[Dialogue] Britain Took Part in Mock Iran Invasion

[Harry Wainwright]

Published on Saturday, April 15, 2006 by the Guardian/UK
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,329458147-103685,00.html>  

Britain Took Part in Mock Iran Invasion
Pentagon planned for Tehran conflict with war game involving UK troops



by Julian Borger in Washington and Ewen MacAskill

 

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 Defense 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 Defense 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. 

C Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006

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