WASHINGTON (RIA Novosti) - The United States is confidentially preparing for a military strike against Iran, which will include several days worth of aviation strikes on several targets at once, a former CIA official told Harper's magazine.
"It looks like there's preparations for a military strikes, and I base this on two things: on facts that we can observer, and on the rhetoric coming out of the White House," said the former CIA official, who worked in the Persian Gulf during the first U.S. war there and served in Iraq after the 2003 invasion.
"A massive deployment of troops and equipment in the region is taking place, and the U.S. can't hide that. Sending the U.S. Navy to the Persian Gulf is very expensive, but we have three such units there."
There is a deployment of ships, an increase of supplies, shipments of military supplies, and the general activity level is very high, said the former U.S. intelligence agent. "There is only one region in the world where this is all being deployed to.
"Moreover, everyone that I know - pilots and other aviation units - have all disappeared. Usually someone remains, but now all of them have gone at once." Besides unusual activity in the U.S. military, "other evidence of a possible strikes are harsh statements from the White House."
According to the source, "the only part of U.S. military forces that isn't strained to the fullest extent is aviation," that is why if there is a military strike on Iran "it will be days-long, multi-target air campaign," which will aim a "brutal strike on President Ahmadinejad."
"We should strike not the Iranian Aviation or naval bases, but its nuclear objects and the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps," the former CIA official believes. He thinks that an "un-proportionally" massive strike on these targets will undermine Ahmadinejad's position inside the country.
Comments and rumors about possible preparations of a military strike on Iran have been circulating in Washington and the American media for several weeks, and during a Tuesday briefing State Department spokesman Tom Casey was once again forced to make an official denial.
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