The U.S. military is updating its war plans for Iran but is not in a heightened state of planning over Tehran's suspected nuclear weapons program, a senior general said on Wednesday. | "Nope, just routine, nothing to see, move along" |
"I'm not spending any of my time worrying about the nuclear proliferation in Iran. I haven't been called into any late-night meetings at 8 o'clock at night saying, 'Holy cow, we got to sit down and go plan for Iran,"' Air Force Lt. Gen. Lance Smith said at a Pentagon briefing. | "That's my staff's job, I'm working on Saudi Arabi......say, is this mike open?" |
Smith is deputy commander of the U.S. Central Command and oversees military operations in the Middle East, parts of Asia and northern Africa. | A target-rich environment |
"As far as the planning efforts, we simply go through our normal mode of updating whatever war plans we have for all parts of our region," he said.| We have plans for everything. Some are sitting in dusty filing cabinets, some are sitting on generals desks. And some are in SecDefs vest pocket. |
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on a tour of Europe the United States has no immediate plans to attack Iran. She stressed on Wednesday that it should be made clear to Tehran that U.N. sanctions could be brought if it did not cooperate with American and European efforts to halt work on what Washington says is a drive to develop nuclear weapons. Iran denies that it is trying to develop such arms. "We have a requirement on a regular basis to update (war) plans. We try to keep them current, particularly if our region is active," Smith said at the Pentagon. | I'll wager the Iran plan is updated real often. |
""We are not," the general replied when asked if the U.S. military was in a heightened state regarding Iran. Smith stressed that Rice was leading a diplomatic effort to keep Tehran from developing nuclear arms and that such an effort was adequate for U.S. needs. At a news conference in Brussels on Wednesday, Rice said that Iran cannot delay indefinitely accountability for a suspected nuclear weapons program, but said the United States has set "no deadline, no timeline" for Tehran to act. |
