Chapter 179

Connie, Troy and the rest of my staff had been in the outer offices taking phone calls and making notes. When Frank and the generals left they came in with handfuls of notes and a fresh mug of coffee. It’s going to be that kind of morning, I thought.

Connie grabbed all the notes from everyone and began to put them into their order of importance. On the top - needing immediate attention - was our UN ambassador; he was between a rock and a hard spot wanting guidance.

Iranian aligned countries were screaming mad and were immediately pressing for a resolution condemning the US, but Ambassador Hinson vetoed it when it came before the executive committee - effectively killing it.

When that failed they tried passing a resolution to force a cease fire and open negotiations; Russian Ambassador Diorama vetoed that one.

I talked for thirty minutes with Ambassador Victor Mason making it clear he was to stop all UN actions detrimental to our military operation.

I made other calls; one to President Orbatch, another to Prime Minister Attenborough. Then I followed up with Mexican President Martinez and Canada’s Prime Minister Turpin.

At noon the first pictures out of Iran were published by a foreign journalist from Pakistan. They were of the destroyed IRG complex. There were others of the parliament ruins with fires still burning.

After lunch the joint chiefs were back in with the latest pictures and updates. Everything was going as planned, with a few exceptions. The B52s and B21s had made more bombing runs on selected targets this morning.

The carrier planes had destroyed another two hundred military trucks, twenty portable radar trucks and SAM missiles that were in transport. They also destroyed twenty hardened aircraft hangers. From all appearances all of Iran’s aircraft had been destroyed when the seismic bombs were dropped on the main air base. There were fifty very large hardened hangars there and all of them had collapsed.

The days were busy and going by way too fast, too many meetings and too many critical decisions about too many little fires to put out that kept reigniting. Before I knew it - it was Friday afternoon and I was going home in an hour to spend a quiet weekend with my mates - I hoped. I was having the last meeting with the joint chiefs. The bombing campaign had been going on around the clock for three days.

General Ingram began discussing ground operations. His argument was that since the bombing campaign was going so well that Iranian IRG units would be ill prepared to deal with a ground invasion.

This morning’s targets for the MOAB had been four IRG bases and weapons storage sites, including the ones we had seen them stockpiling materials in the last few weeks. Two districts were now free of any military bases, warehouses, military posts or any workable military equipment. The Air Force was aggressively working in two more above 30N. For all intent and purposes the intelligence looked good.

‘‘There are now one hundred additional A10s and that many more assault helicopters in Saudi Arabia and there were now ten amphibious landing ships with equipment waiting to be pressed into action,’’ he said to reinforce his position.

‘‘That would be moving a lot faster than we had anticipated. That is in your ball park so it is your call. If you are comfortable with that, then do it,’’ I said.

‘‘Has the State Department been working with you on the humanitarian needs after the fighting ends? If you are moving that fast, they better get on the ball,’’ I said.

‘‘Yes they have. I think they maybe a little ahead of us in planning,’’ General Ingram said.

At 1400 the news broke from NASA; the first manned flight to Mars had safely landed after the many months long trip. The six astronauts were to spend two weeks on the surface. Besides looking for alien life and water, they were to perform a series of test and work at completing several assembly tasks.

For six months NASA and Space XXX had been soft landing components for a simple Mars structure. For the lack of a better explanation it was a simple cross, a center section with four tubes to be bolted together. The site NASA chose was a nearly flat plain of hard rock.

They were space age insulated and if the assembly plans worked in the near 1/3 gravity, they were to be part of the first permanent Mars station. The tubes had removable end caps so each tube could be extended and other sections added.

The NASA news overshadowed the next piece of news out of Iran by the Pakistani news agency that the Supreme Leader Awad, Iranian President Marwan, the Vice President, the complete cabinet and the command structure of the IRG were all deceased. They were in a bunker under the parliament building when the MOAB was dropped on it.

It was a known and tested fact that a MOAB was so powerful and consumed so much oxygen when it exploded that anyone in caves, bunkers or an underground facility with atmospheric vents would die an instant and horrible death from no oxygen and the effects of the massive pressure change. That was if the explosion didn’t get you first.

That pressure change was like being thrust into the deepest ocean and then propelled instantly into outer space. It simply destroyed all the internal organs in a millisecond.

To add insult to injury, a seismic bomb was later dropped leaving a crater one hundred feet deep, confirming where the bunkers were thought to be.

That set off a political storm in several countries; Canada, France, Greece, the United States, the European Union - just to name a few countries that were home to exiled dissidents. Dissidents leaders and political expatiates that had left Iran to stay alive over the years suddenly thought it was time to claim their place as the leaders of Iran when the reconstruction started.

They would soon get the message that there was no place for them going forward in Iran. But the most immediate threat was from Iraq.

One of those was Imam El Afiad La Suder. He had played a major role in Iraqi politics for years and was the leader of Sunni tribes in Iraq. He had studied for years under Iran’s Supreme Leader Awad with the hopes of joining the Iraqi and Iranian Sunnis into a powerful coalition and replacing Awad when he died or stepped down.

The rumor that Awad was dead was his ticket into power. By the end of the day he had convinced ten thousand die hard Sunni pilgrims to make the march to Tehran, form the new government and put him in place as the new supreme leader and be part of his rein.

There was only one problem - the satellites had been spending overtime over Iraq and for good reason. The caravan headed from Baghdad to Tehran made its start at an Iraqi military base in the Sunni controlled sector. The diehard pilgrims were made up of mostly soldiers preparing to resist any political change and install their man as head of the Sunni’s.

The drone cameras showed them loading cars and trucks with weapons, rocket propelled grenades, ammunition and IEDs

I was packing up my portable office when General Ingram answered my call about the caravan headed to Tehran. I listened closely as he presented the options.

‘‘I chose the second and third options together. As soon as the caravan is entirely in Iran, send two AC130J Spooky ll gunships to destroy the caravan then drop MOABs on it. Dead men tell no tales and make up no lies,’’ I said.