<\/p>\n
Maj. Gen. Brandon Tegtmeier<\/span>, the chief of the 82nd Airborne Division, and his headquarters staff have been ordered to the Middle East as the War Department awaits a White House decision about the deployment of the unit to the Middle East for possible ground operations in Iran, two government sources tell The Intercept.<\/p>\n The deployment includes the division\u2019s \u201cheadquarters element,\u201d support staff, and some personnel who manage logistics, planning, and command operations, the sources said.<\/p>\n The order comes as the Pentagon is weighing the broader deployment of the 82nd Airborne\u2019s \u201cImmediate Response Force,\u201d a 3,000-soldier brigade capable of deploying anywhere in the world within a day, which was first reported<\/a> by the New York Times on Monday. It also comes as thousands of Marines are headed to the region along with at least three more ships, including the USS Boxer, an amphibious assault ship with F-35 attack jets with vertical takeoff and landing capability, as well as attack and transport helicopters.<\/p>\n Open source reporting<\/a> suggests dozens of transport aircraft used to ferry troops and cargo have been flying out of airfields used by America\u2019s most elite commandos, including the Army\u2019s Delta Force and the Navy\u2019s SEAL Team 6.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n U.S. ground troops could be employed to carry out a number of varied missions from more conventional combat operations to specialized commando missions. These could include\u00a0seizing Kharg Island, Iran\u2019s main oil export hub, or securing that country\u2019s stockpile of highly enriched uranium.<\/p>\n \u201cWe did Iwo Jima. We can do this.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n \u201cWe got two Marine expeditionary units sailing to this island. We did Iwo Jima. We can do this,\u201d Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said on Fox News Sunday<\/a> over the weekend. \u201cI don\u2019t know if you take the island or you blockade the island. But I know this: the day we control that island, this regime, this terrorist regime, has been weakened. It will die on a vine.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cPeople are going to have to go and get it,\u201d said Secretary of State Marco Rubio earlier this month when asked about Iran\u2019s uranium.<\/p>\n The potential expansion of Operation Epic Fury into a ground campaign would be another major escalation of President Donald Trump\u2019s expanding world war<\/a>.<\/p>\n One of the U.S. officials, who has been briefed on Operation Epic Fury, speculated that Trump\u2019s fixation on and fascination with the supposed success of Operation Absolute Resolve \u2014 in which the U.S.\u00a0attacked Venezuela<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0abducted<\/a>\u00a0the country\u2019s president, Nicol\u00e1s Maduro\u00a0\u2014 might prompt something similar in Iran.<\/p>\n Orders for the deployment of thousands more members of the division may come within hours, said one of the officials on Tuesday afternoon.<\/p>\n The Office of the Secretary of War referred questions about the deployment of ground forces in Iran to the White House, which did not immediately return a request for comment.<\/p>\n Last week, Special Operations Command chief Adm. Frank M. Bradley said that he has long viewed Iran and its proxies threatening the freedom of navigation in and around the Middle East as \u201cthe most dangerous crisis\u201d facing the United States. \u201cI would anticipate that along those same lines, the ability to project force into increasingly contested environments where U.S. national interests are threatened is the characterization of the next most dangerous crisis,\u201d he told the House Armed Services Committee\u2019s Subcommittee on Intelligence and Special Operations. \u201cThat is why that we have made our ability to do that our top modernization priority. If you look at the operation conducted under Absolute Resolve into Venezuela, I would argue it\u2019s the most sophisticated integrated inter-agency joint force raid ever conducted.\u201d<\/p>\n The U.S. forces being sped to the Middle East will augment more than 40,000 troops already stationed in the region and forces brought in before the Trump administration began its latest war with Iran on February 28. This included dozens of fighter jets, bombers, and other aircraft, as well as two carrier strike groups. (The USS Gerald R. Ford had to since abandon the fight and\u00a0travel to port, following a fire on the ship.)<\/p>\n The Pentagon has already requested $200 billion<\/a> in supplemental funds to pay for its war on Iran.\u00a0The ultimate cost of the war is expected to run into the trillions of dollars<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n #Leaders #Elite #Paratrooper #Unit #Ordered #Middle #East #Trump #Weighs #Iran #Ground #War<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Maj. Gen. Brandon Tegtmeier, t… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28665,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[246],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28664"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28664"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28664\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/28665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n