Reprinted from NewsMax.com
IranReadies Plan to Close Strait ofHormuz
Kenneth R. Timmerman,NewsMax.com
Wednesday, March 1,2006
Iran's Revolutionary Guards are making preparations for amassive assault on U.S. naval forces and international shipping inthe Persian Gulf, according to a former Iranian intelligence officerwho defected to the West in 2001.
The plans, which include the use of bottom-tethered minespotentially capable of destroying U.S. aircraft carriers, weredesigned to counter a U.S. land invasion and to close the Strait ofHormuz, the defector said in a phone interview from his home inEurope.
They would also be triggered if the United States or Israellaunched a pre-emptive strike on Iran to knock out nuclear andmissile facilities.
"The plan is to stop trade," the source said.
Between 15 and 16.5 million barrels of oil transit the Straitof Hormuz each day, roughly 20 percent of the world's daily oilproduction, according to the U.S. government's Energy InformationAdministration.
The source provided NewsMax parts of a more than 30-pagecontingency plan, which bears the stamp of the Strategic StudiesCenter of the Iranian Navy, NDAJA. The document appears to have beendrafted in September or October of 2005.
The NDAJA document was just one part of a larger strike plan tobe coordinated by a single operational headquarters that wouldintegrate Revolutionary Guards missile units, strike aircraft,surface and underwater naval vessels, Chinese-supplied C-801 andC-802 anti-shipping missiles, mines, coastal artillery, as well aschemical, biological and nuclear weapons.
The overall plans are being coordinated by the intelligenceoffice of the Ministry of Defense, known as HFADA.
Revolutionary Guards missile units have identified "more than100 targets, including Saudi oil production and oil export centers,"the defector said. "They have more than 45 to 50 Shahab-3 andShahab-4 missiles ready for shooting" against those targets andagainst Israel, he added.
The defector, Hamid Reza Zakeri, warned the CIA in July 2001that Iran was preparing a massive attack on America using Arabterrorists flying airplanes, which he said was planned for Sept. 11,2001. The CIA dismissed his claims and called him a fabricator.
The source also identified a previously unknown nuclear weaponssite last year to this writer, which was independently confirmed bythree separate intelligence agencies.
NewsMax showed the defector's documents to two nativePersian-speakers who each have more than 20 years of experienceanalyzing intelligence documents from the Islamic Republic regime.They believed the documents were authentic.
A U.S. military intelligence official, while unable toauthenticate the documents without seeing them, recognized theStrategic Studies Center and noted that the individual whose nameappears as the author of the plan, Abbas Motaj, was head of theIranian navy until late 2005.
A former Revolutionary Guards officer, contacted by NewsMax inEurope, immediately recognized the Naval Strategic Studies institutefrom its Persian-language acronym, NDAJA. He provided independentinformation on recent deployments of Shahab-3 missiles that coincidedwith information contained in the NDAJA plan.
The Iranian contingency plan is summarized in an "Order ofBattle" map, which schematically lays out Iran's military andstrategic assets and how they will be used against U.S. militaryforces from the Strait of Hormuz up to Busheir.
The map identifies three major areas of operations, called"mass kill zones," where Iranian strategists believe they candecimate a U.S.-led invasion force before it actually enters thePersian Gulf.
The kill zones run from the low-lying coast just to the east ofBandar Abbas, Iran's main port that sits in the bottleneck of theStrait of Hormuz, to the ports of Jask and Shah Bahar on the IndianOcean, beyond the Strait.
Behind the kill zones are strategic missile launchers labeledas "area of chemical operations," "area of biological warfareoperations," and "area where nuclear operations start."
Iran's overall battle management will be handled through C4Iand surveillance satellites. It is unclear in the documents sharedwith NewsMax whether this refers to commercial satellites orsatellite intelligence obtained from allies, such as Russia or China.Iran has satellite cooperation programs with both nations.
The map is labeled "the current status of military forces inthe Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, 1384." 1384 is the Iranianyear that ends on March 20, 2006.
Iran plans to begin offensive operations by launching successivewaves of explosives-packed boats against U.S. warships in the Gulf,piloted by "Ashura" or suicide bombers.
The first wave can draw on more than 1,000 small fast-attackboats operated by the Revolutionary Guards navy, equipped with rocketlaunchers, heavy machine-guns and possibly Sagger anti-tankmissiles.
In recent years, the Iranians have used these small boats topractice "swarming" raids on commercial vessels and U.S. warshipspatrolling the Persian Gulf.
The White House listed two such attacks in the list of 10foiled al-Qaida terrorist attacks it released on Feb. 10. The attackswere identified as a "plot by al-Qaida operatives to attack ships inthe [Persian] Gulf" in early 2003, and a separate plot to"attack ships in the Strait of Hormuz."
A second wave of suicide attacks would be carried out by "suicidesubmarines" and semi-submersible boats, before Iran deploys itsRussian-built Kilo-class submarines and Chinese-built Huodong missileboats to attack U.S. warships, the source said.
The 114-foot Chinese boats are equipped with advanced radar-guidedC-802s, a sea-skimming cruise-missile with a 60-mile range againstwhich many U.S. naval analysts believe there is no effectivedefense.
When Iran first tested the sea-launched C-802s a decade ago,Vice Admiral Scott Redd, then commander of U.S. naval forces in theGulf, called them "a new dimension ... of the Iranian threat toshipping."
Admiral Redd was appointed to head the NationalCounterterrorism Center last year.
Iran's naval strategists believe the U.S. will attempt to land groundforces to the east of Bandar Abbas. Their plans call for extensiveuse of ground-launched tactical missiles, coastal artillery, as swellas strategic missiles aimed at Saudi Arabia and Israel tipped withchemical, biological and possibly nuclear warheads.
The Iranians also plan to lay huge minefields across the Persian Gulfinside the Strait of Hormuz, effectively trapping ships that manageto cross the Strait before they can enter the Gulf, where they can bedestroyed by coastal artillery and land-based "Silkworm" missilebatteries.
Today, Iran has sophisticated EM-53 bottom-tethered mines, which itpurchased from China in the 1990s. The EM-53 presents a seriousthreat to major U.S. surface vessels, since its rocket-propelledcharge is capable of hitting the hull of its target at speeds inexcess of 70 miles per hour. Some analysts believe it can knock out aU.S. aircraft carrier.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff has been warning about Iran's growing navalbuildup in the Persian Gulf for over a decade, and in a draftpresidential finding submitted to President Clinton in late February1995, concluded that Iran already had the capability to close theStrait of Hormuz.
"I think it would be problematic for any navy to face a combinationof mines, small boats, anti-ship cruise missiles, torpedoes, coastalartillery, and Silkworms," said retired Navy Commander JosephTenaglia, CEO of Tactical Defense Concepts, a maritime securitycompany. "This is a credible threat."
In Tenaglia's view, "the major problem will be the mines. Navalminefields are hard to locate and to sweep," and the United Stateshas few minesweepers. "It's going to be like running the gauntletgetting through there," he said.
When Iran last mined the Gulf, in 1987-1988, several U.S. ships andreflagged Kuwaiti oil tankers were hit, even though the mines theyused were similar to those used in the Battle of Gallipoli in 1915,Tenaglia said.
The biggest challenge facing Iran today would be to actually lay themines without getting caught. "If they are successful in gettingmines into the water, it's going to take us months to get them out,"Tenaglia said.
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