, anticipation that Iran will eventually retaliate, and that will give the United States the ability to launch limited strikes against Iran, to take out targets in Iran that we consider to be important."

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http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/25910

What would the public's reaction be -- ????

Anything more than we saw re our attack on Iraq???