Bending the Third Rail
Because We Should, We Can, We Do
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
Lotsa Buzz
The internets are alive with comment about this post by Matt Yglesias , wherein he discusses the recent revelations about minesweeper positioningss and Sam Gardiner's disturbing analysis (.pdf warning) of the coming air war with Iran(excerpt):
At this point, I think I need to bring up what one might call the Craziest Goddamn Thing I've Heard In a Long Time. This story came to me last week from an anonymous individual who I would say is in a position to know about such things. According to this person, the DOD has (naturally) been doing some analysis on airstrikes against Iran. The upshot of the analysis was that conventional bombardment would degrade the Iranian nuclear program by about 50 percent. By contrast, if the arsenal included small nuclear weapons, we could get up to about 80 percent destroying. In response to this, persons inside the Office of the Vice President took the view that we could use the nukes -- in other words, launch an unprovoked nuclear first strike against Iran -- and then simply deny that we'd done so. Detectable radiation in the area of the bombed sites would be attributed to the fact that they were, after all, nuclear facilities we'd just hit.
Yglesias concludes that no one is that crazy.

Yes Matt, they are.
Written at 10:39 AM by Greyhair.
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