Pentagon halted Cheney ploy to start war with Iran - ex-diplomat
09-06-2008
By Gareth Porter, Inter Press Service
WASHINGTON: Pentagon officials firmly opposed a proposal by Vice President Dick Cheney last summer for air strikes against Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) bases by insisting that the administration would have to make clear decisions about how far the United States would go in escalating the conflict, according to a former George W. Bush administration official.
[...]
Petraeus was also a supporter of Cheney's proposal for striking IRGC targets in Iran, going so far as to hint in an interview with Fox News last September that he had passed on to the White House his desire to do something about alleged Iranian assistance to Shiite militias that would require US forces beyond his control. At that point, Admiral Fallon was in a position to deter any effort to go around DoD and military opposition to such a strike because he controlled all military access to the region as a whole.
But Fallon's forced resignation in March and the subsequent promotion of Petraeus to become CENTCOM chief later this year gives Cheney a possible option to ignore the position of his opponents in Washington once more in the final months of the administration.
Full article at <http://www.muslimnews.co.uk/news/news.php?article=14397>.
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