One former high-level intelligence official told The New Yorker, "This is a war against terrorism, and Iraq is just one campaign. The Bush administration is looking at this as a huge war zone. Next, we're going to have the Iranian campaign." "The civilians in the Pentagon want to go into Iran and destroy as much of the military infrastructure as possible." Of The New Yorker report, he (Dan Bartlett) said: "I think it's riddled with inaccuracies, and I don't believe that some of the conclusions he's drawing are based on fact." ________________________________________ Report: U.S. Conducting Secret Missions Inside Iran WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States has been conducting secret reconnaissance missions inside Iran to help identify potential nuclear, chemical and missile targets, The New Yorker magazine reported Sunday. The article, by award-winning reporter Seymour Hersh, said the secret missions have been going on at least since last summer with the goal of identifying target information for three dozen or more suspected sites. Hersh quotes one government consultant with close ties to the Pentagon as saying, "The civilians in the Pentagon want to go into Iran and destroy as much of the military infrastructure as possible." One former high-level intelligence official told The New Yorker, "This is a war against terrorism, and Iraq is just one campaign. The Bush administration is looking at this as a huge war zone. Next, we're going to have the Iranian campaign." The White House said Iran is a concern and a threat that needs to be taken seriously. But it disputed the report by Hersh, who last year exposed the extent of prisoner abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. "We obviously have a concern about Iran. The whole world has a concern about Iran," Dan Bartlett, a top aide to President Bush, told CNN's "Late Edition." Of The New Yorker report, he said: "I think it's riddled with inaccuracies, and I don't believe that some of the conclusions he's drawing are based on fact." Bartlett said the administration "will continue to work through the diplomatic initiatives" to convince Iran -- which Bush once called part of an "axis of evil" -- not to pursue nuclear weapons. "No president, at any juncture in history, has ever taken military options off the table," Bartlett added. "But what President Bush has shown is that he believes we can emphasize the diplomatic initiatives that are underway right now." COMMANDO TASK FORCE Bush has warned Iran in recent weeks against meddling in Iraqi elections. The former intelligence official told Hersh that an American commando task force in South Asia is working closely with a group of Pakistani scientists who had dealt with their Iranian counterparts. The New Yorker reports that this task force, aided by information from Pakistan, has been penetrating into eastern Iran in a hunt for underground nuclear-weapons installations. In exchange for this cooperation, the official told Hersh, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has received assurances that his government will not have to turn over Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan's atomic bomb, to face questioning about his role in selling nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea. Hersh reported that Bush has already "signed a series of top-secret findings and executive orders authorizing secret commando groups and other Special Forces units to conduct covert operations against suspected terrorist targets in as many as 10 nations in the Middle East and South Asia." Defining these as military rather than intelligence operations, Hersh reported, will enable the Bush administration to evade legal restrictions imposed on the CIA's covert activities overseas. link
"civilains" non-military personal. Why would Civilians want to go to war with Iran? Because that is what it means. Iran won't let us just blow up some stuff and then just be OK with that. Iran is NOT Iraq!. Anyone who wants to go into a bloody war with Iran, must have something to gain by such a war. What civilians in the pentagon would have something to gain by such a war? Defence Contractors! that's who! The military industrial complex is again dictating our foreign policy just as Ike warned it would.
Actually, I think it's as much the "chicken hawks" who are obsessed with the pax americana concept and want to reshape the world in their own image -- as long as they can use somebody else's kids.
there is no peace in sight... ... bloodshed for nothing....bush should keep the troopts at home.... and stop screwing around in foreign affairs...seems like whenever the U.S gets involved with anyone or anything something backfires....foreign affairs is something that needs to be looked at...and worked on.
Actually, I would think secret missions like this are necessary because we don't have the capacity to invade Iraq. I also wouldn't be surprised if this was a well timed leak meant to ruffle feathers in Teheran.
I don't think that they'd leak stuff to Seymore Hirsch. I don't think the ones who'd do the leaking particularly care for Hirsch. He's the guy that Richard Perle called "the greatest approximation to a terrorist in American journalism", he's the guy who broke the Abu Ghraib, he declaired that Bush was planning to use George Tenet as his scapegoat six months before it happened, etc. etc.
really, why is this surprising? shouldn't we have contigency plans in place to prevent iRan goin' nukular? and the article mentions covert ops, air raids, etc, not invasion. hersch and the herschettes on this board seemed to have missed that distinction. sam actually seems to have it about right this time, and you have no idea how much it pains me to say that...
I agree. I think that we will go after Iran if they (try to) go nuclear ~ this is a better option than having Israel take out the suspect sites which would cause an unbelievable mess.
i can not believe what i'm reading! "just an air-raid" "just covert-ops"! do you people not believe that iran would know that we had an AIR-RAID! on there soil! How would you feel if some one had an air-raid against america (9-11).? So to say that attacking iran would be ok because it's "just an air-raid" is insane. We attack iran, we are talking about War! And also i'm reading about, "well if they had nuclear programs...." blah blah.. Yea, who would you believe when you are told iran has nuclear weapons? the same people who told you that iraq had weapons of mass destruction!? Yea, they don't / didn't have any , but what does it matter the oil companies got what they wanted. wake up people!!
I dont know much about foriegn affairs. I do know that attacking another Muslim country will not be good for us. Also, as far as I know Iran is not as disorganized as Iraq.
London, UK (AFP) Dec 02, 2004 Iran is developing new medium- and long-range missiles which can reach Western Europe and target US-led forces in Iraq, an Iranian opposition group claimed Thursday. The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) said the new long-range missiles, the Ghadr and Shahab-4, had a planned range of 3,000 kilometers (1,900 miles) which would allow them to reach as far as Berlin. It also said an upgraded version of the Zelzal missile could hit targets as far as 300 kilometers (190 miles) away with minute precision and was specifically designed for "offensive use" in foreign countries, notably against US-led multinational forces in Iraq. One NCRI source, speaking anonymously, said North Korean and Chinese scientists were "definitely" helping the Iranian missile programs. The NCRI, the political branch of the main Iranian armed opposition group the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK), or People's Mujahedeen, acknowledged that none of the missile programs it described actually contravened any international weapons agreement signed by Tehran. But if Iran could produce missiles with a capacity to carry nuclear and chemical warheads it would "represent an endgame" for the Islamic regime, Ali Safavi of the NCRI said. "Had Hitler been able to acquire a nuclear bomb... the entire situation at that time would have changed with respect to peace and security in the world. And in that sense, I think that the danger and the threat posed by the Iranian regime is no less than that," Safavi told a press conference in London. The NCRI and People's Mujahadeen are listed as terrorist organizations in the United States, and have a mixed record for exposing clandestine activities within Iran. But they have been instrumental in unveiling Iranian nuclear activities, most recently alleging that a site near Tehran is a secret nuclear bomb facility. Citing a leaked report from Iran's Revolutionary Guard Air Force and unnamed sources within the regime, Safavi provided detailed descriptions of the capacity of the Ghadr, Shahab-4 and Zelzal-2 missiles, as well as of an alleged top-secret missile storage site. The Ghadr, he said, was an improved version of the Shahab-3, a ballistic missile believed to be based on a North Korean design that can reach Israel. The Shahab-4 has greater precision than the Shahab-3 and, like the Ghrab, has a range of up to 3,000 kilometers depending on payload, he added. Safavi described the Zelzal-2 as a "very, very precise missile" due to its non-directional beacon frequency system (NDB), a guiding system, and said it was designed by Iran's mullahs with the US forces in mind. He quoted the leaked Iranian air force report saying the Zelzal-2 "has been produced for deploying in other countries and in Iraq in particular." It was designed "with particular attention to the military forces, specifically coalition forces in Iraq", Safavi added. The anonymous NCRI source said Chinese and North Korean authorities had few fears about potential reprisals from Western powers if they supported Iran's missile programs because, like Tehran, they sensed a "lack of resolve" to deal with the regime's potential threat. "There's no question that Iranians have enjoyed the support of the North Koreans and the Chinese in their missile program," the source said. The NCRI also claimed the Iranian regime was working to create nuclear and chemical warheads for the missiles and had "made enormous efforts in this field". But Safavi, who also heads a Washington-based consulting group, Near East Policy Research Inc., provided no proof for the claims aside from naming the alleged head of the nuclear work and its alleged production site.
<a HREF="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/18/politics/18nukes.html"a>U.S. Is Punishing 8 Chinese Firms for Aiding Iran</a>
Well, last time we tried that they were paid off by the Iranians to dupe the US, so this time, maybe, they're being paid off by, um Iranians? or Iraqis? Or maybe we just need this man, the real insider!
The old double standard. We are "punishing" chinese frims for doing biz with Iran. Meanwhile Cheney did biz with Iran while at Halliburton. Dick Cheney lobbied to remove sanctions from Iraq when he worked at KBR. Haliiburton has been rewarded continually. Mango. isn't there a point where the double standard actually becomes a liability. Can't we lose our credibility? Not talking about bombing and invading. We are very credible there, though the occupation is looking like a loser.
