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Armada of International Naval Power Massing in the Gulf as Israel Prepares an Iran Strike

*Source: The Telegraph

An armada of US and British naval power is massing in the Persian Gulf in the belief that Israel is considering a pre-emptive strike against Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons programme.

Cruisers, aircraft carriers and minesweepers from 25 nations are converging on the strategically important Strait of Hormuz in an unprecedented show of force as Israel and Iran move towards the brink of war.

Western leaders are convinced that Iran will retaliate to any attack by attempting to mine or blockade the shipping lane through which passes around 18 million barrels of oil every day, approximately 35 per cent of the world’s oil traded by sea.

A blockade would have a catastrophic effect on the fragile economies of Britain, Europe the United States and Japan, all of which rely heavily on oil and gas supplies from the Gulf.

The Strait of Hormuz is one of the world’s most congested international waterways. It is only 21 miles wide at its narrowest point and is bordered by the Iranian coast to the north and the Oman to the south.

In preparation for any pre-emptive or retaliatory action by Iran, warships from more than 25 countries, including the United States, Britain, France, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, will today begin an annual 12-day exercise.

The war games are the largest ever undertaken in the region.

They will practise tactics in how to breach an Iranian blockade of the strait and the force will also undertake counter-mining drills.

The multi-national naval force in the Gulf includes three US Nimitz class carrier groups, each of which has more aircraft than the entire complement of the Iranian air force.

The carriers are supported by at least 12 battleships, including ballistic missile cruisers, frigates, destroyers and assault ships carrying thousand of US Marines and special forces.

The British component consists of four British minesweepers and the Royal Fleet Auxiliary Cardigan Bay, a logistics vessel. HMS Diamond, a brand-new £1billion Type 45 destroyer, one of the most powerful ships in the British fleet, will also be operating in the region.

In addition, commanders will also simulate destroying Iranian combat jets, ships and coastal missile batteries.

In the event of war, the main threat to the multi-national force will come from the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps navy, which is expected to adopt an “access-denial” strategy in the wake of an attack, by directly targeting US warships, attacking merchant shipping and mining vital maritime chokepoints in the Persian Gulf.

Defence sources say that although Iran’s capability may not be technologically sophisticated, it could deliver a series of lethal blows against British and US ships using mini-subs, fast attack boats, mines and shore-based anti-ship missile batteries.

Next month, Iran will stage massive military manoeuvres of its own, to show that it is prepared to defend its nuclear installations against the threat of aerial bombardment.

The exercise is being showcased as the biggest air defence war game in the Islamic Republic’s history, and will be its most visible response yet to the prospect of an Israeli military strike.

Using surface-to-air missiles, unmanned drones and state-of-the-art radar, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and air force will combine to test the defences of 3,600 sensitive locations throughout the country, including oil refineries and uranium enrichment facilities.

Brigadier General Farzad Esmaili, commander of the Khatam al-Anbiya air defence base, told a conference this month that the manoeuvres would “identify vulnerabilities, try out new tactics and practise old ones”.

At the same time as the Western manoeuvres in the Gulf, the British Response Task Forces Group — which includes the carrier HMS Illustrious, equipped with Apache attack helicopters, along with the French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle - will be conducting a naval exercise in the eastern Mediterranean. The task force could easily be diverted to the Gulf region via the Suez Canal within a week of being ordered to do so.

The main naval exercise comes as President Barack Obama is scheduled to meet Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, today to discuss the Iranian crisis.

Many within the Obama administration believe that Israel will launch a pre-emptive strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities before the US presidential elections, an act which would signal the failure of one of Washington’s key foreign policy objectives.

Both Downing Street and Washington hope that the show of force will demonstrate to Iran that Nato and the West will not allow President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian leader, to develop a nuclear armoury or close Hormuz.

Sir John Sawers, the head of MI6, the Secret Intelligence Service, reportedly met the Israeli prime minister and Ehud Barak, his defence secretary, two weeks ago in an attempt to avert military action against Iran.

But just last week Mr Netanyahu signalled that time for a negotiated settlement was running out when he said: “The world tells Israel 'Wait, there’s still time.’ And I say, 'Wait for what? Wait until when?’

“Those in the international community who refuse to put red lines before Iran don’t have a moral right to place a red light before Israel.”

The crisis hinges on Iran’s nuclear enrichment programme, which Israel believes is designed to build an atomic weapon. Tehran has long argued that the programme is for civil use only and says it has no plans to an build a nuclear bomb, but that claim has been disputed by the West, with even the head of MI6 stating that the Islamic Republic is on course to develop atomic weapons by 2014.

The Strait of Hormuz has long been disputed territory, with the Iranians claiming control of the region and the entire Persian Gulf.

Rear Admiral Ali Fadavi of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps recently boasted that “any plots of enemies” would be foiled and a heavy price exacted, adding: “We determine the rules of military conflict in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz.”

But Leon Panetta, the US defence secretary, warned that Iranian attempts to exercise control over the Strait of Hormuz could be met with force.

He said: “The Iranians need to understand that the United States and the international community are going to hold them directly responsible for any disruption of shipping in that region — by Iran or, for that matter, by its surrogates.”

Mr Panetta said that the United States was “fully prepared for all contingencies” and added: “We’ve invested in capabilities to ensure that the Iranian attempt to close down shipping in the Gulf is something that we are going to be able to defeat if they make that decision.”

That announcement was supported by Philip Hammond, the Defence Secretary, who added: “We are determined to work as part of the international community effort to ensure freedom of passage in the international waters of the Strait of Hormuz.”

One defence source told The Sunday Telegraph last night: “If it came to war, there would be carnage. The Iranian casualties would be huge but they would be able to inflict severe blows against the US and British.

“The Iranian Republican Guard are well versed in asymmetrical warfare and would use swarm attacks to sink or seriously damage ships. This is a conflict nobody wants, but the rhetoric from Israel is unrelenting.”

Army Stockpiles Anti-Radiation Pills To Protect Against Fukushima Fallout

*Source: Prison Planet

Defense Logistics Agency cites ongoing crisis in Japan as reason behind bulk purchase

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Wednesday, April 11, 2012

The Troop Support branch of the Defense Logistics Agency has decided to replenish its stockpiles of anti-radiation pills, citing the ongoing crisis at Fukushima and the potential for nuclear fallout as a primary reason behind the bulk purchase.

According to a solicitation on the FedBizOpps.gov website, the DLA is looking to finalize the purchase of almost $400,000 dollars worth of potassium iodide pills, which work by helping the the body’s thyroid gland block cancer-causing radioiodines.

The posting states that the DLA requires 75,000 blister packs of pills, each of which contain 14 potassium iodide tablets, enough to last 2 weeks for one adult. The solicitation specifies the need to “ensure that critical operational forces are protected in the event of nuclear fallout,” as the reason behind the purchase, adding that, “The recent earthquake in Japan in March of 2011 and the resultant nuclear crisis has renewed interest in this item.”

Despite the mainstream media’s disinterest in the ongoing Fukushima crisis, now into its 14th month, experts have warned that the situation at the Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant is at its most critical phase.

As we reported last week, according to insiders the Japanese government has drawn up contingency plans for the potential evacuation of Greater Tokyo’s 39 million residents due to the threat posed by the potential meltdown of Fukushima’s reactor number 4, which holds 75% as much nuclear fuel as the entire Chernobyl complex did prior to its meltdown.

“The worse-case scenario drawn up by the government includes not only the collapse of the No. 4 reactor pool, but the disintegration of spent fuel rods from all the plant’s other reactors. If this were to happen, residents in the Tokyo metropolitan area would be forced to evacuate,” according to a Mainichi Daily News editorial by senior writer Takao Yamada which cited defense insiders.

Diplomat Akio Matsumura went further, warning that the collapse of reactor number 4 would “certainly cause a global catastrophe like we have never before experienced,” adding that the 11,138 spent fuel assemblies stored at the Fukushima plant contain “134 million curies is Cesium-137 — roughly 85 times the amount of Cs-137 released at the Chernobyl accident.”

Matsumura chillingly cautioned that should the worst case scenario unfold, the resulting radioactive fallout “would destroy the world environment and our civilization.”

Radiation from the Fukushima plant was recently detected on the west coast of the United States by marine biologists who found giant kelp collected along the coast from Laguna Beach to as far north as Santa Cruz to be contaminated with radiation as high as samples found in British Columbia, Canada, and northern Washington State in the aftermath of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.

In the immediate aftermath of the beginning of the Fukushima nuclear crisis, there was a run on potassium iodide pills as panic buying exhausted stocks, prompting some retailers to demand up to $300 dollars for packs of the medication which would normally sell for just $15 dollars.

The U.S. Army is seemingly treating the threat of radioactive fallout from the Fukushima nuclear plant with much more seriousness than health authorities in Fukushima itself. As we highlighted recently, almost a quarter of residents who attempt to receive treatment for radiation poisoning are instead being treated for “psychiatric disorders,” with fear of contamination being characterized by as a mental illness.

As the Business Insider website points out, the DLA purchase could also be related to an upcoming attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities which threatens to disperse radiation over a wide area.

“Destroying one of the most likely Iranian targets, the 1000-megawatt Bushehr nuclear plant, would create just such a concern,” write Eloise Lee and Robert Johnson. “When Israel destroyed Iraq’s Osiris 70-megawatt nuclear reactor in a bold 1981 attack, the plant hadn’t yet been stocked with nuclear fuel so there was no risk of radiation.
But an attack on Iran’s Bushehr plant, which has been stocked with radioactive fuel rods since 2010, would be an incalculable mess.”

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Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show and Infowars Nightly News.