- The war began as planned. The Israeli pilots
took off well before dawn and streaked across Lebanon and northern
Iraq, high above Kirkuk. Flying US-made F-15 and F-16s, the Israelis
separated over the mountains of western Iran, the pilots gesturing a
last minute show of confidence in their mission, maintaining radio
silence.
-
- Just before the sun rose over Tehran, moments
before the Muslim call to prayer, the missiles struck their targets.
While US Air Force AWACS planes circled overhead--listening,
watching, recording--heavy US bombers followed minutes later.
Bunker-busters and mini-nukes fell on dozens of targets while
Iranian anti-aircraft missiles sped skyward.
-
- The ironically named Bushehr nuclear power plant
crumbled to dust. Russian technicians and foreign nationals scurried
for safety. Most did not make it.
-
- Targets in Saghand and Yazd, all of them
carefully chosen many months before by Pentagon planners, were
destroyed. The uranium enrichment facility in Natanz; a heavy water
plant and radioisotope facility in Arak; the Ardekan Nuclear Fuel
Unit; the Uranium Conversion Facility and Nuclear Technology Center
in Isfahan; were struck simultaneously by USAF and Israeli bomber
groups.
-
- The Tehran Nuclear Research Center, the Tehran
Molybdenum, Iodine and Xenon Radioisotope Production Facility, the
Tehran Jabr Ibn Hayan Multipurpose Laboratories, the Kalaye Electric
Company in the Tehran suburbs were destroyed.
-
- Iranian fighter jets rose in scattered groups.
At least those Iranian fighter planes that had not been destroyed on
the ground by swift and systematic air strikes from US and Israeli
missiles. A few Iranian fighters even launched missiles, downing the
occasional attacker, but American top guns quickly prevailed in the
ensuing dogfights.
-
- The Iranian air force, like the Iranian navy,
never really knew what hit them. Like the slumbering US sailors at
Pearl Harbor, the pre-dawn, pre-emptive attack wiped out fully half
the Iranian defense forces in a matter of hours.
-
- By mid-morning, the second and third wave of
US/Israeli raiders screamed over the secondary targets. The only
problem now, the surprising effectiveness of the Iranian missile
defenses. The element of surprise lost, US and Israeli warplanes
began to fall from the skies in considerable numbers to
anti-aircraft fire.
-
- At 7:35 AM, Tehran time, the first Iranian
anti-ship missile destroyed a Panamanian oil tanker, departing from
Kuwait and bound for Houston. Launched from an Iranian fighter
plane, the Exocet split the ship in half and set the ship ablaze in
the Strait of Hormuz. A second and third tanker followed, black
smoke billowing from the broken ships before they blew up and sank.
By 8:15 AM, all ship traffic on the Persian Gulf had ceased.
-
- US Navy ships, ordered earlier into the relative
safety of the Indian Ocean, south of their base in Bahrain, launched
counter strikes. Waves of US fighter planes circled the burning
wrecks in the bottleneck of Hormuz but the Iranian fighters had
fled.
-
- At 9 AM, Eastern Standard Time, many hours into
the war, CNN reported a squadron of suicide Iranian fighter jets
attacking the US Navy fleet south of Bahrain. Embedded reporters
aboard the ships--sending live feeds directly to a rapt audience of
Americans just awakening--reported all of the Iranian jets
destroyed, but not before the enemy planes launched dozens of Exocet
and Sunburn anti-ship missiles. A US aircraft carrier, cruiser and
two destroyers suffered direct hits. The cruiser blew up and sank,
killing 600 men. The aircraft carrier sank an hour later.
-
- By mid-morning, every military base in Iran was
partially or wholly destroyed. Sirens blared and fires blazed from
hundreds of fires. Explosions rocked Tehran and the electrical power
failed. The Al Jazeerah news station in Tehran took a direct hit
from a satellite bomb, leveling the entire block.
-
- At 9:15 AM, Baghdad time, the first Iranian
missile struck the Green Zone. For the next thirty minutes a torrent
of missiles landed on GPS coordinates carefully selected by Shiite
militiamen with cell phones positioned outside the Green Zone and
other permanent US bases. Although US and Israeli bomber pilots had
destroyed 90% of the Iranian missiles, enough Shahabs remained to
fully destroy the Green Zone, the Baghdad airport, and a US Marine
base. Thousands of unsuspecting US soldiers died in the early
morning barrage. Not surprisingly, CNN and Fox withheld the great
number of casualties from American viewers.
-
- By 9:30 AM, gas stations on the US east coast
began to raise their prices. Slowly at first and then altogether in
a panic, the prices rose. $4 a gallon, and then $5 and then $6, the
prices skyrocketed. Worried motorists, rushing from work, roared
into the nearest gas station, radios blaring the latest reports of
the pre-emptive attack on Iran. While fistfights broke out in gas
stations everywhere, the third Middle Eastern war had begun.
-
- In Washington DC, the spin began minutes after
the first missile struck its intended target. The punitive
strike--not really a war said the harried White House
spokesman--would further democracy and peace in the Middle East.
Media pundits mostly followed the party line. By ridding Iran of
weapons of mass destruction, Donald Rumsfeld declared confidently on
CNN, Iran might follow in the footsteps of Iraq, and enjoy the hard
won fruits of freedom.
-
- The president scheduled a speech at 2 PM. Gas
prices rose another two dollars before then. China and Japan
threatened to dump US dollars. Gold rose $120 an ounce. The dollar
plummeted against the Euro.
-
- CNN reported violent, anti-American protests in
Paris, London, Rome, Berlin and Dublin. Fast food franchises
throughout Europe, carrying American corporate logos, were
firebombed.
-
- A violent coup toppled the pro-American Pakistan
president. On the New York Stock Exchange, prices fell in a frenzy
of trading--except for the major petroleum producers. A single,
Iranian Shahab missile struck Tel Aviv, destroying an entire city
block. Israel vowed revenge, and threatened a nuclear strike on
Tehran, before a hastily called UN General Assembly in New York City
eased tensions.
-
- An orange alert in New York City suddenly
reddened to a full-scale terror alarm when a package detonated on a
Manhattan subway. Mayor Bloomberg declared martial law. Governor
Pataki ordered the New York National Guard fully mobilized,
mobilizing what few national guardsmen remained in the state.
-
- President Bush looked shaken at 2 PM. The
scroll below the TV screen reported Persian Gulf nations halting
production of oil until the conflict could be resolved peacefully.
Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez, announced a freeze in oil
deliveries to the US would begin immediately. Tony Blair offered to
mediate peace negotiations, between the US and Israel and Iran, but
was resoundingly rejected.
-
- By 6 PM, Eastern Standard Time, gas prices had
stabilized at just below $10 a gallon. A Citgo station in Texas,
near Fort Sam Houston Army base, was firebombed. No one claimed
responsibility. Terrorism was not ruled out.
-
- At sunset, the call to prayer--in Tehran,
Baghdad, Islamabad, Ankara, Jerusalem, Jakarta, Riyadh--sounded
uncannily like the buzzing of enraged bees.
-
-
----------------------------------------------------
-
- USAF veteran, Douglas Herman correctly predicted
the aftermath of the attack on Iraq in his column: Shock & Awe
Followed by Block-To-Block. A Rense contributer, he is the author
of
The Guns of Dallas, available at Amazon.com. Contact him at
douglasherman7@yahoo.com.
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