US to use nuclear weapons against Iran

Well, that's what the AFP and Seymour Hersh want you to believe.

This is a good example of why Hersh is now called Seymour "Fudge" Hersh.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The administration of President George W. Bush is planning a massive bombing campaign against Iran, including use of bunker-buster nuclear bombs to destroy a key Iranian suspected nuclear weapons facility, The New Yorker magazine has reported in its April 17 issue.

The article by investigative journalist Seymour Hersh said that Bush and others in the White House have come to view Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a potential Adolf Hitler.

And Hersh's sources?

"That's the name they're using," the report quoted a former senior intelligence official as saying.

A senior unnamed Pentagon adviser is quoted in the article as saying that "this White House believes that the only way to solve the problem is to change the power structure in Iran, and that means war."

The former intelligence officials depicts planning as "enormous," "hectic" and "operational," Hersh writes.

One former defense official said the military planning was premised on a belief that "a sustained bombing campaign in Iran will humiliate the religious leadership and lead the public to rise up and overthrow the government," The New Yorker pointed out.

Hmmm, I wonder why they're all "former" officials.

There's more "former" talk.

But the former senior intelligence official said the attention given to the nuclear option has created serious misgivings inside the military, and some officers have talked about resigning after an attempt to remove the nuclear option from the evolving war plans in Iran failed, according to the report.

"There are very strong sentiments within the military against brandishing nuclear weapons against other countries," the magazine quotes the [unidentified] Pentagon adviser as saying.

The adviser warned that bombing Iran could provoke "a chain reaction" of attacks on American facilities and citizens throughout the world and might also reignite Hezbollah.

"Reignite Hezbollah"? I never knew they were extinguished.

So, why should we believe Hersh and the French media? We shouldn't.

Hersh says it's ok to lie. That's not me saying it, that's what Hersh says himself. See here as well.

I have no doubt that the US is making contingency plans for a war with Iran and that one plan might call for limited nuclear strikes. After all, Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons and has called for the desturction of America. But a "massive bombing" campaign involving nuclear weapons seems unlikely.

I also don't believe the administration thinks the only way to acheive regime change is through war. They wouldn't be bothering with the EU and UN and they wouldn't be aiding Iranian dissidents, if that were the case.

Still, while the world dithers, Iran is developing nuclear capable missiles and secretly making nuclear weapons.

It's one thing to have a communist with nukes, but a Muslim madman is quite another. Is the world going to let him have them? We'll see.
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