XPost: uk.politics.misc, alt.politics.british, alt.conspiracy.princess-diana   
   XPost: alt.conspiracy, alt.conspiracy.new-world-order, alt.america   
   XPost: us.politics   
   From: oO@oO.com   
      
   Britain took part in mock Iran invasion   
      
   Pentagon planned for Tehran conflict with war game involving UK troops   
      
   Julian Borger in Washington and Ewen MacAskill   
   Saturday April 15, 2006   
   The Guardian   
      
      
   British officers took part in a US war game aimed at preparing for a   
   possible invasion of Iran, despite repeated claims by the foreign secretary,   
   Jack Straw, that a military strike against Iran is inconceivable.   
   The war game, codenamed Hotspur 2004, took place at the US base of Fort   
   Belvoir in Virginia in July 2004.   
      
   A Ministry of Defence spokesman played down its significance yesterday.   
   "These paper-based exercises are designed to test officers to the limit in   
   fictitious scenarios. We use invented countries and situations using real   
   maps," he said.   
      
      
      
   The disclosure of Britain's participation came in the week in which the   
   Iranian crisis intensified, with a US report that the White House was   
   contemplating a tactical nuclear strike and Tehran defying the United   
   Nations security council.   
   Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, who sparked outrage in the US,   
   Europe and Israel last year by calling for Israel to be wiped off the face   
   of the Earth, created more alarm yesterday. He told a conference in Tehran   
   in support of the Palestinians: "Like it or not, the Zionist regime is   
   heading toward annihilation. The Zionist regime is a rotten, dried tree that   
   will be eliminated by one storm."   
      
   The senior British officers took part in the Iranian war game just over a   
   year after the invasion of Iraq. It was focused on the Caspian Sea, with an   
   invasion date of 2015. Although the planners said the game was based on a   
   fictitious Middle East country called Korona, the border corresponded   
   exactly with Iran's and the characteristics of the enemy were Iranian.   
      
   A British medium-weight brigade operated as part of a US-led force.   
      
   The MoD's Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, which helped run the   
   war game, described it on its website as the "year's main analytical event   
   of the UK-US Future Land Operations Interoperability Study" aimed at   
   ensuring that both armies work well together. The study "was extremely well   
   received on both sides of the Atlantic".   
      
   According to an MoD source, war games covering a variety of scenarios are   
   conducted regularly by senior British officers in the UK, the US or at Nato   
   headquarters. He cited senior military staff carrying out a mock invasion of   
   southern England last week and one of Scotland in January.   
      
   However, Hotspur took place at a time of accelerated US planning after the   
   fall of Baghdad for a possible conflict with Iran. That planning is being   
   carried out by US Central Command, responsible for the Middle East and   
   central Asia area of operations, and by Strategic Command, which carries out   
   long-range bombing and nuclear operations.   
      
   William Arkin, a former army intelligence officer who first reported on the   
   contingency planning for a possible nuclear strike against Iran in his   
   military column for the Washington Post online, said: "The United States   
   military is really, really getting ready, building war plans and options,   
   studying maps, shifting its thinking."   
      
   A Foreign Office spokesman said: "The foreign secretary has made his   
   position very clear that military action is inconceivable. The Foreign   
   Office regards speculation about war, particularly involving Britain, as   
   unhelpful at a time when the diplomatic route is still being pursued."   
      
   After the failure of a mission to Tehran on Thursday by Mohammed ElBaradei,   
   the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Russia announced a   
   diplomatic initiative yesterday. It is to host a new round of talks in   
   Moscow on Tuesday with the US, the EU and China.   
      
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