When a CIA-friendly reporter, a former UN Weapons Inspector, a former CIA employee, and a former Navy Commander all warn you that war with Iran appears imminent, shouldn’t we be listening?

History is about to repeat itself in a horrific way if we don’t speak up. Let’s listen to what these guys are telling us.

Retired Navy Commander Jeff Huber warns us today that the appointment of Navy Admiral William J. Fallon to replace General John Abizad as head of the Central Command (CENTCOM) has unnoted significance:

ABC reports that “Fallon, who is in the Navy, is currently head of Pacific Command; he will be overseeing two ground wars, so the appointment is highly unusual.”

I think ABC is missing the point.

It seems highly unusual for a navy admiral to take charge of CENTCOM until you consider two interrelated things.  First is that Bush needs a senior four-star in the CENTCOM job who hasn’t gone on record as opposing additional troops in Iraq.  Second is that Fallon’s CENTCOM area of responsibility will include Iran. 

A conflict with Iran would be a naval and air operation. Fallon is a naval flight officer.  He flew combat missions in Vietnam, commanded an A-6 Intruder squadron, a carrier air wing and an aircraft carrier.  As a three-star, he commanded Second Fleet and Strike Force Atlantic.  He presently heads U.S. Pacific Command.  His resume also includes duty in numerous joint and Navy staff billets, including Deputy Director for Operations with Joint Task Force Southwest Asia in Riyahd, Saudi Arabia. 

If anybody knows how to run a maritime and air operation against Iran, it’s “Fox” Fallon.

Larry Johnson, a former CIA employee, sees similar portents in the reshuffling of high level defense and intelligence appointees:

Replacing Negroponte with retired Navy Admiral John M. McConnell and appointing retired Air Force Lt. General James Clapper as the Under Secretary of Intelligence at DOD, where he will be in charge of coordinating the budgets and activities of the NSA, the NRO, Defense Human Services, National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NGA), and the Defense Intelligence Agency, will give the military unprecedented control of the intelligence community.  This will mark the first time since World War II the active duty or former military officers are running the main intelligence assets of the United States.  Clapper’s new job, at least for him, is a dream come true.

Clapper and McConnell are worrisome choices because they are known in the intelligence community as guys willing to give their customers what they want.  Unlike Negroponte, who took a pretty tough analytical stance dismissing the imminence of an Iranian threat, Clapper and McConnell will be more than willing collaborators in making a case that Iran is a serious, immediate threat.  If you want to cook the books then these guys can be master chefs.

Scott Ritter, the former UN weapons inspector who told us before we went to Iraq that there were no weapons of mass destruction there is trying to warn us again:

Ritter is frustrated by people who say the administration would never seriously contemplate military action in Iran now, given the state of affairs in Iraq.

“The only opinions that count are those of the military planners,” Ritter said, “and they have put together plans and are prepared to execute plans that involve military operations against Iran.”

Ritter has a full book out on the subject, titled Target Iran.

A review of the book (linked to the title above) states that, while not terribly well written, Ritter’s argument “could not be more important:”

Ritter says “Iran poses no direct threat to Israeli security that warrants any form of pre-emptive military action, especially when it comes to Iran’s nuclear program”. But Iran’s capacity to retaliate is such that “Iran is the one issue that can destroy America in the years ahead”, as well as inflicting on Israel costs that would be “horrific and devastating” – possibly forcing the US or Israel to resort to nuclear strikes. It would at the least scupper any chance of the US negotiating with Iran and Syria to contrive an exit strategy from Iraq.

Fears of such an apocalypse might have been removed by the recent US congressional elections. But the Democrat victory might even have intensified them. “Failing empires have certainly been known to lash out,” says American writer Tom Engelhardt, warning that the record of the Bush administration suggests the catastrophic consequences Ritter enumerates could be “practically an argument for launching such an attack” for the Washington neo-cons. And the Israelis are talking ever more urgently of a pre-emptive strike against Iran off their own bat. Armageddon, anyone?

Sy Hersh’s assessment is perhaps the scariest of all. Hersh wrote a long piece in the New Yorker last year about this. Wolf Blitzer than questioned him on CNN:

BLITZER: Here’s the most explosive item in your new article in The New Yorker magazine. And I’ll read it: “The lack of reliable intelligence leaves military planners, given the goal of totally destroying the sites,” the nuclear sites in Iran, “little choice but to consider the use of tactical nuclear weapons. ‘Every other option, in the view of the nuclear weaponeers, would leave a gap,’ the former senior intelligence official said. ‘Decisive’ is the key word of the Air Force’s planning. It’s a tough decision, but we made it in Japan.”

Now, this is an explosive charge, an explosive revelation, if true, that the United States is seriously considering using a tactical nuclear bomb or bombs to destroy Iran’s nuclear capabilities.

HERSH: What you just read says this. If you’re giving the White House a series of options, and the option is to get rid of an underground facility — the facility I’m talking about is Natanz, 75 feet under hard rock — if you want to tell the White House one sure way of getting it in a range of options is nuclear, what happened in this case is they gave that option, the JCS, the Joint Chiefs [of Staff].

And then, of course, nobody in their right mind would want to use a nuclear weapon in the Middle East, because it would be, my God, totally chaotic. When the JCS, the Joint Chiefs, and the planners wanted to walk back that option, what happened is about three or four weeks ago, the White House, people in the White House, in the Oval Office, the vice president’s office, said, no, let’s keep it in the plan.

That doesn’t mean it’s going to happen. They refuse to take it out. And what I’m writing here is that if this isn’t removed — and I say this very seriously. I’ve been around this town for 40 years — some senior officers are prepared to resign.

…

BLITZER: Here’s the other explosive item in your piece, and I’ll read it: “The Bush administration, while publicly advocating diplomacy in order to stop Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon, has increased clandestine activities inside Iran and intensified planning for a possible major air attack. Current and former American military and intelligence officials said that Air Force planning groups are drawing up lists of targets, and teams of American combat troops have been ordered into Iran, under cover, to collect targeting data and to establish contact with anti-government ethnic-minority groups.”

Bottom line, what you’re saying here is that there are American forces, clandestinely, already inside of Iran.

HERSH: That’s what I’m saying.

BLITZER: You want to elaborate on that?

HERSH: Well, I’ll tell you one thing that is very interesting to me about it. They’re not Special Forces; they’re regular military. And that’s part of the Rumsfeld notion that all military guys are potentially Special Forces. And I think it’s fraught with danger. But they’re there.

And we’re not saying any more specifically about where they are or what they’re doing. Nobody wants to see anybody get hurt. But they are there and the American public should know it because, I assure you, the Iranian government knows it.

BLITZER: The official U.S. intelligence estimate is the Iranians are still years away from developing a nuclear bomb.

The Israelis are much more concerned. They think it’s — perhaps this year could be a decisive turning point in whether they go forward with it.

What is your bottom-line assessment, based on the reporting you’ve done? How close are the Iranians to actually building a bomb?

HERSH: You know, the point is, we don’t know. It’s not tomorrow. I’ve heard up to as long as 10 years. And as you know, the official estimate, intelligence estimate, of the government that was published — leaked last year or obtained by The Washington Post said 8 to 10 years. And that’s the best guess.

Here’s the real, critical point. The critical point, it seems to me, is that we’re not talking. This president is not talking to the Iranians. They are trying very hard to make contact, I can assure you of that, in many different forms.

And he’s not talking. And there’s no public pressure on the White House to start bilateral talks. And that’s what amazes everybody.

When I was in Vienna [Austria], seeing officials of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the one thing they all said is everybody knows Iran is trying to do something. They’re cheating. They’re not near. There’s plenty of time. And instead of talking about bombing, let’s talk about talking.

If Bush isn’t talking, then we need to be. We need to talk loudly and often and do all we can to preempt this war, to take it off the table.

Our representatives, as you saw from my previous post, can be blackmailed. They can be funded. They can be twisted and persuaded. Our majority does not exist in the Senate so long as Senator Tim Johnson can’t speak, can’t return the hall, can’t vote.

All the signs are there. What are we going to do about it? And what blood will be on our hands if we don’t do something to prevent this?