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Secret US air force team to perfect
plan for Iran strike
Sun. 23 Sep 2007
The Sunday Times
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article2512097.ece
Sarah Baxter, Washington
THE United States Air Force has set up a highly
confidential strategic planning group tasked with
“fighting the next war” as tensions rise with Iran.
Project Checkmate, a successor to the group that
planned the 1991 Gulf War’s air campaign, was
quietly reestablished at the Pentagon in June.
It reports directly to General Michael Moseley, the
US Air Force chief, and consists of 20-30 top air
force officers and defence and cyberspace experts
with ready access to the White House, the CIA and
other intelligence agencies.
Detailed contingency planning for a possible attack
on Iran has been carried out for more than two years
by Centcom (US central command), according to
defence sources.
Checkmate’s job is to add a dash of brilliance to
Air Force thinking by countering the military’s
tendency to “fight the last war” and by providing
innovative strategies for warfighting and assessing
future needs for air, space and cyberwarfare.
It is led by Brigadier-General Lawrence “Stutz”
Stutzriem, who is considered one of the brightest
air force generals. He is assisted by Dr Lani Kass,
a former Israeli military officer and expert on
cyberwarfare.
The failure of United Nations sanctions to curtail
Iran’s nuclear ambitions, which Tehran claims are
peaceful, is giving rise to an intense debate about
the likelihood of military strikes.
Bernard Kouchner, the French foreign minister, said
last week that it was “necessary to prepare for the
worst . . . and the worst is war”. He later
qualified his remarks, saying he wanted to avoid
that outcome.
France has joined America in pushing for a tough
third sanctions resolution against Iran at the UN
security council but is meeting strong resistance
from China and Russia. Britain has been doing its
best to bridge the gap, but it is increasingly
likely that new sanctions will be implemented by a
US-led “coalition of the willing”.
Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who arrives in
New York for the United Nations general assembly
today, has been forced to abandon plans to visit
ground zero, where the World Trade Center stood
until the September 11 attacks of 2001. Politicians
from President George W Bush to Senator Hillary
Clinton, the Democratic frontrunner in the 2008 race
for the White House, were outraged by the prospect
of a visit to New York’s most venerated site by a
“state sponsor” of terrorism.
Bush still hopes to isolate Iran diplomatically, but
believes the regime is moving steadily closer to
obtaining nuclear weapons while the security council
bickers.
The US president faces strong opposition to military
action, however, within his own joint chiefs of
staff. “None of them think it is a good idea, but
they will do it if they are told to,” said a senior
defence source.
General John Abizaid, the former Centcom commander,
said last week: “Every effort should be made to stop
Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, but failing
that, the world could live with a nuclear-armed
Iran.”
Critics fear Abizaid has lost sight of Iran’s
potential to arm militant groups such as Hezbollah
with nuclear weapons. “You can deter Iran, but there
is no strategy against nuclear terrorism,” said the
retired air force Lieutenant General Thomas
McInerney of the Iran policy committee.
“There is no question that we can take out Iran. The
problem is the follow-on, the velvet revolution that
needs to be created so the Iranian people know it’s
not aimed at them, but at the Iranian regime.”
Checkmate’s freethinking mission is “to provide
planning inputs to warfighters that are
strategically, operationally and tactically sound,
logistically supportable and politically feasible”.
Its remit is not specific to one country, according
to defence sources, but its forward planning is
thought relevant to any future air war against
Iranian nuclear and military sites. It is also
looking at possible threats from China and North
Korea.
Checkmate was formed in the 1970s to counter Soviet
threats but fell into disuse in the 1980s. It was
revived under Colonel John Warden and was
responsible for drawing up plans for the crushing
air blitz against Saddam Hussein at the opening of
the first Gulf war.
Warden told The Sunday Times: “When Saddam invaded
Kuwait, we had access to unlimited numbers of people
with expertise, including all the intelligence
agencies, and were able to be significantly more
agile than Centcom.”
He believes that Checkmate’s role is to develop the
necessary expertise so that “if somebody says Iran,
it says: ‘here is what you need to think about’.
Here are the objectives, here are the risks, here is
what it will cost, here are the numbers of planes we
will lose, here is how the war is going to end and
here is what the peace will look like”.
Warden added: “The Centcoms of this world are
executional – they don’t have the staff, the
expertise or the responsibility to do the thinking
that is needed before a country makes the decision
to go to war. War planning is not just about bombs,
airplanes and sailing boats.” |
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