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Many of the assassinations have been blamed on militias from the Shi’ite Badr Brigade who were trained and financed by Iran and who now form the backbone of Iraq’s police and special forces.

A delegation of more than 1,000 members of the former military elite — mainly from the Sunni minority — appealed recently to President Jalal Talabani to intervene to end the attacks.

The officers and their families have accused Iran of inciting Iraq’s Shi’ite militias to carry out acts of vengeance. The organised nature of the attacks has reinforced their claims that elements within the Iranian-backed government are behind the attacks.

“Anyone who participated in the former war against Iraq is now a target, not knowing when the death sentence will be carried out against him,” said the brother of Imad Mohammed Marhoon, a pilot assassinated last December. “We cannot escape and we are unable to defend ourselves. We are the walking dead.”

“The attack would be over before anybody knew what had happened. The only question would be what the Iranians might do in retaliation.”

Sounds far-fetched? Think again. The unthinkable, or what Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, described only a few weeks ago as “inconceivable”, is now being actively planned in the Pentagon.

White House insiders say that Bush and Dick Cheney, his hawkish vice-president, have made up their minds to resolve the Iranian crisis before they leave office in three years’ time.

They say that military intervention — in the form of a massive strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities — is being planned and that Bush is prepared to order the raid unless Iran scraps its nuclear programme.

“This White House believes that the only way to solve the problem is to change the power structure in Iran, and that means war,” a senior unnamed Pentagon adviser is quoted as saying in an article by Seymour Hersh, the respected American investigative journalist, in tomorrow’s New Yorker magazine.

The Sunday Times was last week given the same message. A senior White House source said Bush and Cheney were determined not to bequeath the problem of a nuclear Iran to their successors. “It’s not in their nature,” he said.

White House insiders scoff that Bill Clinton left Al-Qaeda unchecked. A nuclear-armed Iran, they believe, is too dangerous to be left to a potential Democrat president.

One date is said to be etched in the minds of military planners: 2008. Word has gone out that the Iranian nuclear crisis must be resolved by then or the regime of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, with its Israel-baiting rhetoric, will face military consequences.

Hersh reports that one option involves the use of a bunker-buster tactical nuclear weapon, such as the B61-11, to ensure the destruction of Iran’s main centrifuge plant at Natanz.

The Sunday Times understands that a strike with a conventional weapon is much more likely. By 2008 a new bunker-busting missile called the Big Blu should be available to the US air force. The 30,000lb behemoth is being designed for dispatch by the B-series stealth bombers and can penetrate 100ft under the ground before exploding.

Trident ballistic missiles, newly converted to carry conventional warheads, may also be on hand by 2008, providing Bush with further options[...]

More worrying for Labour perhaps is that under the American plans Britain would be expected to play a supporting role, perhaps by sending surveillance aircraft or ships and submarines to the Gulf or by allowing the Americans to fly from Diego Garcia.

Will Tony Blair still be in Downing Street by 2008 and, if not, would Gordon Brown as prime minister be willing to play ball on yet another military adventure in the Middle East? As public opinion stands, such a move could spell political suicide.

Larry Wilkerson, Colin Powell’s former chief of staff, believes Bush is compounding the mistakes he made in the run-up to the war in Iraq. “If you get to the point where you have to use your military, you’ll want everybody on board with you and we haven’t even tried,” he said.

Such considerations have failed to sway Bush and Cheney before. If their approval ratings remain in the doldrums, there may be an upside to a strike on Iran. “Regardless of how bad Bush’s poll numbers are, Americans love a display of firepower,” said Pike.