Another Fired Navy Admiral Points To Possible Action Against Iran
Vice Admiral John "Boomer" Stufflebeem has joined outgoing US Central Command (CENTCOM) commander Admiral William Fallon in being unceremoniously dismissed from their jobs. Fallon announced his retirement on March 11, 2008, after his criticisms of neocon plans to attack Iran were published in Esquire magazine.
Stuflebeem, the former Commander of the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean, was fired on March 21 from his job as Chief of the Naval Staff for providing "false and misleading" statements to naval investigators about at "inappropriate relationship" eighteen years ago when he served as a military assistant to then-President George H. W. Bush. Stufflebeem was a familiar face on television in the weeks after 9/11 when he gave periodic press briefings on US military operations in Afghanistan while serving as deputy director of global operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Stufflebeem was reduced in rank to Rear Admiral after being relieved of his duties.
The charges against Stufflebeem were first alleged to have originated in an anonymous letter sent in 1999. The Pentagon has not revealed to whom the letter was sent, although it has confirmed that there was "insufficient evidence to pursue the matter" at the time. However, recently, the Navy Inspector General reopened the case after another anonymous letter was received this year. Although Stufflebeem is a naval aviator, the Navy IG findings on his case are to be sent to Admiral Kirkland Donald, the director of naval nuclear propulsion. Fallon is also a naval aviator. Any U.S. military attack on Iran will be significantly involve U.S. aircraft carrier-based squadrons.
It is known that Fallon and Stufflebeem were opposed to any US military action against Iran.
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has been billed as a more independent voice on military action against Iran than was his predecessor, Donald Rumsfeld. However, the back-to-back purging of senior US Navy officers is reminiscent of Rumsfeld's purge of senior Army officers, including Army chief of staff General Eric Shinseki and Training and Doctrine commander General Kevin Byrnes.
On August 10, 2005, WMR reported, "There's much more to this story than a 'sexual indiscretion.' The sudden firing of U.S. Army Training and Doctrine (TRADOC) Commander, four star General and New York City native Kevin P. Byrnes, one of only 11 four star generals in the Army, has much more to do with a policy dispute than an anonymous Pentagon-reported story about an alleged 'extra-marital affair.' Although Byrnes has recently been involved in divorce proceedings, Pentagon insiders report that Byrnes was fired for insubordination. Byrnes' firing fits a pattern of neocon demonizing of policy opponents by tossing out unsubstantiated charges from 'anonymous sources.' For example, when Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski was demoted to Colonel over trumped up charges over her role as commander of Iraqi prisons during the time of the prisoner abuse (and after she revealed the presence of Israeli interrogators in Iraqi prisons), the Pentagon spin machine, joined at the hips with neo-con think thanks and media outlets in Washington, cited a dated and totally unsubstantiated shoplifting accusation against her."
In the aftermath of Vice President Dick Cheney's visit to Middle East nations surrounding Iran, a US merchant vessel contracted to the Military Sealift Command, the M/V Global Patriot, reportedly is under a three-month contract to deliver heavily-armored troop carriers manufactured in South Africa to the Persian Gulf. The Global Patriot was formally known as the M/V Buffalo Soldier. The ship recently engaged in a shooting altercation with an Egyptian vendor barge as it was leaving the Suez Canal for the Mediterranean Sea. A Navy security team aboard the Global Patriot shot and killed one Egyptian seaman and wounded three others.
In yet more alarming news, Saudi Arabia's Shoura Council has discussed a national contingency plan to deal with the effects of radiation following a U.S. military attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. The King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology is reportedly preparing a contingency plan for such an attack and radiation preparation. The report comes subsequent to Cheney's visit to Saudi Arabia.
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