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Born at the Crest of the Empire

Monday, April 10, 2006

Bill Arkin on Iran planning

Bill Arkin, the WaPo national security writer, has some very sane thoughts about the Iran stories and hype on his "Early Warning blog.

3 Comments:

I also read Arkin's article. Although usually right on, he misses a key point.

The Hersh article doesn't talk about war games. He says that the planning has moved beyond contingency planning (which Arkin discusses) and has moved to operational planning.

Go check out the interview with Hersh on Wolfie's show:

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/04/09.html#a7855

where Hersh explains the difference, and how the military planners put the nuclear option on the table with the expectation it would be ruled out by the Administration (which is SOP) ..... which didn't rule it out.

That's what has military folks freaked out, and leaking to Hersh that they will quit if necessary. These operational plans are significantly different than Pentagon contingencies and war games, that go on all the time under every possible scenario.

By Greyhair, at 11:18 AM
Oh....

And one other itsy bitsy difference.

We're talking about Bush, not Clinton.

When the children are running the show, everything's on the table.

By Greyhair, at 11:24 AM
Good point, I concur wholeheartedly. I just wanted to throw up a more rational discussion over all of this simply because I was feeling the argument separating from reality and groing frantic.

My best guess is that this is in the plans to do, maybe even with a date, but it's still not written in stone.

Mike

By mikevotes, at 12:24 PM

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