Lebanon war a dry run for Iran
Well, it seems that the Israeli war with Lebanon was considered a test case for an upcoming American folly into Iran, according to Seymour Hersh:
The United States and Israel have shared intelligence and enjoyed close military cooeperation for decades, but early this spring, according to a former senior intelligence official, high-level planners from the U.S. Air Force–under pressure from the White House to develop a war plan for a decisive strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities–began consulting with their counterparts in the Israeli Air Force.
“The big question for our Air Force was how to hit a series of hard targets in Iran successfully,” the former senior intelligence official said. “Who is the closest ally of the U.S. Air Force in its planning? It’s not Congo–it’s Israel. Everybody knows that Iranian engineers have been advising Hezbollah on tunnels and underground gun emplacements. And so the Air Force went to the Israelis with some new tactics and said to them, ‘Let’s concentrate on the bombing and share what we have on Iran and what you have on Lebanon.’ “ The discussions reached the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, he said.
“The Israelis told us it would be a cheap war with many benefits,” a U.S. government consultant with close ties to Israel said. “Why oppose it? We’ll be able to hunt down and bomb missiles, tunnels, and bunkers from the air. It would be a demo for Iran.”
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Oh yeah, they “approved” all this in the spring. All you dead civilians? Sorry, we were beta testing a new product, hope you’ll understand.
