Wired news reports that France is preparing war plans in case an international coalition decides to force Iran to give up its alleged nuclear weapons program, according to Reuters “We must prepare for the worst,” [Foreign Minister Bernard] Kouchner said in an interview, adding: “The worst, sir, is war.”
Our Frankish friends across the sea aren’t the only Western leaders focused on Iran, The Middle East Times reports:
The [U.S.] Centcom commander [Admiral William Fallon] believed the United States should be withdrawing troops from Iraq urgently, largely because he saw greater dangers elsewhere in the region. “He is very focused on Pakistan,” said a source familiar with Fallon’s thinking, “and trying to maintain a difficult status quo with Iran.”
This runs counter to occupation boss General David Petraeus’ recommendation that the U.S. maintain large numbers of troops in Iraq for potentially years more. Fallon and Petraeus don’t just disagree on matters of policy, the article points out:
In sharp contrast to the lionization of General David Petraeus by members of the US Congress during his testimony this week, Petraeus’s superior, Admiral William Fallon, chief of the Central Command (Centcom), derided Petraeus as a sycophant during their first meeting in Baghdad in March, according to Pentagon sources familiar with reports of the meeting.
Fallon told Petraeus that he considered him to be “an ass-kissing little chickenshit” and added, “I hate people like that.”
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For the public though, as on this picture, Petraeus, Fallon and Bush are always happily pictured together, all smiles.
(Note: it should be remembered here that Admiral Fallon once promised that “an attack on Iran will not happen on my watch“. While I would definitely not put it past Admiral Fallon to make that kind of statement as part of a strategic deception plan, I would recommend keeping an eye on his statements or for any sudden “promotion” of Admiral Fallon to a Pentagon desk job).
Saker,
Fallon denies this, at least for the record.
http://www.navytimes.com/news/2007/09/military_fallon_petraeus_070917w/
Though he’d have to say something like that to keep his job. Wait and see. If I were Petraeus’s boss, I’d have said worse. Petraeus is another Mac (MacClellan, MacArthur). Generals who run through their troops to feed their vanity, well the circle of Hell for them is near the bottom of the pit and real cold.
yeah, I saw the denial too. but since the original outburst comes form some very solid sources, and since it also happens to fit the facts, while the official retraction is, well, from official sources I trust the former. Not to mention, as you correctly point out, that once Fallon’s words became public it was either him loosing his job (and a possible court martial) or him making a lukewarm retraction.
Also – unlike the morons in the White House and the Pentagon, Fallon seems to understand that THE danger to the Middle-East is Pakistan (well, besides Israel, of course, but that no US official could ever say, and probably not even think). So the guy is clearly smarter than “General Betrayus”.
Will Fallon save us all from the folly of the Neocons? I doubt it, but we can at least hope that he might try…