- Immediately after Condoleezza Rice's visit to the north
of England for a series of secret meetings and public appearances with
Foreign Minister Jack Straw, the UK top brass held their own secret meeting
Monday in London to prepare Britain for what they now describe as the "inevitable"
U.S. military strike against Iran.
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- Chief of the Defense Staff Gen. Sir Michael Walker; Chief
of Defense Intelligence Lt. Gen. Andrew Ridgway, and Assistant Chief of
the General Staff Maj. Gen. Bill Rollo were scheduled to attend the secret
meeting along with top-ranking civilian officials from Downing Street and
the Foreign Office.
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- Experts confirm that the U.S. strike against multiple
targets in Iran is positively in the pipeline; only its date remains uncertain.
Current White Hall speculation is that the U.S. will strike Iran's nuclear
sites at some obscure date vaguely described as sometime later this year
or next.
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- The UK government's most loyal supporters in the British
media have reported plans for the secret meeting of the top brass and begun
the process of preparing the UK public for what will be a very unpopular
U.S. military intervention.
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- In a candid lead editorial, the Sunday Telegraph pointed
to the oil factor as one of the primary objectives driving U.S. policy
in the region and a key element in its plan to bomb multiple targets in
Iran.
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- In Britain, there are grave concerns that the U.S. strike
will have a cascade effect and will produce deeply negative reactions across
the board in Iraq, the Middle East, and throughout the world. One risk
that is being weighed very heavily in White Hall is that the U.S. bombing
campaign will strengthen the hand of Iran's controversial president, Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad.
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- Anticipating massive political repercussions throughout
the region, observers are predicting the eruption of strident and violent
anti-American protests in Egypt, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Indonesia,
and Saudi Arabia. Some British officials will argue against any visible
UK involvement in what is being seen by many as yet another foolish move
on the international chessboard by Bush and Rice one that follows
a revealing reference to "thousands of mistakes" in Iraq that
were openly confessed by Secretary Rice during her latest high-profile
visit to Britain.
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- Planetary Movement has been informed that the timing
of the U.S. strike will be synchronized with the political cycle in Bush's
America.
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- Political intelligence experts based in Washington, D.C.,
advise that the U.S. strike against Iran will likely occur between Labor
Day (Sept. 4) and election day (Nov. 6) although it could come earlier
if the president's popularity continues its precipitous decline. The political
spin of the U.S. action is now being designed by Karl Rove and his minions
to strengthen the weakening hand of a deeply unpopular presidency and to
stave off a drastic defeat for the Republicans in this year's midterm elections
by galvanizing the American voters with the bombing campaign that will
be ballyhooed as"essential for national security."
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- After their public appearances in the north of England,
Rice and Straw unexpectedly boarded Rice's 757 and flew overnight to Baghdad
for a face-to-face confrontation with Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari, whom
they hope to convince to abdicate his office for a more malleable replacement.
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- Adel Abdul Mahdi is a Shi'ite politician deemed by Rice
and Straw to be a somewhat more reliable pair of hands than Jaafari. Rice
and Straw view Mahdi as a political operative who might be somewhat less
hostile to U.S. objectives in the region than Jaafari.
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- In Baghdad, the pair met with President Jalal Talabani
and the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, to arrange the ouster
of Jaafari and his replacement by Mahdi. The imminent regime change in
Baghdad is merely a first step in their preparations for the U.S. air strike
against Iran, which will create massive political pressures on the U.S.-backed
government in Iraq.
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