Martin Whiteside, Parliamentary spokesperson for Stroud District Green party, said: "This is very worrying development as B-2s are likely to be the strike aircraft used in any US attack on Iranian nuclear facilities. This could just be an exercise, but much makes me wary - the US seems to be engineering a diplomatic impasse in Iran and their attack plans for the country, "CONPLAN 8022 (Global Strike)" now have operational status which includes a nuclear weapons option. We could be witnessing the build up to another war."

Martin Whiteside, who is also a District councillor and was at the vigil on Saturday 18th March to commemorate the third anniversary of the Iraq war, said: "We must not let us be drawn into supporting another illegal war to divert our attention from the problems Bush and Blair are having at home at the moment."

Martin Whiteside said: "It is hypocritical to single out Iran for possible future nuclear proliferation while doing nothing about India, Pakistan and Israel who have all developed nuclear weapons in secret. Add to this the hypocrisy of British plans to upgrade it's own nuclear weapons and no wonder we loose respect and trust around the World. We need a consistent approach to getting rid of all nuclear weapons and to insist on a nuclear free Middle East (iii). I would urge people to write to Mr Blair seeking assurances that we will not join another unjust war."

Contact details:
Martin Whiteside 01453 757874
Philip Booth 01453 755451

Notes:
(i) See photos on Ops board at:  http://www.fairfordbase.org.uk/

(ii) Despite bland assurances from Blair and Straw that we're not about to get involved in an attack on Iran there are plenty of reasons to believe the US is building up to a pre-emptive strike on the alledged WMD facilites. The US seems to be engineering a diplomatic impass rather than looking for a solution to the developing crisis. Recent speeches making it clear that there is a very real threat of military action are, no doubt, partly about winding up the pressure on Iran. However plans are in place and there's a very real possibility that the US will launch a pre-emptive strike. Who knows what the UK role in all this will be? Blair said recently in The Independent today that he'd be prepared to do Iraq all over again - so where's that leave us with Iran? The nature of the attack plan is well documented but not widely know. Global Strike - CONPLAN 8022 - now has operational status and includes a nuclear weapons option - a specially configured earth-penetrating bomb (B61-11) to destroy deeply buried facilities. The B61-11 earth penetrating mini nukes have already been deployed to theatre at Incirlik in Turkey and occupied airbases in southern Iraq. The global strike plan holds the nuclear option in reserve if intelligence suggests an "imminent" launch of an enemy nuclear strike on the United States or if there is a need to destroy hard-to-reach targets. Deeply buried hard to reach targets pretty much describes Iran's nuclear facilites. For more info see:
 http://www.nukestrat.com/us/stratcom/globalstrike.htm
 http://www.campaigniran.org/casmii/page/p/How_to_Stop_the_Planned_Nuking_of_Iran
 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/14/AR2005051400071_pf.html

(iii) Iran complies with the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei issued a fatwa forbidding the production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons on August 9, 2005. The full text of the fatwa was released in an official statement at the meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna. In sharp contrast and in breach of the NPT, neighbouring Israel, India and Pakistan, already have nuclear weapons and are being supported in this by the US.