"One of the concerns people have is that Israel might do it without being asked... Given the fact that Iran has a stated policy that their objective is the destruction of Israel, the Israelis might well decide to act first, and let the rest of the world worry about cleaning up the diplomatic mess afterwards," (quoted from an MSNBC Interview Jan 2005)Amid numerous media reports’ predictions that the United States, backed by Israel, will launch a military strike, targeting Iran’s nuclear sites in 2006, Germany's Der Spiegel suggests that speculation about a U.S. attack against the Islamic republic is particularly rife in NATO-member Turkey.
Der Spiegel stated that Washington has been holding talks with allies in preparation of an air assault on Iran, the Deutsche Depeschendienst, Germany's second leading news agency, reported after DPA put out an article by Udo Ulfkotte, a former editor for one of Germany's main dailies Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) and an intelligence service, warning of such attack.
Ulfkotte, who named his sources as "Western security circles," without elaborating, says that during a visit to Istanbul, U.S.’s Central Intelligence Agency Director Porter Goss asked Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan to support the air strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities in 2006 and that by stepping up the exchange of intelligence.
