[lit-ideas] Re: October Surprise?

  • From: JimKandJulieB@xxxxxxx
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Thu, 5 Oct 2006 05:23:21 EDT

Thank you.  That clarifies things a lot.  And.....oh my  God.  Why isn't this 
on CNN or BBC or something?  Where did you find  it?  Is "the Nation" a paper 
magazine or an on-line site?  Are they  dependable and not tabloidish?  If 
the US strikes Iran all Hell will break  loose.
 
Julie Krueger

========Original  Message========     Subj: [lit-ideas] Re: October Surprise? 
 Date: 10/5/2006 3:41:32 A.M. Central Standard Time  From: 
_john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxxx (mailto:john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxx)   To: 
_lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
(mailto:lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx)   Sent on:    
Hi, Julie.

Here is a description from a  story in the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot.

--------------------

NORFOLK  - After a six-year hiatus from patrolling the seas, Tuesday
marked a return  to routine for the aircraft carrier Eisenhower.

For the families who  waved goodbye to the 6,500 sailors of the
Eisenhower strike group, it meant  the opposite: routines upended,
holiday traditions altered, relationships  tested.

Accompanied by guided-missile destroyers Mason and Ramage  and
guided-missile cruiser Anzio, the Eisenhower began what is expected  to
be a seven-month tour in support of the wars in Iraq and  Afghanistan.
The group will relieve the carrier Enterprise and three  other
Norfolk-based ships due back next  month.
----------------------------

This is the official story. The  lead to the story in The Nation reads
as  follows.

----------------------------

As reports circulate of a  sharp debate within the White House over
possible US military action against  Iran and its nuclear enrichment
facilities, The Nation has learned that the  Bush Administration and
the Pentagon have moved up the deployment of a major  "strike group" of
ships, including the nuclear aircraft carrier Eisenhower as  well as a
cruiser, destroyer, frigate, submarine escort and supply ship, to  head
for the Persian Gulf, just off Iran's western coast. This  information
follows a report in the current issue of Time magazine, both  online
and in print, that a group of ships capable of mining harbors  has
received orders to be ready to sail for the Persian Gulf by October  1.

As Time writes in its cover story, "What Would War Look  Like?,"
evidence of the forward deployment of minesweepers and word that  the
chief of naval operations had asked for a reworking of old plans  for
mining Iranian harbors "suggest that a much discussed--but until  now
largely theoretical--prospect has become real: that the U.S. may  be
preparing for war with Iran."

According to Lieut. Mike Kafka, a  spokesman at the headquarters of the
Second Fleet, based in Norfolk,  Virginia, the Eisenhower Strike Group,
bristling with Tomahawk cruise  missiles, has received orders to depart
the United States in a little over a  week. Other official sources in
the public affairs office of the Navy  Department at the Pentagon
confirm that this powerful armada is scheduled to  arrive off the coast
of Iran on or around October  21.

-----------------------------------

John
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