Posted on 01/16/2005 8:17:42 PM PST by FairOpinion
The Bush administration has been carrying out secret reconnaissance missions to learn about nuclear, chemical and missile sites in Iran in preparation for possible airstrikes there, journalist Seymour Hersh said Sunday.
The effort has been under way at least since last summer, Hersh said on CNN's "Late Edition."
In an interview on the same program, White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett said the story was "riddled with inaccuracies."
"I don't believe that some of the conclusions he's drawing are based on fact," Bartlett said.
He said his information on Iran came from "inside" sources who divulged it in the hope that publicity would force the administration to reconsider.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Let's see, CNN=Leftist, CNN=Leftist. Okay, I get it.
Time will tell!
Posting some pertinent history. For the unfamiliar, Hersh is the point man for the left. We'll have to try to figure out what comes next and from whom.
WHO LIED TO WHOM? (The Original Seymour Hersh Article About Uranium and Niger That Started It All!) New Yorker FR 3-31-04
Seymour Hersh Bio NNDB
SEYMOUR HERSH Bio Available for Speaking Engagements
From The Lavin AgencySeymour Says Chicago Mag.com 5-2-02
Seymour Hersh, At the Front Lines On War Scandals
Hersh, 67, is of the story-is-more-important-than-me school and declined to be interviewed. "Oh my God, this is all so tedious," he told a Washington Post reporter who asked about his background in 2001. "What the hell does it have to do with anything I write?"
There is a trust-me aspect to Hersh's reporting, given his heavy reliance on unnamed sources. His latest piece quotes a "senior CIA official," "former high-level intelligence official," "military analyst," "government consultant" and "Pentagon consultant."
We better have plans to take out their nuke capability.
Well, I certainly hope so. Ignorance is NOT bliss when it comes to enemies. I hope the US has reconnaisance teams inside the mullah's tea parties, inside their weapons-filled "mosques," and inside their heads.
Seymour Hersh has proven himself to be a straight up liar and propagandist for the far Left; I would believe a word this man writes.
"Seymour Hersh has proven himself to be a straight up liar and propagandist for the far Left; I would believe a word this man writes."
correction: I WOULDN'T believe a word this man writes.
I see he is... and one squishy article from him is unfortunately sufficient to get the rest of the journalistic world busy repeating his spin.
The question then to be considered is...Why does he never get slapped down when he is proven wrong?
This is treason. Bush is going to get this guy for this.
Sounds like more Clinton-holdover moles inside the Administration doing their thing, too. Anything to drag down the Administration and U.S. foreign policy.
Those slugbaits are right -- in one respect, this is very much like Vietnam. The drumbeat of opposition from the press corps has been incessant -- and now this.
This is interference with a top-secret (and probably codeworded) operation in a hot situation. I sincerely pray that Hersh goes to prison this time.
I think the administration fed him a total line of bull. Considering the mess we have in Iraq right now...we have no great need to rush into Iran. This story smells totally bogus.
The CIA leaked the Abu Ghraib story to go after the DIA and SecDef Rumsfeld. Hersh is the water boy for the CIA.
Thanks for the links. That one quote sounds like Hersh doesn't like people asking about his background--might raise questions he'd rather not answer, evidently.
Because I've never been close enough to slap him, otherwise I'd do it :) Seriously, the only time I've seen him get slapped down was right after 9/11 when he tried to undermine the operation in Afghanistan and got called on it. It seemed like he laid low for a bit after that and waited until the country's post-9/11 anger had died down some to pop up again. I'm sure there are people who'd like to slap him down--my understanding is Rumsfeld dislikes him--but apparently whoever's pulling his strings has enough pull to keep him out there. Who that might be is a good question.
Is Seymour Hersh Being Played?
Sometimes it seems as if Seymour Hersh -- the seeming bete noir of the Bush administration -- has an open "leak line" from disgruntled CIA agents and surly State Department officials permanently plugged into his ear. When I heard about his latest infusion of goo in The New Yorker this morning, to wit that the US is spying on Iranian nuclear installations and trying to figure out what to do about them (planning special ops, air raids, etc.), I thought "Here he goes again, leaking top secret information!" But then I thought - duh, what top secret information? Is it possible that any US administration, Democrat or Republican, at this juncture in history would not be directing its intelligence agencies to take a long hard look at Iranian nukes and game plan how to deal with them? Of course not. In fact it would be at the very top of anybody's agenda.
So then why The Big Leak? Well, if I were someone in the government who wanted to announce that we were taking a tough line and had some nasty surprises for the mullahs (to scare them, of course), but didn't want to make this an official public policy statement, what would I do? I'd leak it to Seymour Hersh and count to five.
Am I wrong? The President of the United States has now essentially corroborated Hersh.
www.rogerlsimon.com
I say the administration used this guy to get out a story to put a scare into Iran. I bet they let him get a whiff of a fake, or mostly fake story knowing he'd leak it.
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