http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satelli...cle%2FShowFull

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/darticle...iddleeast&col=

Naval forces now heading towards the Gulf include:

Carrier Strike Group Nine:
USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN72) nuclear powered carrier with its Carrier Air Wing Two
Destroyer Squadron Nine:
USS Mobile Bay (CG53) guided missile cruiser
USS Russell (DDG59) guided missile destroyer
USS Momsen (DDG92) guided missile destroyer
USS Shoup (DDG86) guided missile destroyer
USS Ford (FFG54) guided missile frigate
USS Ingraham (FFG61) guided missile frigate
USS Rodney M. Davis (FFG60) guided missile frigate
USS Curts (FFG38) guided missile frigate
Plus one or more nuclear hunter-killer submarines
Peleliu Expeditionary Strike Group:
USS Peleliu (LHA-5) a Tarawa-class amphibious assault carrier
USS Pearl Harbor (LSD52) assult ship
USS Dubuque (LPD8) assult ship/landing dock
USS Cape St. George (CG71) guided missile cruiser
USS Halsey (DDG97) guided missile destroyer
USS Benfold (DDG65) guided missile destroyer

Carrier Strike Group Two:
USS Theodore Roosevelt (DVN71) nuclear powered carrier with its Carrier Air Wing Eight
Destroyer Squadron 22:
USS Monterey (CG61) guided missile cruiser
USS Mason (DDG87) guided missile destroyer
USS Nitze (DDG94) guided missile destroyer
USS Sullivans (DDG68) guided missile destroyer
USS Springfield (SSN761) nuclear powered hunter-killer submarine
IWO ESG ~ Iwo Jima Expeditionary Strike Group
USS Iwo Jima (LHD7) amphibious assault carrier with its Amphibious Squadron Four
and with its 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit
USS San Antonio (LPD17) assault ship
USS Velia Gulf (CG72) guided missile cruiser
USS Ramage (DDG61) guided missile destroyer
USS Carter Hall (LSD50) assault ship
USS Roosevelt (DDG80) guided missile destroyer
USS Hartfore (SSN768) nuclear powered hunter-killer submarine

Carrier Strike Group Seven:
USS Ronald Reagan (CVN76) nuclear powered carrier with its Carrier Air Wing 14
Destroyer Squadron 7:
USS Chancellorsville (CG62) guided missile cruiser
USS Howard (DDG83) guided missile destroyer
USS Gridley (DDG101) guided missile destroyer
USS Decatur (DDG73) guided missile destroyer
USS Thach (FFG43) guided missile frigate
USNS Rainier (T-AOE-7) fast combat support ship

so claims http://www.payvand.com/news/08/aug/1127.html

Whether or not the Bush admin attacks Iran before November depends on whether or not they personally want to create a world oil/energy and world war crisis.

I'm sure they would love nothing better than to call off elections until times of peace and "deal" with the "war on terrorism" and the mid-east situation first.

Recent "little" war demonstrations on the part of Iran seemed to bolster the US administration's campaign for the European shield proposal, just as Rice was touring the region.

The Iranians probably have a helluvalot of work targetted at the straight of hormuz and any other passage for oil transport, as well as having mild non-nuke explosives planted at every tap point of their own reserves.

And while everyone is playing big-cock boy for we the people, they're probably telling the Bush Chickenhawks "Shoot ONCE at us, and we'll fuck with your potential resources for a century".

of course that just might be what the Washington Eunuchs want, what with McBain saying the war in Iraq could last a hundred years and all..

:D

In the past whne we built the tools of war.... :winkwink:

it got outsourced back in the 90's

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

I don't know if that's what they want, but that's what would happen in any case.

But what's the alternative?

If Iran gets nuclear weapons they'll be in a prime position to dictate policy to the Saudi's, Kuwait and the other Persian Gulf states.

And then we have all those frightened little rabbits in Western Europe. Hell, I can even see France, Holland and the rest considering the merits of adopting sharia law if threatened with nuclear annihilation.

Yeah because Iran having Nuclear weapons is what is dictating the demographic shift towards Islam in Europe right? Fucking neo-con morons. You want to beat radical Islam? Stop importing them to the West, stop supporting Israel and trade with them peacefully. Whatever you want to believe outside of Saudi the vast majority of Muslims don't really give enough of a fuck to follow sharia law themselves, but just as an attack on the US would push patriotism and nationalism, aka tribalism, the constant bombardment of countries around the ME by the little shithole called Israel has pushed the rise of political Islam. You are a moron if you think fighting Israel's war is somehow going to stop Muslims taking over Europe, if anything it does the opposite by having refugee's flood there. The battle against radical Islam is at home against the naive liberals and the deluded neo-cons.

That will stuck us for few more years then...

Very ignorant, typical american way at looking at things. If Israel can not even defeat Hezbollah, what makes you think they can take down a country with a powerful air force and military?

Israel doesn't want to "take down Iran". They want to hit a few choice targets just as they did in Syria last year (and Iraq in 80s).

Iran's anti-aircraft systems are similar to Syrias and we saw how effective they were last year when Israel hit alleged nuclear installation.

What lessons are you trying to draw from Hezbollah/Israel conflict? Israel's air force was unchallenged over Lebanon. This is a question of air superiority only.

You are joking about "powerful Iranian air force". Right?

PMSL Iran what fucking airforce ??? The few old F-14 and F-4's from the 80's ???? Or do you mean they're great new wonder weapon in their airforce a crappy copy of a F-5 that not airforce wants scary stuff indeed !

Now Israel not defeating a bunch of partasians like hizbollah is hardly the same as Iran is it ?
Israel WILL win any conventional war the only chance Iran have is to use Hezbollah which is in essence just another branch of Irans military and very little to do with Lebanon.:upsidedow

Also it was announced today that America have refused to give to the Israelis the weapons to take out the Iranian reactor.

Do think that Iran with nukes is such a dangerous thing though as they wont give a shit about using it and I dont think anyone is convinced by the we just want it for electricity argument ! Especially when they are sitting on one of the largest oil reserve :Oh crap

Dont mind Buzzy. His hatred of the US and Israel makes him incapable of being objective. Iran has no air force to speak of and what they have would be destroyed in the first few hours of a fight. The only response that Iran could muster would be for Hezbollah to launch its rockets into Israel. This would cause some causalities but would not create any serious long term damage.

FYI, Typical Americans are against the "WAR". Typical Americans didn't vote for Bush:)

Maybe saying Bush supporters would be more accurate.

.. so does your blind love ..... :2 cents:

My hatred of bulying corrupt war monging criminals? Oh yes...shame on me. :1orglaugh

Iran's airforce is not as strong as Israels, of course it isn't but to say it isn't one to speak of is just more ignorance. As far as i know, they have 100 F-14 Tomcats and loads of MiG 29's. Iraq had what was left of the remains of a broken ground army, Iran has a modern military and airforce.

I'm not saying they are going to win, but it would be purely suicidal for Israel to launch an attack on such a large country with relativley advanced equipment and weapons compared to the Arab world that neighbors them (apart from Saudi).

So yeah....don't mind me, i'm not a mouthpiece for Bush and the good ol freedom loving western world so i'm not worth listening to. :helpme

There's a well known problem with the equipment purchased from the US air force by Iran in the 70s. The US has refused to sell iran the spare parts it needs to keep the planes operational. the F14s were delivered to Iran in the mid 1970s. Probably less than two dozen of them are still operational.

what would that accomplish ?

You mean what do they hope to accomplish? You already know the answer to that

Any basis to that or sources? Or is that all just assumption?

Check this
http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?i...onid=351020101

Why? The UK, France and many other European countries are rushing to build new nuclear resources for electricity as it is much more effecient, why should we believe different with Iran? Because they have brown skin and are not Christians? :helpme :disgust

Try google.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q...oogle+S earch

In the top 10 links I get

"The US has estimated the number of operational Iranian F-14s at any given time at 15 to 20, and sometimes less than 10" (aerospaceweb)

"Iran says it began its F-14 restoration project in 2002. In that same year, Iran announced that 25, of the 79 F-14As it bought in the 1970s, were still operational." (strategypage)

OR ...
"The number of F-5s dwindled from 166 to perhaps 45, and the F-14 Tomcats from 77 to perhaps 10. " (Globalsecurity.org)

About your link. Even if Iran suddenly can service their F14s after 30 years (where are the spare parts coming from?) Does any other country even still use the F14? Seriously.

didn't maverick fly an f-14?

he did a 4g negative inverted dive with a russian mig in one

at 1 meter?

THAT'S CLASSIFIED!!1

Ya know how long ago that was? Hell that is back before Val Kilmer got fat

yah, it was about a week ago, on tnt.

lol good one

Right. If you're going to go by "The US estimates", we must also assume the NIE is true which said Iran abandoned it's weapons program over 5 years ago. So no need to attack! :thumbsup

According to the following paper iran has 40 MiG29s; the remainder of its Russian inventory being older planes. Interesting paper otherwise.

http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/..._raas_long.pdf

Iran started with 79 F14s when Nixon was president. Iran and the Us became enemies in '79. They fought a decade long war against Iraq. At best they have been struggling for decades to keep an outdated plane airborne with whatever spare parts they can manage to import from various countries around the world as those countries modernized their air forces. I think Iran is the only country that still even has the F14 in its air force.

You claimed that Iran had a "powerful air force". You still stand behind that statement?

The F-14 Tomcat was the USA Navy's primary air superiority fighter and tactical reconnaissance platform from up until 2006.

I'm not going to sit and debate the power of Irans military, because i'm not too bothered, all i do know is that Israel is not going to come out of this without a big bruise, it might not be worth the risk to strike the facilities as the reaction could be more than it's worth.:upsidedow

Right, it is a navy plane. Originally designed for fleet protection. I'm not gonna knock the F14 though. There are those who debate and say it is a better fighter than the F15. Navy pilots swear by them. ;-) The F14 systems are just outdated and it is expensive and a pain to maintain them. This is exactly the problem everyone thinks Iran has had with them.

Realistically an Israeli strike force is going to be coming with about 50-100 modified F15 and F16s. They used more than 100 aircraft in their well-publicized recent training exercise. The distance to the targets from Israek is about 900 miles. An F15 will fly about 900 miles per hour at low altitude. Natanz is about 300 miles from the border or so. So Israeli planes will have to be in Iranian airspace for maybe 400 miles. Roughly 20 minutes on the way there. Maybe 15 minutes on the way back assuming they can climb to a higher altitude. The whole thing will go on less than 45 minutes. That will be an interesting day.

Juicy watched it :thumbsup