US Strike Group ordered to Gulf

bd popeye said:

...check CVN status below;

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The anti-ship Tomahawk missile is equipped with an inertial guidance and an active radar and anti-radiation homing head. The range is up to 450km. ..

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also carry the Harpoon anti-ship missile from Boeing. Sub-Harpoon uses active radar homing to deliver a 225kg warhead. The range is 130km and the speed is high subsonic. ..The submarine has the capacity for 26 torpedo tube launched weapons including Tomahawk missiles, Harpoon missiles and Mark 48 ADCAP torpedoes.

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January 8, 2007
Man in the News
Adm. William J. Fallon: An Experienced Naval Officer, and a Diplomat
By THOM SHANKER
WASHINGTON, Jan. 7 — The Bush administration’s selection of a career naval aviator to be the top commander of American military forces across a region where they are engaged in two ground wars is, at first glance, odd.
A range of military officers at the Pentagon noted that if Adm. William J. Fallon was confirmed by the Senate to the Central Command position, he would be not only the first naval officer to command the region, but also a four-star officer moving between regional combatant commands. Often, such posts are given as promotions to three-star officers.
Senior Pentagon civilians and military officers said Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates’s recommendation of Admiral Fallon, currently in command of all American forces in the Pacific, reflected a wish for seasoned eyes on Afghanistan and Iraq as well as a new focus on regional initiatives to reassure allies and deter adversaries, in particular Iran.
“Because of the importance of this job today, and what we’re embroiled in over in that area of operations, this is no time for a learning curve,” said Adm. Robert J. Natter, who worked extensively with Admiral Fallon before retiring as commander of the Atlantic Fleet.
“He has broad experience, both diplomatic, with the Japanese, Chinese and South Koreans, and also clearly in the traditional military fields,” Admiral Natter said.
The Middle East has a vast land area, to be sure, but also has important waterways that carry world oil supplies and, it is feared, nuclear materials and terrorists.
Whether the mission is interdicting contraband, tracking suspected leaders of Al Qaeda or deterring Iran, many military contingencies in the region rely on warships and warplanes, and not boots on the ground.
Admiral Fallon, who began his military career with a commission through the Navy’s Reserve Officer Training Program, as opposed to the more prestigious Naval Academy, has a quarter-century’s experience in combat aircraft and extensive time at the negotiating table.
The admiral can be grizzly and tough, as befits a product of New Jersey. But he has consistently taken on assignments where diplomatic skills were as important as the military ones. He surprised some of his colleagues when, in early 2001, he volunteered for the task of delivering an apology to Japanese officials and families of those killed in the accidental sinking of a fishery school ship by an American submarine, the Greeneville, off the coast of Hawaii.
The final military inquiry had not been completed, and some at the Pentagon argued that an official apology was premature. But the extraordinary visit to Tokyo by Admiral Fallon, then serving as the vice chief of naval operations, the service’s No. 2 job, was credited with soothing the feelings of an important ally, and of its people.
Another side of Admiral Fallon was on display last month when, as the senior American military officer in the Pacific, he took the unusual and punitive move of canceling a large annual field exercise with the Philippines over a local judge’s failure to honor the bilateral treaty governing protections for American military personnel. At the time, Admiral Fallon said he was not sitting in judgment of the guilt or innocence of a marine convicted of rape, but was protecting his forces by demanding that the Philippines adhere to legal obligations.
Admiral Fallon can be expected to pay great attention to the missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, but to leave day-to-day operations to the senior commanders on the ground in Baghdad and Kabul, similar to his current relationship as Pacific regional commander to the four-star Army officer in charge of forces just in South Korea.
William Joseph Fallon was born Dec. 30, 1944, in East Orange, N.J., and raised in Merchantville. He graduated from Villanova University in 1967, and later graduated from the Naval War College and the National War College, and earned a master’s degree in international studies from Old Dominion University.
He flew combat missions in the Vietnam War, commanded a carrier air wing in the Persian Gulf war in 1991, and four years later led the naval battle group supporting NATO operations in Bosnia. His senior positions before the Pacific assignment included commander of the Fleet Forces Command and of the Atlantic Fleet.
“This selection sends a clear signal that the administration wants the combatant commander to operate at the ‘30,000 foot’ level, at the geopolitical and geostrategic level, and to foster our relations in the region as opposed to being focused solely on this conflict or that conflict,” said Stephen R. Pietropaoli, a retired rear admiral who now serves as executive director of the Navy League.
“Admiral Fallon will have very experienced commanders in charge of operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, the Horn of Africa,” Admiral Pietropaoli added. “But the Central Command commander needs to be above that, looking at how to enhance America’s influence throughout his area of responsibility and how to truly work hand in glove with the Department of State to enhance America’s image and influence and prestige in that part of the world.”

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To Counter Iran’s Role in Iraq, Bush Moves Beyond Diplomacy
By HELENE COOPER and MARK MAZZETTI
WASHINGTON, Jan. 10 — In promising to stop Iran from meddling in Iraq, President Bush returned Wednesday night to a strategy of confrontation in dealing with Tehran, casting aside what had been a limited flirtation with a more diplomatic approach toward it.

Mr. Bush accused Iran of providing material support for attacks on American troops and vowed to respond. “We will disrupt the attacks on our forces,” he said in his speech. “We will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq.”

Mr. Bush said the United States would send another aircraft carrier and its supporting ships to the Persian Gulf. Administration officials said the battle group would be stationed within quick sailing distance of Iran, a response to the growing concern that Iran is building up its own missile capacity and naval power, with the goal of military dominance in the gulf.

Mr. Bush also announced the deployment of Patriot missiles to protect America’s gulf allies. A battery of such missiles is already in Qatar, having been moved there several months ago.

The more combative talk reflects increased frustration in the administration with Iran, which American officials blame for part of the rising death toll in Iraq.

Military officials in Baghdad say they have documented a gradual rise in the number of sophisticated roadside bombs using “shaped charges” — a type of weapon that commanders believe is imported from Iran. According to military statistics, 78 coalition troops were killed and 243 were wounded by these bombs between September and December of last year, compared with 53 killed by the bombs in the previous nine months.

American officials have provided members of Congress information to support the claim that Iran is helping to orchestrate attacks on Americans in Iraq, but the administration has not made that information public.

The American officials say that the Revolutionary Guard’s Quds force trains inside Iran and then dispatches operatives into Iraq, using contacts with Iraqi Shiite militias to attack American troops.

“They’re training to kill coalition forces,” said one senior American counterterrorism official, speaking on condition of anonymity. “Their comments about wanting to see a stable Iraq are belied by this type of activity.”

Gen. Michael V. Hayden, director of the Central Intelligence Agency, told Congress late last year that while he was originally skeptical of reports of Iranian operations inside Iraq, he now had the “zeal of a convert” on the matter.

One American official who recently returned from a trip to Baghdad said American commanders in Iraq believed that Iran was using its vast political influence to press Shiite politicians not to forge any long-term agreements with Sunnis.

“We caught them with their finger in the cookie jar last month,” a senior administration official said, referring to the arrest of five Iranians in Iraq whom the Americans accused of running guns and planning sectarian attacks. The Iranians were eventually released by Iraqi authorities.

American officials maintain that the latest moves should not be seen as preparations for a military strike against Iran. But they also said that Mr. Bush’s top deputies, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and National Security Adviser Stephen J. Hadley, had decided that, barring some major conciliatory move from Tehran, American moves to engage Iran had run their course.

The United States has grown frustrated with what one administration official described as the “molasseslike” pace of diplomatic efforts at the United Nations to impose broad sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program.

The Security Council passed a resolution on Dec. 23 with sanctions intended to curb Iran’s uranium enrichment program, which Iran says is for peaceful purposes but the United States and some European nations contend is for the purpose of creating nuclear arms. The measure bars the trade of goods or technology related to Iran’s nuclear program.

But American officials acknowledge that the resolution is too weak to force Iran to abandon its nuclear program and are seeking to increase economic and psychological pressure on Iran. The United States is pressing governments and financial institutions in Europe, Japan and China to cut some of their financial ties with Iran.

For instance, during talks in Washington last week between Ms. Rice and visiting Vice Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi of China, American officials urged Beijing to abandon a proposal for a $16 billion natural gas deal for the China National Offshore Oil Corporation to develop Iran’s North Pars gas field, American officials said. The Chinese assured the United States that a decision was not imminent, American officials said.

Mr. Bush is expected to seek to apply pressure to other countries to limit their dealings with Iran in the coming month. American officials are hoping that the economic pressure will also persuade Iran not to actively oppose the new Bush strategy in Iraq.

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.. a Patriot missile battalion will be sent to the Persian Gulf next month, the Army said Thursday.
..The dispatching of a Patriot missile battery, capable of defending against shorter-range ballistic missile attacks, appeared linked to Bush's announcement Wednesday that he ordered an aircraft carrier strike group to the Middle East, which would be in easy reach of Iran, whose nuclear program is a U.S. concern.
Navy officials said the carrier heading to the Gulf region is the USS John C. Stennis, which previously had been in line to deploy to the Pacific. ..

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Still One More Card to Play

by Patrick J. Buchanan
Wednesday night, George Bush seemed to play his last card in the Iraq war. It was not impressive. Consider.

First, he warned of the awful consequences of a US defeat: "Radical Islamic extremism would grow ... in strength and gain new recruits. They would be in a better position to topple moderate governments, create chaos in the region and use oil revenues to fund their ambitions. Iran would be emboldened in its pursuit of nuclear weapons."

Bush then warned of the awful consequences of the Baker commission proposal to "announce the phased withdrawal of our combat forces." "(T)o step back now would force a collapse of the Iraqi government, tear the country apart and result in mass killings on an unimaginable scale."

Twin those two warnings, and what is Bush saying?

His critics favor a course in Iraq that risks the fall of Baghdad, Iraq torn apart, slaughter of our friends, a surge in Islamic terror, the toppling of moderate Arab states, chaos in the Gulf, billions in oil revenue flowing to al-Qaeda killers and a nuclear Iran.

And how do we avert so monstrous a calamity?

A "surge" of 21,500 troops, 15 percent of the US forces already in Iraq, to pacify the capital. And even that troop commitment is "not open-ended."

This is just not credible. For, if the situation is as dire as Bush says and the potential disaster as horrific as he describes, the logical course would be to treble the number of troops in Iraq and commit to fight indefinitely.

How to explain the disconnect? Is Bush absurdly exaggerating the consequences of a pullout?

No. US strategic interests in the Middle East are indeed at risk because of the hubristic folly of our political elite in putting them there, when they launched this insane war.

But Bush cannot now commit to fight to victory, because the war is lost in the United States. Two-thirds of the American people are unwilling to make the sacrifices to save Iraq. Though they do not want a defeat and may not realize the consequences of a defeat, they are willing to risk a defeat, rather than continue to read of American kids being IED'ed to death and dismemberment in Baghdad and Anbar. The people want out and are saying to hell with the consequences.

That is the political realty that underlay the president's modest proposal of a "surge" to avert what he warns is a strategic disaster.

But Bush has to know the card he played is not going to save the pot into which he has plunged his legacy, the credibility of his country and America's standing as a superpower.

Which leads me to believe Bush has yet another card to play, an ace up his sleeve. What might that be?

Midway through his speech, almost as an aside, Bush made a pointed accusation at and issued a direct threat to – Tehran.

To defend the "territorial integrity" of Iraq and stabilize "the region in the face of extremist challenge," Bush interjected, "begins with addressing Iran and Syria."

"These two regimes are allowing terrorists and insurgents to use their territory to move in and out of Iraq. Iran is providing material support for attacks on American troops. We will disrupt the attacks on our forces. We will interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria. And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq."

Now, any networks providing "advanced weaponry and training" to jihadists and insurgents are outside Iraq. Otherwise, they would have been neutralized by air strikes already.

So, where are they? Answer: inside Syria and Iran. And Bush says we are going to "seek out and destroy" these networks.

Which suggests to this writer that, while the "surge" is modest, Bush has in mind a different kind of escalation – widening the war by attacking the source of instability in the region: Tehran.

"I recently ordered the deployment of an additional carrier strike group to the region," said Bush. "We will deploy ... Patriot air defense systems to reassure our friends and allies."

But there is no need for more carrier-based fighter-bombers in Iraq. And the insurgents have no missiles against which anyone would need Patriot missiles to defend. You only need Patriots if your target country has missiles with which to retaliate against you.

What Bush signaled in the clear Wednesday is that air strikes on Iranian "networks" are being planned. That would produce an Iranian response. That response would trigger US strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities, for which Israel and the neocons are howling.
And should this scenario play out, what would Hillary, Biden, Kerry, McCain, Giuliani, and even Pelosi and Obama do? Hail Bush as a Churchill. At first.

And Bush would have another legacy than a lost war in Iraq. Like Menachem Begin, only big-time, he would have his own Osirak.

COPYRIGHT CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

What do two US aircraft carrier attack groups in the Persian Gulf have to do with a guerrilla ground war in Iraq?
The surge is merely a tactic to buy time while war with Iran and Syria can be orchestrated.

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Aircraft carrier Reagan to deploy again just 6 months after return

By Steve Liewer
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

5:14 p.m. January 12, 2007

SAN DIEGO – Barely six months after returning from its maiden deployment, the aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan will leave its Coronado pier within weeks for a cruise in the western Pacific Ocean.

Two Navy spokesmen said the Reagan probably will spend several months filling in for the Kitty Hawk, the Japan-based carrier that is unavailable because it's undergoing routine maintenance. The sources requested anonymity because Pentagon policy forbids them from providing such information before an official announcement.

The Reagan's unexpected deployment is an indirect result of President Bush's new decision to station a second carrier strike group in the Persian Gulf, the spokesmen said.

The Reagan will fulfill patrol duties in the western Pacific in place of the John C. Stennis Carrier Strike Group, which Bush sent to the Persian Gulf as added muscle to supplement the strike group of the Virginia-based carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower.

The Stennis strike group – which includes three aviation squadrons from San Diego as well as the San Diego-based cruiser Antietam, destroyer Preble and frigate Rentz – was scheduled for a routine cruise in the western Pacific.

The date of the Reagan's departure hasn't been set, but its crew is expected to receive deployment orders within a week, the spokesmen said. The tour is expected to last a few months.

The ship likely will deploy without its carrier air wing or escort ships, relying for support instead on vessels and aircraft already stationed in Japan.

The Reagan, commissioned in 2003, arrived in San Diego the following year and completed its maiden deployment in July.

Its crew members aren't the only locally stationed sailors affected by Bush's planned military buildup in Iraq and the Persian Gulf. On Friday, the Navy confirmed that possibly all ships in the San Diego-based Boxer Strike Group will remain in the gulf for up to 60 additional days.

The amphibious assault ship Boxer and its five escorts – the amphibious ships Dubuque and Comstock, the destroyers Benfold and Howard, and the cruiser Bunker Hill – left San Diego on Sept. 13. Those vessels carried about 6,000 troops, including 2,200 Marines of the Camp Pendleton-based 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit.

The contingent was supposed to return to San Diego in March.

On Thursday, the Pentagon ordered the 15th MEU to stay an extra 45 days in Iraq. Navy officials said the Boxer, Dubuque and Comstock definitely will be extended to bring the Marines home, while the Benfold, Howard and Bunker Hill will likely stay longer as well

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Finn McCool said:

Well this is certainly an unusual amount of firepower concentrated in the Gulf reigion. I'm not making any predictions. However with the Stennis, The Ike and CVN-76 all deploying to go SOMEWHERE it would meet the 3-4 CVBG requirement that I stated earlier would be needed to attack Iran. However this situation has arisen and passed before without incident.

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Don't believe the hype until you see multiplie USN CSG's deployed in the Persian Gulf region. Anything else is just alarmist speculation.

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