US Strike Group ordered to Gulf

the current level of airpower that centcom has now in the region could take down the Iran airforce and navy in less than 8 hours. The whole idea of moving battle groups is for the media and to let people think we mean to open up a can.

Remember 1 B-2 can hit 16 indepedent aimpoints with a 2,000 PGM or like 50+ aimpoints with 500lbs JDAM. Then lets throw in some B-52 launching cruise missiles. F-15 and 16 from the gulf/kuwait and the current carrier is realy all that is needed. once the Iranian airforce and navy is taken down the U.S then controlls the "clock" with the exception of long range missiles from Iran they cant do much so round the clock carrier ops is realy not a must have....cheers ute.

I agree, and CVN-76 CSG may proceed to the Arabian Sea once it spends some time in the W.Pac. In the past, when CV-63 was in the Gulf the both USN/AF deployed extra assets to that region for "filling in for the Kitty Hawk"-but this time is different!

On 2 Feb[03] CBS and CNN reported that Admiral Thomas B. Fargo, the head of the United States Pacific Command, had asked Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfield to allocate 24 B1 and B52 bombers to Guam, and for eight F15s and several U2s to be sent to bases in Korea and Japan. Fargo also requested 2,000 support staff for the aircraft. The media groups reported that the move was to prepare for the departure of the USS Kitty Hawk, based in Yokosuka, to the Gulf in case a war is declared on Iraq. Kitty Hawk, America's only forward-deployed aircraft carrier, deployed to the Gulf region in Feb.
The U.S. told Japan of dispatching a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the Carl Vinson, ..to seas near Japan to fill the "gap." The aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson continues to maintain a presence in the region within striking distance of North Korea. ..same actions were accomplished during the Gulf War and Bosnia when the Kitty Hawk carrier group was sent to the Middle East.

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Even with all the assets currently at CENTCOM disposal, it's only prudent (from the military's perspective) to have extra in case things do go wrong in both Iran and Iraq. Now everyone agrees that there weren't enough troops (besides the right policies) in Iraq to win the peace- perhaps that's why those extra Navy CSGs & their Marines may be needed to withdraw some of them later after the "surge".

I agree, and CVN-76 CSG may proceed to the Arabian Sea once it spends some time in the W.Pac. In the past, when CV-63 was in the Gulf the both USN/AF deployed extra assets to that region for "filling in for the Kitty Hawk"-but this time is different....Even with all the assets currently at CENTCOM disposal, it's only prudent (from the military's perspective) to have extra in case things do go wrong in both Iran and Iraq.

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BLUEJACKET I agree with you this time. Whenever some major military event is pending the US almost always has more than enough force on hand to admininster a knock out blow to conventional forces in short order.

Don't know if this is relevant, but:



US sends warplanes to Turkey''s Incirlik military base

MIL-TURKEY-US-INCIRLIK
US sends warplanes to Turkey's Incirlik military base

ANKARA, Jan 11 (KUNA) -- U.S. F-16 jet-fighters arrived Thursday in Incirlik Air base in southern Turkish city of Adana after, the first time in three years.

According to Local Cihan News Agency, at least 16 F-16 jets joined by early warning system AWACS airplane, as well as tanker airplanes landed here at Incirlik coming from an American base in Germany.

An official at the U.S. embassy in Ankara announced that the planes arrived here for purpose of conducting exercises with the Turkish military in line with agreements between the two states.

Incirlik base was used as a northern recon base for American forces during the Iraqi war in 2003 and since then the base served as a logistic backup for the U.S. army.

Namik Tan, spokesman for the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, also confirmed that the U.S. planes arrived for exercises' purposes. (end) tk.

gta



KUNA 120031 Jan 07NNNN

There is also this:

"EYEING IRAN
By RALPH PETERS

January 6, 2007 -- WORD that Adm. William Fallon will move laterally from our Pacific Command to take charge of Central Command - responsible for the Middle East - while two ground wars rage in the region, baffled the media.

Why put a swabbie in charge of grunt operations? - There's a one-word answer: Iran.

ASSIGNING a Navy aviator and combat veteran to oversee our military operations in the Persian Gulf makes perfect sense when seen as a preparatory step for striking Iran's nuclear-weapons facilities - if that becomes necessary. While the Air Force would deliver the heaviest tonnage of ordnance in a campaign to frustrate Tehran's quest for nukes, the toughest strategic missions would fall to our Navy. Iran would seek to retaliate asymmetrically by attacking oil platforms and tankers, closing the Strait of Hormuz - and trying to hit oil infrastructure in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf emirates. Only the U.S. Navy - hopefully, with Royal Navy and Aussie vessels underway beside us - could keep the oil flowing to a thirsty world. In short, the toughest side of an offensive operation against Iran would be the defensive aspects - requiring virtually every air and sea capability we could muster. (Incidentally, an additional U.S. carrier battle group is now headed for the Gulf; Britain and Australia are also strengthening their naval forces in the region.) Not only did Adm. Fallon command a carrier air wing during Operation Desert Storm, he also did shore duty at a joint headquarters in Saudi Arabia. He knows the complexity and treacherousness of the Middle East first-hand. STRENGTHENING his qualifications, numerous blue-water assignments and his duties at PACOM schooled him on the intricacies of the greater Indian Ocean - the key strategic region for the 21st-century and the one that would be affected immediately by a U.S. conflict with Iran. The admiral also understands China's junkie-frantic oil dependency and its consequent taste for geopolitical street-crime. During a U.S. operation against Iran, Beijing would need its fix guaranteed. While Congress obsesses on Iraq and Iraq alone, the administration's thinking about the future. And it looks as if the White House is preparing options to mitigate a failure in Iraq and contain Iran. Bush continues to have a much-underrated strategic vision - the administration's consistent problems have been in the abysmal execution of its policies, not in the over-arching purpose. Now, pressed by strategic dilemmas and humiliating reverses, Bush is doing what FDR had to do in the dark, early months of 1942: He's turning to the Navy. As a retired Army officer, I remain proud of and loyal to my service. I realize that the Army's leaders are disappointed to see the CentCom slot go to an admiral in the midst of multiple ground wars. But, beyond the need for a Navy man at the helm should we have to take on Iran, there's yet another reason for sending Fallon to his new assignment: The Army's leadership has failed us at the strategic level.
After Gen. Eric Shinseki was sidelined for insisting on a professional approach to Iraq, Army generals did plenty of fine tactical and operational work - but they never produced a strategic vision for the greater Middle East. Our Army is deployed globally, but our generals never seem to acquire the knack of thinking beyond the threat hypnotizing them at the moment (the Marines, with their step-brother ties to the Navy, do a better job of acting locally while thinking globally). Perhaps the Army's Gen. Dave Petraeus will emerge as an incisive strategic thinker after he takes command in Baghdad, but his predecessors routinely got mired in tactical details and relied - fatally - on other arms of government to do the strategic thinking. The reasons are complex, ranging from service culture to educational traditions, but it's incontestable that the Navy long has produced our military's best strategic thinkers - captains and admirals able to transcend parochial interests to see the global security environment as a whole. Adm. Fallon's job is to avoid the tyranny of the moment, to see past the jumble of operational pieces and visualize how those pieces ultimately might fit together. NOR is the Iran problem the only Navy-first issue facing CENTCOM. As you read this, our ships are patrolling the coast of Somalia to intercept fleeing terrorists - and have been hunting pirates in the same waters for years. China's future development (and internal peace) is tied to dependable supplies of Middle-Eastern and African oil transiting Indian-Ocean sea lanes, as well as to shipping goods along the same routes. In a future confrontation with China, our ability to shut down the very routes we're now challenged to protect would be vital. Not least because of the botch-up in Iraq, there's a growing sense of the limitations of U.S. ground-force involvement in the Middle East. That doesn't mean we won't see further necessity-driven interventions and even other occupations, only that our strategic planners have begun to grasp that positive change in the region - if it comes at all - is going to take far longer than many of us hoped and won't always be amenable to boots-on-the-ground prodding. If we can't determine everything that happens in the Big Sandbox, we need to be able to control access to and from the playground - a classic Navy mission. And in the end the United States remains primarily a maritime power. As Sir Walter Raleigh pointed out 400 years ago, he who controls the waters controls the world.

Gen. Petraeus is going to Baghdad to deal with our present problems. Adm. Fallon is going to the U.S. Central Command to deal with the future."

I'm started to feel concerned about what could be about to happen in the Middle East. As the article above says, China is a major customer of Iranian oil and gas and it has been resolutely opposed to any use of military force against Iran. Any US attack will at the very least send crude prices rocketing, maybe even resulting in a break in supply. I'd imagine that the Chinese government would be as mad as hell at the US actions, not least because of the impact that it would have on China's economy. How would China respond to such a strike? I can't see it escalating into a direct confrontation betwen China and the US, but I think that it would setback their relations by years.

Neutral Zone said:

I'm started to feel concerned about what could be about to happen in the Middle East. As the article above says, China is a major customer of Iranian oil and gas and it has been resolutely opposed to any use of military force against Iran. Any US attack will at the very least send crude prices rocketing, maybe even resulting in a break in supply. I'd imagine that the Chinese government would be as mad as hell at the US actions, not least because of the impact that it would have on China's economy. How would China respond to such a strike? I can't see it escalating into a direct confrontation betwen China and the US, but I think that it would setback their relations by years.

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That's part of the reason that the US is so interested in Iran. The US wants to have control of oil. It is a major strategic asset, and it is a goal that setbacks in Iraq have apparently not stopped the US from attempting to achieve. Of course the fact that Iran is developing nuclear weapons is what is precipitating the crisis, but it is obvious that oil is reason the US is so interested in the first place. Why not invade North Korea?

This is delving into politics, so I'll offer military thoughts as well. A war between the United States and Iran would certainly interrupt oil flow at least temporarily. Obviously flow from Iran would probably be interrupted, although it would probably be minimal as it is highly unlikely the US would actually invade Iran. But flow from Kuwait, Iraq, the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia would probably be interrupted because it would be very dangerous to move through the Gulf by sea and the Iranians could close the Straits of Hormuz with mines and with military units they have stationed on islands directly blocking the Strait. I would not be suprised to see amphibious assaults on those islands even if the US only made strikes on the nuclear sites and not a more widespread operation.

"Britain is joining an American military campaign to blunt Iranian influence in Iraq and the Gulf.

In a move likely to heighten tension in an already volatile part of the world, US forces have been ordered to detain Iranian agents in Iraq and to strengthen substantially America’s military presence in the Gulf.

Two Royal Navy minehunters have arrived in the Gulf to reinforce a naval frigate on patrol in the area."

Full story:

having come that far, it would be illogical for the neocon'ts perspective not to do anything with Iran. Iraq & Afghanistanis are just the prelude to abigger confrontation, IMO.

Dr Ali Ansari, an Iranian expert at the University of Saint Andrews, in Scotland, told The Times that the escalation could have serious consequences.
"There is a distinct possibility that the current cold war could turn hot", he said.
"This is an accidental war waiting to happen. Even with the best will in the world crises are not easily managed".

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Iranian troops shoot down U.S. spy drone: report
Iranian troops have shot down a U.S. pilotless spy plane, local Fars News Agency reported on Tuesday.

The aircraft was brought down when it was trying to cross the borders "during the last few days," Seyed Nezam Mola Hoveizeh, a member of the Iranian parliament, was quoted as saying.

The lawmaker gave no exact date of the shot-down or any other details about the incident, but said that "the United States sent such spy drones to the region every now and then."

The announcement came amid reports that the United States is increasingly flexing its muscles to counter Iran's growing regional assertiveness and put more pressure on Tehran over its controversial nuclear programs.

It is reported Tuesday that a second U.S. aircraft carrier, the USS John C. Stennis, will arrive in the Middle East in about a month, the first time since the U.S.-led Iraq war in 2003 that the United States will have two carrier battle groups in the region.

Kuwait-based daily Arab Times released on Sunday said in a report that the United States might launch a military strike on Iran before April 2007.
The report, written by the daily's editor-in-chief Ahmed al- Jarallah citing a reliable source, said that the attack would be launched from the sea, while Patriot missiles would guard all Arab countries in the Gulf.

In last April, Iranian newspapers also reported that Iran had shot down an unmanned surveillance plane in the south, speculating that it belonged to the U.S. military.

The U.S. Air Force later claimed that it had not lost any aircraft in the region, but could not rule out the possibility that the spy drone was owned by U.S. intelligence units or alliance forces.
Source: Xinhua

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Federal investigators are increasingly anxious that Iran is within easy reach of a top priority on its shopping list: parts for the precious fleet of F-14 "Tomcat" fighter jets the United States let Iran buy in the 1970s when it was an ally.
In one case, convicted middlemen for Iran bought Tomcat parts from the defense department's surplus division. Customs agents confiscated them and returned them to the Pentagon, which sold them again — customs evidence tags still attached — to another buyer, a suspected broker for Iran.

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Escalation Against Iran
The Pieces Are Being Put in Place
By COL. SAM GARDINER

The pieces are moving. They’ll be in place by the end of
February. The United States will be able to escalate military operations against Iran.

The second carrier strike group leaves the U.S. west coast on January 16. It will be joined by naval mine clearing assets from both the United States and the UK. Patriot missile defense systems have also been ordered to deploy to the Gulf.

Maybe as a guard against North Korea seeing operations focused on Iran as a chance to be aggressive, a squadron of F-117 stealth fighters has just been deployed to Korea.

This has to be called escalation. We have to remind ourselves, just as Iran is supporting groups inside Iraq, the United States is supporting groups inside Iran. Just as Iran has special operations troops operating inside Iraq, we’ve read the United States has special operations troops operating inside Iran.

Just as Iran is supporting Hamas, two weeks ago we found out the United States is supporting arms for Abbas. Just as Iran and Syria are supporting Hezbollah in Lebanon we’re now learning the White House has approved a finding to allow the CIA to support opposition groups inside Lebanon. Just as Iran is supporting Syria, we’ve learned recently that the United States is going to fund Syrian opposition groups.

We learned this week the President authorized an attack on the Iranian liaison office in Irbil.

The White House keeps saying there are no plans to attack Iran. Obviously, the facts suggest otherwise. Equally as clear, the Iranians will read what the Administrations is doing not what it is
saying.

It is possible the White House strategy is just implementing a strategy to put pressure on Iran on a number of fronts, and this will never amount to anything. On the other hand, if the White House is on a path to strike Iran, we’ll see a few more steps unfold.

First, we know there is a National Security Council staff-led
group whose mission is to create outrage in the world against Iran. Just like before Gulf II, this media group will begin to release stories to sell a strike against Iran. Watch for the outrage stuff. The Patriot missiles going to the GCC states are only part of the missile defense assets. I would expect to see the deployment of some of the European-based missile defense assets to Israel, just as they were before Gulf II.

I would expect deployment of additional USAF fighters into the bases in Iraq, maybe some into Afghanistan.

I think we will read about the deployment of some of the newly arriving Army brigades going into Iraq being deployed to the border with Iran. Their mission will be to guard against any Iranian movements into Iraq.

As one of the last steps before a strike, we’ll see USAF tankers moved to unusual places, like Bulgaria. These will be used to refuel the US-based B-2 bombers on their strike missions into Iran. When that happens, we’ll only be days away from a strike.

The White House could be telling the truth. Maybe there are no plans to take Iran to the next level. The fuel for a fire is in place, however. All we need is a spark. The danger is that we have created conditions that could lead to a Greater Middle East War.

Sam Gardiner is a retired colonel of the US Air Force. He has taught strategy and military operations at the National War College, Air War College and Naval War College.

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This is why the naval buildup- for:

..taking out much of the Iranian Air Force, Kilo submarines, anti-ship missiles that could target commerce or U.S. warships in the Gulf, and maybe even Iran's ballistic missile capability,..

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The USS John C Stennis CVN-74 has arrived in the Gulf region. Now the USN has two CSG(Carrier Strike Groups) in the region. In my opinion this is just a show of force. I hope so



USS John C. Stennis Carrier Strike Group Arrives in 5th Fleet
Story Number: NNS070220-07
Release Date: 2/20/2007 12:16:00 PM

By Lt. Nathan Christensen, Commander, U.S. Naval Forces Central Command/Commander, U.S. 5th Fleet

USS JOHN C. STENNIS, At Sea (NNS) -- The USS John C. Stennis Carrier Strike Group (JCSSG) entered the U.S. 5th Fleet area of operations (AOO) Feb.19 to conduct Maritime Security Operations (MSO) in regional waters, as well as to provide support for ground forces operating in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Led by Rear Adm. Kevin Quinn, Commander, Carrier Strike Group (CSG) 3, the strike group includes the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis (CVN 74), Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 9, Destroyer Squadron (DESRON)21, the guided-missile cruiser USS Antietam (CG 54), guided-missile destroyers USS O’Kane (DDG 77) and USS Preble (DDG 88), and the fast combat-support ship USNS Bridge (T-AOE 10). More than 6,500 Sailors and Marines are assigned to JCSSG.

“The USS John C. Stennis Carrier Strike Group is here to help foster stability and security in the region,” said Quinn. “We look forward to working with our coalition partners to provide support for ground forces operating in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as conducting maritime security operations that help provide a safe environment for shipping within the region. We are ready, we are sustainable, we are flexible and we provide significant capabilities that contribute to regional peace and security.”

MSO help set the conditions for security and stability in the maritime environment, as well as complement the counter-terrorism and security efforts of regional nations. These operations deny international terrorists use of the maritime environment as a venue for attack or to transport personnel, weapons or other material.

U.S. 5th Fleet’s AOO encompasses 2.5 million square miles of water and includes the Arabian Gulf, Arabian Sea, Red Sea, Gulf of Aden, Gulf of Oman and parts of the Indian Ocean.

For related news, visit the Commander, U.S. Naval Forces Central Command/Commander, U.S. 5th Fleet Navy NewsStand page at .

So far, it looks like we are in the pre-war period!