The meeting then turned to a lengthy discussion of who, apart from the Blair government and Israel, would support a U.S. attack. The conclusion was that diplomatic support within the European Union would probably only come from Poland.
What the meeting did not know, and which would only emerge in August 2006 (through Seymour Hersh, an investigative journalist), was that President Bush and Vice President Cheney had proposed using nuclear weapons to destroy the uranium enrichment plant at Natanz. The plan had been fiercely opposed by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine General Peter Pace. He and other Pentagon commanders, at an equally secret meeting warned Bush and Cheney of what they saw as “the serious economic, political, and military consequences. A military strike on Natanz would vent fatal radiation for three hundred kilometers.” This would include Tehran and its multi-million population. The Pentagon chiefs argued for dropping the “largest possible bunker bombs available in a multi-drop attack which would generate sufficient force to accomplish what a nuclear warhead would achieve, but without provoking an outcry over what would be the first use of a nuclear weapon in conflict since Nagasaki.”
The chance of success by such an attack was challenged. A Pentagon adviser argued that such an attack “would be like bombing water, with its currents and eddies. The bombs would likely be diverted.” More certain was that such an attack would be seen throughout the Muslim world as another example of American imperialism and would lead to unprecedented retaliation. Already the growing prospect of such retaliation had come to preoccupy the intelligence services of Britain, Mossad, the CIA, and the Pakistan intelligence service. The threat was centered on a plot, that if successful, would lead to the greatest terrorist outrage the world had ever known.
Since March 2006, Operation Overt had become the largest, most secret and widespread surveillance and intelligence operation ever mounted in Britain, post-WW II. It had quickly widened to include Scotland Yard’s anti-terrorism squad and its special branch, GCHQ, Britain’s spy in the sky, NSA, its counterpart in the United States, the CIA and the FBI, the DSGE in France, Germany’s BND, the Pakistani intelligence service and Mossad.
In all some five hundred of the world’s most experienced spies were involved in an operation aimed at two British-based cells of suspected Islamic militants who were believed to be plotting a massive terrorist attack. How it would be carried out, the target, and its time and place were still unclear in late May 2006.
For weeks the intelligence teams had been patiently gathering the tentacles that had emerged from suspects uncovered in the “concentric circles” which materialized after the London bombings in July 2005. The first cell had been pinpointed after one suspect had returned from an al-Qaeda training camp in the “badlands” of northern Pakistan. The second cell had been identified as operating out of the Muslim community in the suburbs of south London. Both cells were placed under intense monitoring. All public meetings in both areas were infiltrated by MI5 officers. Telephone contacts by those who attended the gatherings were traced to Paris, Frankfurt, and, as one anti-terrorist officer later said, “to all points East and West.” E-mails were intercepted by GCHQ and NSA. From listening posts on the island of Cyprus to the deserts of Afghanistan, the mountains of Iran, and the North West Frontier border of Pakistan, the words of cell members and their associates were plucked out of the air, recorded, and sent to the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre (JTAC) in London’s Millbank. Its Anacapa wall charts—specialist diagrams to create a coherent picture from all the incoming information—were constantly updated.
In the world outside, other stories came and went in the headlines. One was the assassination of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the murderous leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq. In late June 2006 his hideout near Baghdad was devastated by a laser-bomb attack. He had tried to crawl to safety, but had been shot by U.S. Special Forces. They were led to al-Zarqawi by a whistleblower in his midst. The man received “a very substantial payment” and was given a new identity in a country of his choice. He was assured its whereabouts would forever remain a secret.
