A number of political observers and activists today sounded ‘a red alert’ after reports surfaced this week Vice President Dick Cheney directly ordered Strategic Command (STRATCOM) to make contingency plans for a nuclear strike against Iran in the aftermath of another ‘9/11 type attack' on America.

Cheney’s orders first surfaced in an article by Philip Geraldi in the Aug 1, 2005, issue of The American Conservative. Geraldi was unavailable for comment, but excerpts of the article went on to say:

“Vice President Cheney's office has specifically told the Pentagon that the military should be prepared for an attack on Iran in the immediate aftermath of "another 9-11." That's "not conditional on Iran actually being involved in the act of terrorism directed against the United States," notes Geraldi’s article.

The statement was then distributed widely over the internet as a number of political observers have issued “world wide” warning statements,” declaring Cheney’s order to be interpreted as “sounding the bell for World War III.”

In response to Cheney’s order, outspoken political activist and former candidate for U.S. President, Lyndon La Rouche, Wednesday issued a “world wide” internet warning covering the time period of August 2005, saying:

“Vice President Dick Cheney, with the full collusion of the circles of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, to unleash the recently exposed plans to stage a preemptive tactical nuclear strike against Iran.

“The danger of such a mad, Hitler-in-the-bunker action from the Cheney circles would be even further heightened, were the United States Congress to stick with its present schedule, and go into recess on July 30 until September 4. With Congress out of Washington, the Cheney-led White House would almost certainly unleash a "Guns of August" attack on Iran.”

In the warning distributed widely throughout the world on July 27, LaRouche based his alarming assessment on a series of factors reported to him over the recent days, beginning with the qualified report, from a former U.S. intelligence official, published in the American Conservative magazine.

The report claims that Cheney already ordered the Strategic Command to prepare contingency plans for a conventional and tactical nuclear strike against hundreds of targets in Iran, in the event of a "new 9/11-style attack" on the United States.

And as reported several months ago, La Rouche said the Bush Administration, under CONPLAN 8022, had already placed the relevant "mini-nukes" under the control of theater military commanders, as part of a new Global Strike doctrine, a doctrine originally conceived when Dick Cheney was Secretary of Defense under George H.W. Bush in the early 1990s.

“The recent bombings in London have provided Tony Blair with his own "Reichstag fire" incident, and the full resources of the British "liberal imperial" faction can now be expected to weigh in behind the brutish Cheney circles in Washington, added La Rouche.

“The most compelling evidence of this "Guns of August" plan in discussions I’ve had with colleagues is the pattern of eyewitness reports of Dick Cheney's state of mind. Cheney is living out an American version of "Hitler in the bunker," lashing out at Republican Senators who have dared to resist his mad tirades, accusing anyone who fails to follow his orders—including senior members of the United States Senate—of being "traitors" and worse.”