Israel Matzav

Hmmm....

Has President Obama finally been backed into a corner on Iran?

A Scottish newspaper is reporting that 'hundreds' of bunker buster bombs have been shipped from California to the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia for a possible attack on Iran (at least we hope it's Iran - with this administration one never knows).

The Sunday Herald can reveal that the US government signed a contract in January to transport 10 ammunition containers to the island. According to a cargo manifest from the US navy, this included 387 “Blu” bombs used for blasting hardened or underground structures.

Experts say that they are being put in place for an assault on Iran’s controversial nuclear facilities. There has long been speculation that the US military is preparing for such an attack, should diplomacy fail to persuade Iran not to make nuclear weapons.

Although Diego Garcia is part of the British Indian Ocean Territory, it is used by the US as a military base under an agreement made in 1971. The agreement led to 2,000 native islanders being forcibly evicted to the Seychelles and Mauritius.

The Sunday Herald reported in 2007 that stealth bomber hangers on the island were being equipped to take bunker-buster bombs.

So far so good, but this piece strikes me as bizarre.

Contract details for the shipment to Diego Garcia were posted on an international tenders’ website by the US navy.

A shipping company based in Florida, Superior Maritime Services, will be paid $699,500 to carry many thousands of military items from Concord, California, to Diego Garcia.

Crucially, the cargo includes 195 smart, guided, Blu-110 bombs and 192 massive 2000lb Blu-117 bombs.

Why would they make something like that public? Maybe because they want the Israelis (and the Iranians) to know about it but not necessarily because they actually plan to attack.

“They are gearing up totally for the destruction of Iran,” said Dan Plesch, director of the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy at the University of London, co-author of a recent study on US preparations for an attack on Iran. “US bombers are ready today to destroy 10,000 targets in Iran in a few hours,” he added.

The preparations were being made by the US military, but it would be up to President Obama to make the final decision. He may decide that it would be better for the US to act instead of Israel, Plesch argued.

“The US is not publicising the scale of these preparations to deter Iran, tending to make confrontation more likely,” he added. “The US ... is using its forces as part of an overall strategy of shaping Iran’s actions.”

God willing....

Has Obama finally figured out that if he doesn't attack, we will?

UPDATE 11:27 AM

According to this, these bombs may not mean anything at all.

The bombs in question — assuming the Herald got their nomenclature right — aren’t our most impressive bunker-busters anyway. The BLU-110 and BLU-117 bombs described in the report are 1,000- and 2,000-pound bombs, respectively: weight classes we have used since the early 1990s or before. Fitting these bombs with modern guidance packages and improved penetration capability has given them more punch, but it doesn’t place them in the same category as our premier weapons.

For comparison, the bunker-busters we sold to Israel in 2005 are 5,000-pound weapons. In the U.S. inventory we have an 18,700-pound bunker-buster and a newer 30,000-pound penetrating bomb. Without turning this into “Bomb 101,” the point to take away is that we move the little bombs, which are the workhorses of our inventory, on a more routine basis than we do the big, exotic bombs. Presidents since Bill Clinton have wanted the military to be prepared to attack Iranian targets if it should become necessary, and having the right bombs staged forward is part of that effort. We can deduce from the shipment to Diego Garcia that the military is updating CENTCOM’s inventory and that Obama hasn’t ruled out a military approach to Iran. But there are no grounds to conclude that a strike must be imminent.

/Sigh.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 4:13 AM