Cheney Drew Up Plans for
Israeli-US Strike on Iran

Israel Today 24sep2007

US Vice President Dick Cheney recently considered having Israel launch a limited missile strike on an Iranian nuclear facility in order to elicit an Iranian military response which would in turn spark a US offensive against Iranian military and nuclear targets, according to Newsweek magazine.

The magazine cited two senior unnamed sources it said learned of the plan from Cheney's former Middle East advisor David Wurmser, who resigned his post last month.

“Cheney had been mulling the idea of pushing for limited Israeli missile strikes against the Iranian nuclear site at Natanz — and perhaps other sites — in order to provoke Tehran into lashing out,” Newsweek quoted Wurmser as saying.

Wurmser's wife, Meyrav, said the allegations were untrue.

source: 27sep2007

Cheney Eyed Israeli Strike on Iranian Nuclear Reactor

BILL HUTCHINSON / New York Daily News 24sep2007

Even as Iran's president insists he's not looking for a fight with the United States, a new report claims Vice President Cheney had mulled provoking one with an Israeli missile strike.

Cheney allegedly considered asking Israel to do the dirty work of attacking a central Iranian nuclear facility in hopes of inciting a war, Newsweek magazine reported yesterday.

The revelation of the White House's alleged hawkish behind-the-scenes thinking comes just days after Iran's deputy air force commander warned his country was prepared to retaliate if Israel "makes a silly mistake."

Still, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has called for the annihilation of Israel, publicly rejects the notion his country is headed for a faceoff with the United States.

"It's wrong to think that Iran and the U.S. are walking toward war. Who says so? Why should we go to war? There is no war in the offing," Ahmadinejad said in an interview aired last night on CBS' "60 Minutes."

When asked if he was hell-bent on getting a nuke, Ahmadinejad answered with a "firm no."

"You have to appreciate we don't need a nuclear bomb," said Ahmadinejad, who arrived in New York yesterday to speak at the UN General Assembly. "We don't need that. What need do we have for a bomb?"

U.S. officials have suggested Iran's main goal is to develop killer nukes while hiding behind a bogus claim that its uranium-enrichment program is for civilian energy purposes only.

The White House has also accused Iran of supplying Iraqi militants with training and weapons to fight American troops.

Newsweek reported that Cheney's former Middle East adviser David Wurmser told a small group several months ago that the vice president had brainstormed ways to quash Iran's nuclear hopes by luring it into war.

"Cheney had been mulling the idea of pushing for limited Israeli missile strikes against the Iranian nuclear site at Natanz - and, perhaps, other sites - in order to provoke Tehran into lashing out," Wurmser, who stepped down from his advisory post last month, reportedly told the group.

Such a strike would give the White House an excuse to launch attacks against military and other nuclear targets in Iran.

Citing two unidentified sources, Newsweek claimed it has corroborated Wurmser's remarks.

Wurmser's wife, Meyrav Wurmser of the neoconservative Hudson Institute think tank, told the magazine its claims were untrue.

A spokeswoman for Cheney, Lea Anne McBride, insisted the vice president "supports the President's policy on Iran," which calls for sanctions to pressure the country into giving up its ambitions for nuclear weapons.

"He makes it very clear that this is a situation that we're trying to handle diplomatically, and he supports the President's policy," McBride told the Daily News.

The UN Security Council members met on Friday for "serious and constructive" talks aimed at forcing Iran to halt its uranium-enrichment activities.

Ahmadinejad countered that "the time of the bomb is passed."

"Our plan and program is very transparent," he said in the "60Minutes" interview. "In political relations right now, the nuclear bomb is of no use."

However, he danced around the question of whether his country is arming Iraqi militants.

"We don't need to do that," he said. "It's very clear, the situation. The insecurity in Iraq is detrimental to our interests."

With Michael McAuliff in Washington

source: 27sep2007

Cheney Mulled Luring Iran into War with Israel

Agence France-Presse 24sep2007

WASHINGTON — US Vice President Richard Cheney has considered provoking an exchange of military strikes between Iran and Israel in order to give the United States a pretext to attack Iran, Newsweek magazine reported in its Monday issue.

But the weekly said the steady departure of neoconservatives from the administration over the past two years had helped tilt the balance away from war.

One official who pushed a particularly hawkish line on Iran was David Wurmser, who had served since 2003 as Cheney's Middle East adviser, the report said.

A spokeswoman at Cheney's office confirmed to Newsweek that Wurmser left his position last month to "spend more time with his family."

A few months before he quit, Wurmser told a small group of people that Cheney had been mulling the idea of pushing for limited Israeli missile strikes against the Iranian nuclear site at Natanz — and perhaps other sites — in order to provoke Tehran into lashing out, the magazine reported, citing two unnamed "knowledgeable sources."

The Iranian reaction would then give Washington a pretext to launch strikes against military and nuclear targets in Iran, Newsweek reported.

When Newsweek attempted to reach Wurmser for comment, his wife, Meyrav, declined to put him on the phone and said the allegations were untrue, the report said.

A spokeswoman at Cheney's office told the weekly the vice president "supports the president's policy on Iran."

source: 27sep2007