Secret US air force team to perfect plan for Iran strike

clipped from www.timesonline.co.uk

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.

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.

Bush Setting America Up for War With Iran

clipped from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/09/16/wiran116.xml

Senior American intelligence and defence officials believe that President George W Bush and his inner circle are taking steps to place America on the path to war with Iran, The Sunday Telegraph has learnt.

Pentagon planners have developed a list of up to 2,000 bombing targets in Iran, amid growing fears among serving officers that diplomatic efforts to slow Iran's nuclear weapons programme are doomed to fail.

The intelligence source said: "No one outside that tight circle knows what is going to happen." But he said that within the CIA "many if not most officials believe that diplomacy is failing" and that "top Pentagon brass believes the same".

Recent developments over Iraq appear to fit with the pattern of escalation predicted by Pentagon officials.

CNN: Mystery 9/11 aircraft was military 'doomsday plane'

clipped from rawstory.com

Shortly before 10 am on the morning of September 11, 2001, amid rumors of a fourth hijacked plane headed for Washington, DC, a mystery aircraft appeared in restricted airspace over the White House. There has never been an official explanation for this incident, which has provided abundant fuel for 9/11 conspiracy theories.

CNN has now learned from two government sources that the mystery plane was a military aircraft and has determined that the blurry image on video appears to match photos of the Air Force's E-4B (discussed here on Wikipedia), a specially modified Boeing 747 with a communications pod behind the cockpit.

Click here to see video of plane on 9/11

Practice run for marshall law - the Operation FALCON Raids

Article by Frank Morales

clipped from http://www.projectcensored.org/censored_2008/index.htm

Under the code name Operation FALCON (Federal and Local Cops Organized Nationally) three federally coordinated mass arrests occurred between April 2005 and October 2006. In an unprecedented move, more than 30,000 “fugitives” were arrested in the largest dragnets in the nation’s history. The operations directly involved over 960 agencies (state, local, and federal) and were the brainchild of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and US Marshal’s Director Ben Reyna. The DoJ supplied television networks government-shot action videotape of Marshals and local cops raiding homes and breaking down doors, “targeting the worst of the worst criminals on the run,” emphasizing suspected sex offenders. Yet less than ten percent of the total 3

0,150 were suspected sex offenders and less than two percent owned firearms. The press has not asked, “Who were the others?”

This action is instead, he warns, a practice roundup in the move toward martial law.

US Plans to Attack Iran

Pentagon ‘three-day blitz’ plan for Iran

clipped from http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article2369001.ece

THE Pentagon has drawn up plans for massive airstrikes against 1,200 targets in Iran, designed to annihilate the Iranians’ military capability in three days, according to a national security expert.

Alexis Debat, director of terrorism and national security at the Nixon Center, said last week that US military planners were not preparing for “pinprick strikes” against Iran’s nuclear facilities. “They’re about taking out the entire Iranian military,” he said.

President George Bush intensified the rhetoric against Iran last week, accusing Tehran of putting the Middle East “under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust”. He warned that the US and its allies would confront Iran “before it is too late”.

"We Are Going To Hit Iran. Bigtime"

"I don’t think it’s limited at all. We are shipping in and assigning every damn Tomahawk we have in inventory. I think this is going to be massive and sudden, like thousands of targets. I believe that no American will know when it happens until after it happens. And whatever the consequences, whatever the consequences, they will have to be lived with. I am sure if my father knew I was telling someone in a news organization that we were about to launch a supposedly secret attack that it would be treason. But something inside me tells me to tell it anyway."

clipped from http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/lindorff/004

Dave Lindorff: Martial Law Threat is Real

The looming collapse of the U.S. military in Iraq, of which a number of generals and former generals, including former Chief of Staff Colin Powell, have warned, is happening none too soon, as it may be the best hope for preventing military rule here at home.

From the looks of things, the Bush/Cheney regime has been working assiduously to pave the way for a declaration of military rule, such that at this point it really lacks only the pretext to trigger a suspension of Constitutional government. They have done this with the active support of Democrats in Congress, though most of the heavy lifting was done by the last, Republican-led Congress.

Bruce Fein isn't an alarmist. He says he doesn't see martial law coming tomorrow. But he is also realistic. He says, "This is all sitting around like a loaded gun waiting to go off. I think the risk of martial law is trivial right now, but the minute there is a terrorist attack, then it is real.