April Or May

Well, it looks like we're in for a spring offensive if the posts on some web sites are anything to go by.

www.thewashingtonnote.com...

-->We asked a friend out on the West Coast for his assessment of the new deployments, which confirms the actions ARE aimed at Iran, but in a balanced way, all things considered. For something really "up", he warns, watch to see a change in deploying the Nimitz

-->

www.dailyitem.com.../20070130/NEWS/701300309

-->Francis is stationed aboard the USS Nimitz and will be deploying to the Middle East in April

-->

Look to the end of March. Eisenhower, Stennis and Nimitz will all be there and ready to party...

Iran will be in the news every day starting soon and through the end of March, and they'll be dragging out the graphics of buried bunkers and strike maps on CNN.

It must be rookie hour, back in November I posted regarding the scheduled deployment of the Nimitz CSG in late Feb or March.

Might as well get paranoid, because the Truman is preparing to deploy this summer, and yes, when you finally here about it, the addition of the Royal Navy destroyer to the Truman group this summer is intentional, but not for war. Same with the US DDG deploying with the Royal Navy carrier late this year.

The fact is, the only group of ships that have 'surged' in the past several weeks is 2 FFGs (that don't even have a missile launcher) for MSO operations, boarding of merchant ships, and the Reagan CSG to the Pacific. Everything else that has deployed in the last 2 months or so has been scheduled. The Stennis was planned to deploy since June 2006, the only difference was it went to the Gulf instead. The Nimitz deployment was announced in October of last year, too bad "thwashingtonnote" website didn't take note of it then.

Expect another ESG (BR group) to deploy from the Pacific soon to replace the Boxer group, and the Nimitz after that to replace the Eisenhower.

If something happens that is odd with Naval deployments, don't worry, I'll let you know.

While everyone is watching the Navy in the Gulf and the Army surge in Iraq, it is a real shame nobody has mentioned those F-117s and F-22As in northeast asia (google news it, its happening and being reported and no one is saying beep about it). With all those extra refueling planes in Guam, and the rotation of B-1s and B-2s to Guam, a rather large chunk of the US offensive capability has quietly rotated into the Pacific while everyone states at Iran.

If observers are supposed to gauge the possibility of war based on military movements, the potential of the US to strike is much higher in North Korea
than Iran right now.

I have to agree with Darksided on this one. The US has many bases in the Pacific. Equipment is rotated all the time. The F-117 may find a niche in NK as a deterrence platform. It can still be a useful strike aircraft I believe, and with NK supposedly trying to test their own nukes the US needs a show of force that can give NK some pause before doing so. The US is far more concerned with NK than Iran.