Officials push up-to-date plan for Iran

[unhappycamper]

Officials push up-to-date plan for Iran
By Robert Burns - The Associated Press
Posted : Friday Nov 9, 2007 5:43:01 EST

WASHINGTON — U.S. defense officials have signaled that up-to-date attack plans are available if needed in the escalating crisis over Iran’s nuclear aims, although no strike appears imminent.

The Army and Marine Corps are under enormous strain from years of heavy ground fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Still, the U.S. has ample air and naval power to strike Iran if President Bush decided to target nuclear sites or to retaliate for alleged Iranian meddling in neighboring Iraq.

Among the possible targets, in addition to nuclear installations such as the centrifuge plant at Natanz: Iran’s ballistic missile sites, Republican Guard bases and naval warfare assets that Tehran could use in a retaliatory closure of the Straits of Hormuz, a vital artery for the flow of Gulf oil.

The Navy has an aircraft carrier in the Gulf area with about 60 fighters and other aircraft that likely would feature prominently in a bombing campaign. And a contingent of about 2,200 Marines are on a standard deployment to the Gulf region aboard ships led by the Kearsarge, an amphibious assault ship.

Air Force fighters and bombers are available elsewhere in the Gulf area, including a variety of warplanes in Iraq and at a regional air operations center in Qatar.

But there has been no new buildup of U.S. firepower in the region. In fact there has been some shrinkage in recent months. After adding a second aircraft carrier in the Gulf early this year — a move that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said was designed to underscore U.S. long-term stakes in the region — the Navy has quietly returned to a one-carrier presence.


Rest of article at: http://www.navytimes.com/news/2007/11/ap_iranplans_071108/