Claim: White House to attack Iran after elections

An email is going around that claims “very reliable” former CIA officer Philip Giraldi has written an article for the forthcoming 9 October issue of The American Conservative in which he allegedly will assert the following:

The White House has overcome resistance from the Joint Chiefs of Staff and has ordered plans to attack Iran after the November Congressional elections.  President Bush has made it clear, both publicly and privately, that Iran will not be allowed to develop a nuclear weapons capability and that he intends to take direct action, whatever the consequences would be.

Philip Giraldi, per his Wikipedia entry, is “a former officer of the CIA who became famous for claiming in 2005 that … US Vice President Dick Cheney had instructed STRATCOM to prepare ‘a contingency plan to be employed in response to another 9/11-type terrorist attack on the United States... [including] a large-scale air assault on Iran employing both conventional and tactical nuclear weapons... not conditional on Iran actually being involved in the act of terrorism directed against the United States.’ “

Items like this, this and this have come out recently which seem to lead right into Girarldi’s article, if the email is correct.  But I cannot possibly verify the veracity of the information in the email.  There is no link to or preview of the Giraldi article at AC’s website.  For all I know, the claim probably carries about as much weight as some of the crazy batshit at DEBKAfile.  I hate to end on a tired cliché, but time will ultimately tell.