Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 05 (13 page)

 
          
“The
Iranian carrier group also includes the Chinese destroyer
Zhanjiang
,
a very capable guided-missile destroyer,”
Freeman went on. “This is supposedly being used to house Chinese officers who
are also training on the
Khomeini,
but
the destroyer was involved in shooting down the spy plane, so it’s obviously
responding to orders from the Iranian commanders. The Iranians did buy one
conventional Russian cruiser, which they call the
Sadaf;
both it and the
Zhanjiang
carry a big payload of surface, air, and
anti-submarine weapons, but its primary purpose is carrier air defense. The
group has two ex-U.S. Knox-class frigates to help out with anti-submarine defense,
left over from our arms deals with the Shah, armed with Soviet- and Chinese-made
missiles and electronics; plus four ex-British frigates and four ex-Chinese
Houku-class fast guided-missile patrol boats for outer-area screening; these
boats carry Chinese-made antiship cruise missiles. The group includes a whole
bunch of support vessels.”

 
          
“Thanks
to our ‘friends’ in Pakistan and Bangladesh, the Iranians have lots of
U.S.-made ships and equipment,” the Vice President said acidly.

 
          
“I
wouldn’t be surprised to see
Iran
start flying F-16 fighters soon,” Secretary
of Defense Chastain interjected.

 
          
“That’s
not a joke, sir,” Freeman observed. “We believe
Pakistan
,
Bangladesh
,
Indonesia
,
Malaysia
, as well as
China
are supplying
Iran
with advanced Western hardware. It comes
down to simple economics: few countries can afford to turn down the money
Iran
is paying for arms and advanced
technology.”

 
          
“Are
they a threat to the
Lincoln
carrier group?” the President asked.

 
          
“By
itself, they can’t stand up against a carrier battle group like the
Lincoln,
sir,” Chastain chimed in.
Chastain, a four-term U.S. Senator and nationally recognized military affairs
expert, was well suited for his post in the Pentagon; unlike many political
appointees, he knew the U.S. military as well as he knew Congress, and he had
made himself familiar over the years with modern warfare and strategic
thinking. “However, they would most likely operate well within range of
land-based air forces and it could call upon another one hundred small attack
craft to harass our group. I feel certain we could destroy most of
Iran
’s air force and navy in a matter of days.
Shadowing the
Lincoln
would just highlight how small the
Khomeini
is next to our ships—you can
set the
Khomeini
on
Lincolns
deck with plenty of room to spare.”
Chastain’s smile flickered, then faded as he asked: “What about that third Kilo
sub, General? Is it in dry dock as last reported?”

 
          
“We
haven’t located the third Iranian Kilo submarine— we thought it was in dry dock
at the new sub base at Chah Bahar, but it disappeared,” Freeman acknowledged.
He turned to the President: “The Kilo-class subs are diesel subs, no
anechoic—anti-sound— coating on their hull, but still much quieter than
nuclear-powered subs because they run on batteries while submerged. They can’t
stay under as long, but when they’re under they’re hard to find and track,
especially in the
Persian
Gulf
and
Strait of Hormuz
.”

 
          
“They
could cause a hell of a lot of destruction with two subs and an aircraft
carrier, no matter how much firepower we bring against them,” the Vice
President added. The Oval Office fell silent once again; even Chastain, an
ardent Navy supporter, couldn’t argue with that.

 
          
“I
think it’s unlikely we’ll get into a carrier war with
Iran
,” Hartman added, “but it’s a major concern.
An American carrier hasn’t been sunk in combat since the battle of Midway—it
would be a tremendous boost to Iranian morale if they did it, even if they
eventually lost the war.”

 
          
“We’re
going to see that scenario doesn’t happen,” the President said resolutely. “I
don’t like the idea of
Iran
threatening us or barring us from
navigating the open seas, but the
Lincoln
group could be a major target. I’m not
prepared to send them in harm’s way until we’re ready to go all out and defend
them with everything we’ve got.

 
          
“Arthur,
keep the
Lincoln
group in the
Arabian Sea
for now until we find out more.” The
Secretary of Defense reluctantly nodded in agreement. To the National Security
Advisor, the President asked, “Phil, any speculation on what
Iran
might do if they start a shooting war?”

 
          
“The
new Iranian military doctrine is simple: ensure security and demonstrate its
leadership of the Muslim world by strict control of the skies and seas over and
near its borders,” Freeman said. “Wellarmed internal security forces like the
Pasdaran hunt down insurgents and rebels and control the border; this leaves
the regular military forces free to roam all of southwest
Asia
. The regular military’s primary emphasis is
on three areas: the Persian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz, and the Gulf of Oman;
by far, the most important of these areas is the Strait of Hormuz—it’s the
choke point in the sea lanes to and from the Persian Gulf.

 
          
“The
conventional theory says that if Iran is provoked, they’ll cut off the Strait
of Hormuz by application of massive shore-based anti-ship missile attacks,
backed up by air-to-surface missile attacks using large numbers of supersonic
aircraft, including heavy bombers, and by small, fast attack boats carrying
anti-ship missiles or guns,” Freeman went on. “The missile sites would be
defended with heavy concentrations of ground, sea, and airborne air defense
forces that they’ve built up in tremendous numbers over the past few years.
Without the application of concentrated suppression attacks, the
Strait of Hormuz
would become an impenetrable gauntlet. If
successful,
Iran
could cut off nearly half of the region’s oil exports.”

 
          
“Half the
Persian
Gulf
oil?”

           
“Exactly,” Freeman acknowledged.
“And the threat doesn’t stop there. With a few massive air raids,
Iran
can cut the Gulf pipelines flowing out of
Saudi Arabia
,
Kuwait
,
Bahrain
,
Oman
, and the UAE—there goes another twenty-five
percent of the region’s oil. With their new long-range Backfire supersonic
bombers, they might be able to cut the trans-Arabian pipelines running west to
the
Red Sea
—there goes another ten to fifteen percent.
The rest—flowing from
Iran
itself—would presumably be cut by us. If
successful,
Iran
could cut the entire world’s oil supply by thirty percent, all by
itself, in a very, very short, lighting-fast blitzkrieg.”

 
          
“No
oil from the
Middle
East
,” Hartman
murmured aloud. “One-third of the world’s oil supply . . . almost half of
America
’s oil supply. It would be a catastrophe,
Mr. President.”

 
          
“And
we couldn’t stop it from happening,” Chastain said. “I can say, as we stand
right now, that it would take far longer than six months to amass a force
equivalent to the one mobilized in Desert Shield, and it would be far more
dangerous to
U.S.
forces. Even if the Iranians made the same mistake as
Iraq
did and let us accumulate our forces in
Saudi, it would take us almost a year to build up a
seven-hundred-fifty-thousand-man fighting force.”

 
          
“A year!”
Vice President Whiting
exclaimed. “You’re exaggerating!”

 
          
“I
wish I was only trying to be conservative, Ellen,” Chastain said, “but I
believe that’s an accurate assessment. At the end of the Cold War, we switched
from a deployed counteroffensive force to a defensive expeditionary
force—except that the money wasn’t spent on boring, low-tech things such as
more cargo planes, container ships, and railroad cars. In addition, we’ve got
fewer active-duty forces, and we pulled them out of overseas bases back to the
U.S.
We’ve got fewer soldiers, they’re farther
from the
Middle East
, and we’ve got fewer transports to take
them where they need to go. Bottom line, Mr. President: we plan on a year and
hope for a miracle.”

 
          
Everyone
in the Cabinet Room was stunned into silence. They all remembered the buildup
prior to the Gulf War of 1991; although the first American defensive forces had
arrived in Saudi Arabia less than a day after the invasion of Kuwait, it had
seemed it would take forever to build up to what could be called an offensive
force. Even when Desert Shield had turned into Desert Storm, no one had been
sure if they had enough men and equipment to do the job. It had been sheer
luck—and they all knew it, although few dared admit it— that Saddam Hussein had
decided not to press his attack on Saudi Arabia, Israel, and Turkey during the
Coalition’s long mobilization, and that Coalition forces had had powerful,
oil-rich friends with large military facilities.

 
          
“What
do we have over there right now, Arthur?” Martindale asked.

 
          
“We’ve
got a token force over in the
Persian Gulf
region right now,” Chastain replied. He quickly scanned his briefing notes, his
shoulders visibly slumping as he read: “One carrier group currently within
striking distance of Iran; one F-16 attack wing and one F-15 fighter wing in
Saudi, just forty planes and one thousand men; three Patriot anti-missile and
antiaircraft companies, split up between Kuwait, Saudi, and Turkey, plus one
training company in Bahrain and one training company in Israel; one bomber wing
in Diego Garcia. A total of about fifteen thousand troops—a trip-wire force,
nothing more.

 
          
“Everyone
else is stateside, and I
mean
stateside—we have one fourth of the troops deployed in
Asia
and
Europe
now that we did in 1990,” Chastain
continued. “The air units could set up rapidly in Saudi, Israel, or Turkey—if
the Iranians haven’t destroyed the big Saudi bases, or if Turkey doesn’t
prohibit combat forces from staging there, like they tried to do in 1991—but we
can’t count on any ground forces for several months because we don’t have the
same- size forces forward-deployed in Europe or Asia. Most of our infantry and
heavy-armor units would deploy from
North America
—that
would take them an extra four to six months to get to the
Middle East
. Our sea and air supply bridges will need
some time, perhaps six full months, to come up to full capacity. And, of
course, there’s no easy land bridge to
Iran
—we can’t deploy to an allied country and
roll across a flat desert at high speed to get to
Iran
, like we could against
Iraq
...”