<tit>
TEHRAN WAITING FOR A STRIKE<stl>And hiding its nuclear centers underground
<aut>Mekhman Gafarly
<src>Novye Izvestia, February 8, 2006, p. 4
<sum>Will a war follow?</sum>
<cov>US DEFENSE SECRETARY SUGGESTS A MILITARY SOLUTION TO THE IRANIAN PROBLEM. TEHRAN BRACES ITSELF
Yesterday, IAEA officials confirmed they had received official notification from Iran that it severed all contacts with the IAEA of its own volition in protest against the forthcoming transfer of the Iranian nuclear folder to the UN Security Council. US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in his turn raised the question of a direct military intervention as the solution.
The US is universally expected to make up its collective mind by March 2006. Israelis say that Iran will be able to make nuclear weapons in March. Military experts agree therefore that the Americans contemplate the possibility of bombardment of all known nuclear objects on the territory of Iran. The United States has practically surrounded this country with bases: Afghanistan in the west, Iraq, Turkey, and Qatar in the east, Oman and Diego Garcia in the south... There is a group of American aircraft carriers with ground-strafers and Tomahawk missiles in the Persian Gulf. Deployment of B2 bombers taking off from American territory itself, is not ruled out.
The Times yesterday ran an article quoting one Lieutenant Colonel Sam Gardiner, ex-officer of the US Army and a military expert, as saying that air-raids against Iran would be on a scale larger than the Israeli attack on the nuclear center Osirak in Iraq in 1991. As far as Gardiner is concerned, the strikes at Iran will resemble the onset of the air campaign against Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq in 2003.
Tehran braces for an attack. Iranian strategic objects are surrounded with antiaircraft defense belts and hidden underground. Vital components of the nuclear center in Natanz are 18 meters under the surface - and under two meters of concrete. The uranium-enrichment object in Isfahan is protected in the same manner. Along with everything else, Iran may use medium-range missiles for strikes at Israel or American military objects in the Middle East.
The conflict compromises security of the whole region. Last December, Iranian Defense Minister Ali Shamhani threatened all the countries that would provide their territories for the attack against Iran. Official Baku is particularly worried since it already has radar and US aircraft on its territory. Iranian Ambassador to Baku, Afshar Soleimani, said at his press conference last Sunday that he had already been reassured by President Ilham Aliyev that Azerbaijan would not permit the use of its territory for the American campaign against Iran.
<tit>
AMERICAN ECONOMY WILL ENDURE ANOTHER WAR
<stl>Washington launched the information phase of preparations for the operation against Tehran
<aut>Yevlaliya Samedova, Igor Plugatarev, Andrei Terekhov
<src>Nezavisimaya Gazeta, February 7, 2006, p. 9
<sum>Experts comment on the possibility of a war on Iran.</sum>
<cov>POSSIBILITY OF A MILITARY OPERATION AGAINST IRAN: EXPERT OPINIONS
<par>Yuri Godin, a specialist with the Center of Foreign Economic Studies of the Institute of Economy of the Russian Academy of Sciences
The US Economy can endure another war. I even think that the United States needs another war - economically speaking, that is - because it will enable America to maintain stability of the dollar. The dollar is weakening now, and what may happen to it as a result is anybody's guess. A new campaign on the other hand will mean new contracts for the military-industrial complex, and the dollar will bounce back. As for the cost of the war, there will be no problems with that. America may turn on its printing gear at any moment, and that's what it will do. The Americans will print as much as they need without giving a thought to inflation because the money will be used to cover war expenses. It is not going to be simply dumped into economy, you know. Also importantly, the war will enable the United States to thwart Iran's plans of its own oil stock exchange which is about the last thing America wants.
<par>Yevgeny Yasin, the head of the Supreme School of Economics
America has a colossal budget deficit, and Bush's Administration boosts it constantly. It doesn't, however, prevent the United States from having a smoothly working economic system. Neither will Washington be stopped by the fact that war expenses will increase the budget deficit. They are not going to increase it that much, you know. From a financial point of view, the war in Iran will be less expensive than the one in Iraq. The United States will only bomb nuclear objects to destroy the potential that may enable Iran to make nuclear weapons. It will not cost a great deal. Neither will it pose a threat to the American economy.
<par>Rose Goettemueller, Director of the Moscow Carnegie Center (Moscow - Washington)
A war is possible but not right away. Moreover, it will be the last measure the United States will resort to. We have to bear in mind geographic location of the Islamic Republic, its size, and the fact that objects of the nuclear program are scattered all over the country and some of them are hidden underground. And of course, the United States and its allies are fighting a war in Iraq now, and their military capacities are strained to their limits. Political support of the operation is going down in the United States, Great Britain, and other countries involved in the Iraqi conflict settlement.
<par>Lord Timothy garden, an expert with the Royal Institute of International Relations (London)
A military operation against Iran involves several problems. First, Iranian nuclear objects are scattered. Second, a strike at Iran will affect global security and compromise the American operation in Iraq. Third, the aggression will consolidate the population of Iraq. It will certainly rally around the national leader in the face of the enemy. And that is not what the United States wants.
<par>Doctor Elie Carmon, an expert with the Institute of Prevention of terrorism (Herzlia, Israel)
I do not think we should embark on an all-out war like the one in Iraq, but a powerful strike is a possibility. The situation being what it is, all American statements only mean to put the Iranians under pressure in the hope that they change their ways.
<par>Lieutenant General Grigori Dubov, ex-commander of the communications troops of the Antiaircraft Forces
An attack on Iran will enable the Pentagon to continue the practice of testing new weapons it has been carrying out since Yugoslavia in 1999. Apart from the political, counter-terrorist, economic, and other tasks to be solved within the framework of the military campaign, the operation in Iraq is something of paramount importance for the US military-industrial complex. Washington demonstrates its weapons in bona fide hostilities. It is common knowledge that the Pentagon is working on an airspace group that will incapacitate any enemy anywhere in the world without long preparations for a war. All of that has to be tested, of course. And why not test it on Iran?
<par>Major General Pavel Zolotarev, Deputy Director of the Institute of the USA and Canada of the Russian Academy of Sciences, President of the Foundation of Support of Military Reforms
The United States begins the informational phase of the operation, leaking data on its readiness to deliver preventive strikes... I do not really expect the Americans to launch a third local war. They do not need any tests of new weapons anymore. They have tested them in three wars - Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, and Iraq. The new means are mostly informational; they may be easily tested in the conflicts that are already under way.
RVR
