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EL PASO, Texas: Despite a loud rattling of sabers over Iran in Iraq,
the US military has not embarked on new planning for war, its chief
spokesman said Wednesday.
“I just want to be abundantly clear that there
are no new directives, there are no new plans in the works, there is
no new effort to prepare for a possible war with Iran,” Pentagon
Spokesman Geoff Morrell said.
Speaking to reporters traveling with US Defense
Secretary Robert Gates, Morrell acknowledged that the Pentagon has
contingency plans and “we update them for every possibility.”
“But to characterize what is going on now as a
new war planning effort against Iran would be wrong,” he said.
“There is nothing going on with regards to
Iran beyond what we would normally do to update our plans for
contingencies with almost any country that poses a threat,” he
said.
His comments came in response to a CBS News
report on Tuesday that said the Pentagon had ordered new options to
be drawn up for attacking Iran.
The report also said the State Department had
begun drafting an ultimatum that would tell Iran to stop meddling in
Iraq or else, if an upcoming visit to Iran by Iraqi Prime Minister
Nuri al-Maliki did not succeed in ending it.
Gates, during a visit to Mexico Tuesday, flatly
denied that the United States was preparing for military attacks on
Iran.
And as recently as last week in a speech at the
US Military Academy at West Point he said a war with Iran would have
disastrous consequences.
But Gates also said he believes Tehran is
“hell-bent” on acquiring nuclear weapons, and top US military
leaders have insistently accused Iran of funding, arming and
training Shiite extremists to kill US and coalition troops.
On Wednesday, a State Department report said
Iran was the world’s “most active” state sponsor of
terrorism—one that seeks to build regional influence and drive the
United States from the Middle East.
“I see what’s happening now perhaps distinct
from what we’ve seen so far. It is very much linked to the
situation on the ground in Iraq. There is a sense that we are coming
more and more directly under attack from Iran,” said Suzanne
Moloney, a former State Department official now at the Brookings
Institution.
In Iraq, US forces have been hit with rising
casualties, reversing a seven-month-long downturn in violence at a
time when US surge brigades are pulling out of the country.
Gates on Tuesday attributed it to rocket attacks
by Iranian-backed militias and to intensified fighting around the
Shiite bastion of Sadr City in Baghdad.
Caches of Iranian-made weapons found in Basra
last month had markings that showed they were manufactured this
year, months after Maliki received a pledge from the Iranians that
they would work to stop the flow of weapons, US defense officials
say.
The US military in Iraq has been preparing its
evidence to present to the press, but “the Iraqis wish to first
show what they have to the Iranian government before they show it to
the world,” a senior US defense official said.
-- AFP
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