US Gulf build-up warning to possible foes: Gates
WASHINGTON: US Defence Secretary Robert Gates late on Friday said a US military buildup in the Gulf was a message to friends and “potential adversaries” in the region but firmly rejected talk of war plans aimed at Iran. ( How many times can this DOUBLESPEAK BS keep americans in the dull state of complacent trust in the verbal games their leaders play with the heads of the american public. Is the public, in vast overall, a born sucker????YES. P.T. Barnum was so correct when he said "a sucker is born every minute" and i raise that view of Barnum's from an opinion to a TRUTH OBSERVATION.Max)
His comments came as the US intelligence community’s bleak consensus report on Iraq said that Tehran “intensifies” the conflict there but is not “a major driver of violence” despite Washington’s recent emphasis on Iran as a key bad actor fueling deadly sectarian strife.
“We are not planning for a war with Iran,” Gates said, amid fears in the US Congress that the tough new rhetoric targeting Tehran and the recent deployment of a second aircraft carrier group in the Gulf foreshadowed a US strike.
Gates acknowledged that this deployment, coupled with newly aggressive efforts to crack down on alleged Iranian networks funneling weapons used against US forces in Iraq, had fueled speculation of a coming US-Iran war.
“But really the purpose of that (deployment) is simply to underscore to our friends, as well as to our potential adversaries in the region, that the United States has considered the Persian Gulf and that whole area and stability in that area to be a vital American national interest,” he said.
“And that has been the case for decades, under many, many presidents. And we simply want to reinforce to our friends in particular that they can count on us having a presence and being strong in their area in protecting our interests and in protecting theirs,” the defence chief told reporters.
Gates’ remarks came amid reports that Iran is moving into the final stages of setting up an industrial-level site to enrich uranium in defiance of United Nations demands and is blocking access to UN inspectors. Diplomats at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna told AFP on Friday that Iran had by this week begun installation of 3,000 centrifuges, the machines which enrich uranium, in a huge underground bunker at its main nuclear facility in the central town of Natanz.
Although Tehran denied the move, it appeared likely to escalate the international showdown over an Iranian nuclear programme which the United States says hides a secret weapons programme. But Gates drew a distinction between US efforts “in Iraq” to crack down on any Iranian backing for groups behind attacks on US as well as Iraqi troops or civilians, and the pressure on Iran to freeze sensitive nuclear work. “We are doing the latter strictly through the diplomatic process. It seems to be showing some progress, at least the diplomatic process is working,” the defence secretary said.
Some experts and US lawmakers have been warning of a possible US military strike at Iran’s nuclear sites if diplomacy hits a stalemate. Tehran denies seeking atomic weapons. Inside Iraq, US forces are “uprooting the networks” behind a powerful new generation of improvised explosive devices such roadside bombs, said Gates, who declared: “These darn things account for about 70 percent of our casualties.”
Under pressure to make public evidence for US allegations of Iranian networks feeding a steady diet of fighters and weapons into deadly sectarian violence in Iraq, Gates said Washington had asked commanders in Iraq to hold off temporarily to make sure the proof is ironclad. Asked whether there was evidence that the government in Tehran was behind any Iranian mischief in Iraq, Gates replied: “I don’t know that we know the answer to that question.”
The National Intelligence Estimate, produced by all 16 US spy agencies, found that “Iranian lethal support for select groups of Iraqi Shia militants clearly intensifies the conflict in Iraq.”
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