Alleged Plan To Bomb Kerch Strait Bridge ‘Sheer Incompetence’
March 5—As if to underscore that the American leadership is out to lunch, former Defense Secretary Bob Gates gave an interview to the
Washington Post’s David Ignatius on Feb. 21, and among outrageous comments regarding Russian President Putin and the death of NATO-backed Russian dissident Alexei Navalny in an Arctic prison camp, he made other remarks which added even more credence to the authenticity of the leaked tape of German generals discussing plans on Feb. 19 to bomb the Kerch Strait Bridge, connecting the Russian mainland to Crimea.
In response to a question regarding the deployment of ATACMS 300s, longer-range missiles that can hit Crimea, and attempting to shift the “Russian momentum,” Gates replied: "If you want to give the Russians pause, if you want to interrupt that sense of momentum that they have, why not be able to do things like drop the Kerch Strait Bridge? That would have a big impact on the Russians, I think, psychologically as well as militarily.
“So I think giving the Ukrainians the ability to strike some of these strategic targets in Crimea, as they have attacked the Black Sea Fleet successfully, I think is really important and could at least psychologically change the tenor of where we are at this point,” said Gates.
Gates also said it was a “no brainer” for the U.S. to send ATACMS to Ukraine, adding that it should have been done much earlier.
Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst and co-founder of the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), spoke on a podcast with hosts Garland Nixon and Wilmer Leon for Sputnik’s
The Critical Hour March 2, regarding his evaluation of the leaked tape of the German generals discussing plans to bomb the Kerch Strait Bridge.
He remarked that only “sheer incompetence and ignorance” would lead NATO to consider such plans, reported Sputnik.
Referring to Gates’ Feb. 21 comments about the Kerch Strait Bridge, McGovern said that the leaked German generals’ conversation reflected that: “Here’s this wise man, Bobby Gates, saying ‘Oh let’s get into World War Three.’ … I mean, if he is speaking for an influential element not only in the White House but also the German Army, my God….”
McGovern described how Gates had written in his autobiography that “it has never been on top of [Gates’] job jar to please the Russians,” and commented: "It may not be on top of the jar of people to make Putin or the Russians happy, but my God, they have to recognize that they don’t want to alienate the Russians or make the Russians think that [the West is] so unpredictable that the Russians may have to use this advantage that they have now in strategic weaponry….
“As John Kennedy said in that wonderful American University speech ‘Never give another nuclear power a choice between a humiliating retreat and using nuclear weapons’… Joe Biden is faced with humiliating retreat, he’s got lots at stake here,” McGovern warned. “If I were Putin, I would have my focus on full alert because one of these acolytes [might] say ‘hey, Mr. Biden … we did the cluster ammo, we did the depleted uranium, who’s going to complain if we do just a mini-nuke?’ So that’s the danger here.”
Other intelligence sources report the idea of launching a new attack on the Kerch Bridge is opposed by several U.S. military leaders as well as Direcxtor of Central Intelligence William Burns, some whom have long ago realized that NATO's war agaqinst Russia in the Ukraine is a lost cause that needs to be ended, diplomatically, and soon.
