Posted on 01/17/2005 1:40:31 AM PST by kattracks
WASHINGTON - U.S. commandos are hunting for secret nuclear and chemical weapons sites and other targets in Iran, and have a plan to turn the hard-line Islamic country into the next front in the war on terrorism."It's not if we're going to do anything against Iran. They're doing it," an ex-intelligence official tells this week's issue of The New Yorker.
Since at least last summer, the U.S. teams have penetrated eastern Iran, reportedly with Pakistan's help, the magazine said.
"Iraq is just one campaign," the official told investigative reporter Seymour Hersh. "The Bush administration is looking at this as a huge war zone. Next, we're going to have the Iranian campaign."
The aim is to rid America and its allies of a major state sponsor of terrorism, Hersh writes.
"We've declared war and the bad guys, wherever they are, are the enemy," the official tells Hersh. "This is the last hurrah - we've got four years and want to come out of this saying we won the war on terrorism."
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, whom President Bush has asked to stay on in his second term, has been jockeying for more power to conduct covert ops without nagging congressional oversight.
"It's a global free-fire zone," said one Pentagon adviser.
Iran has fought tooth and nail demands that it open its nuclear energy program for inspection, fueling suspicion that the charter member of President Bush's "axis of evil" is up to no good.
That same secrecy also has heightened tensions with another axis member with nuclear ambitions, North Korea.
Pentagon neoconservatives - hard-liners who include Rumsfeld and his deputy Paul Wolfowitz - believe that surgical strikes on a small list of military targets will minimize civilian casualties and may spark an uprising by reformers against the ruling fundamentalist mullahs, current and ex-officials said.
Hersh told CNN that if targets are lined up by this summer, U.S. attacks could soon follow.
They "want to go into Iran and destroy as much of the military infrastructure as possible," a Pentagon consultant told Hersh.
Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz believe that, just as with some Soviet-bloc countries, "the minute the aura of invincibility the mullahs enjoy is shattered ... the Iranian regime will collapse," the consultant said.
Yet Rep. Peter King (R-L.I.) of the House International Relations Committee said, "I wouldn't assume the Iranian regime will just collapse."
With combat operations still raging in Afghanistan and Iraq, where the hunt for weapons of mass destruction came up empty, Bush would have to explain fully a new call for military action against Iran, King said.
"He'd have to get the people behind it," King told the Daily News. "But you'd have to factor in that the American public would be somewhat suspicious."
But Bush aides are "compulsively optimistic" that the mullahs have a fragile hold on power, and they are sure to strike soon, predicted defense analyst John Pike of GlobalSecurity.org.
"I think they're going to do it," he told The News. "I'm skeptical that diplomacy will succeed."
While presidential counselor Dan Bartlett complained that Hersh's story was "riddled with inaccuracies," he notably did not outright deny any of it.
"No President at any juncture in history has ever taken military options off the table," Bartlett told CNN's "Late Edition." "What President Bush has shown [is] that he believes we can emphasize the diplomatic initiatives that are under way right now."
Originally published on January 17, 2005
As we've seen so many times before, in Rathergate for example, dedicated socialists in the MSM are not above making things up to advance their agenda and derail the American war on terror. They know EXACTLY what might be coming next, and how to preempt it -- even if they don't have any hard evidence it's actually in the works. Lol, I'm so suspicious of the SOBs, I think half the time they make this stuff up just to make the administration change its plans, whatever those plans might be (though I don't doubt for a minute there are leakers on the Senate Intelligence Committee either!).
The clock is ticking and the Revolution will soon come full circle one way or another. If this is true and it happens, it will be the death knell of Pat Buchanan and his ilk.
an ex-intelligence official (no name)
one Pentagon adviser (no name)
current and ex-officials (no names)
a Pentagon consultant (no name)
Rep. Peter King (R-L.I.) of the House International Relations Committee
defense analyst John Pike of GlobalSecurity.org
4 Deep Throats, a congressman whose statement appears to be used out of context, and some security guard. I'm convinced.
*Turn to page 3 for a list of recent Elvis sitings.
Iran and Syria MUST be taken out before we leave Iraq.
If we don't do it, our sacrifices in Iraq will have all been in vain.
Is this "leaked" infomation or is it suggesting to Iran that Lybia might be a good role model.
Presumably we've had plans in place for a long time and targets chosen since this nuclear issue with Iran has been going on long before 9/11. Meester Hersh is likely reporting the obvious with the intention of blowing this into some new DNC talking point against Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Feith.
I suspect they'd be a little too old to fight...
Listen, since the a-holes in Iran kidnapped our embassy personnel in Tehran under that little wimp Carters watch, I think most Americans have been itching for the U.S. to knock the snot out of Iran.
Just do it and do a great job and hit them hard.
Maqke the"mullahs" quiver and make the little bastard asad in Syria hide in fear for then he'd be next. Hey kim il jong, you listening there boy?
http://www.davidlimbaugh.com/
snip
People in the liberal media, like Hersh, apparently are so distrustful of the Bush administration and so fearful of the "neocon" influence at the Pentagon that they are apparently willing to subordinate our national security interests to undermine this influence in the administration. During the interview I didn't notice Wolf raising one question with Hersh about the propriety of his report. These self-anointed journalists of the Old Media believe their motives are beyond scrutiny. They serve a higher calling. Their wisdom transcends national loyalties; they goodness cannot be confined to artificial nation state constructs.
Hersh's report -- true or not -- is shameful and disgraceful and people should call him to the carpet for it. I suppose we'll see the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, and other MSM dinosaurs railing against this over the next few days. It's time that the New Media jumped all over this and called into question Hersh, the Old Media and their unpatriotic reporting here.
Yes, I said it: unpatriotic. If tipping off the enemy isn't unpatriotic can you tell me what is? And don't you dare tell me the public has a right to know. There are certain things the public must not know, because if it knows, so does the enemy. You can't protect a public that insists on being informed as to sensitive intelligence and military operations. It's time we remove this artificial halo from this public's right to know construct.
Posted by David Limbaugh at January 16, 2005 01:14 PM
There is no such thing as a "Republican Guard" in Iran. And anyone suspected of being loyal to the Shah (or militarily competent) was executed in 1979-1980.
There is a "Revolutionary Guard" that is loyal to the Ayatollahs.
"Iraq is just one campaign," the official told investigative reporter Seymour Hersh. "The Bush administration is looking at this as a huge war zone. Next, we're going to have the Iranian campaign."
I just KNEW I voted for the right man! Go Dubya!
A "Huge War Zone" Hersch? Actually I believe the President's exact quote was "Axis of Evil".
I believe the Shah is, like France, still dead.
Dunno if a successor is waiting in the wings,
but it seems unlikely that monarchy will ever
return to Iran.
The question being here is: are we deliberately putting out such information (or perhaps mis-information) to make the mullah's look over their shoulder.
OR: Are we suffering from the Clintonista mole problem here. If so, we need a special ops operation within the Pentagon.
Since at least last summer, the U.S. teams have penetrated eastern Iran, reportedly with Pakistan's help, the magazine said.
First, I think that this is disinformation. Ask yourself this: who has zero-credibility domestically (Sy Hersch), but works for a publication (the NYTimes) that guarantees that the story will get picked-up?
Otherwise, all the FBI counter-intel guys have to do is look for spooks who have left the service since last summer, and who might have worked at the Iran 'desk'. Seems pretty easy to track down the source. Given that the NYTimes was allowed to divulge that much to establish the 'credibility' of the report, I return to my first theory.
Yes I know that is possible ... just as I know that some on the left are playing games with our national security
"an ex-intelligence official" could be some 'hole from the Clinton administration.
But anyway, I don't hold with the idea that "surgical strikes" will bring about an uprising. The way to bring about an uprising is to bring about an uprising -- invade, destroy the Islamofascist guard that meets the invasion, drop leaflets offering rewards for the mullahs who ruin, er, run the place now, and all the while keep an eye on the suspect sites. When anyone tries to move anything in or out, blast it.
Yeah, right. Seymour Hirsch. He has real "sources". He probably hasn't spoken to a Republican in 20 years.
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