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Johnny B Jesus · Guest

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/07/080707fa_fact_hersh

Preparing the Battlefield
The Bush Administration steps up its secret moves against Iran.
by Seymour M. Hersh July 7, 2008

Late last year, Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to
fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran, according
to current and former military, intelligence, and congressional
sources. These operations, for which the President sought up to four
hundred million dollars, were described in a Presidential Finding
signed by Bush, and are designed to destabilize the country’s
religious leadership. The covert activities involve support of the
minority Ahwazi Arab and Baluchi groups and other dissident
organizations. They also include gathering intelligence about Iran’s
suspected nuclear-weapons program.

Clandestine operations against Iran are not new. United States Special
Operations Forces have been conducting cross-border operations from
southern Iraq, with Presidential authorization, since last year. These
have included seizing members of Al Quds, the commando arm of the
Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and taking them to Iraq for
interrogation, and the pursuit of “high-value targets” in the
President’s war on terror, who may be captured or killed. But the
scale and the scope of the operations in Iran, which involve the
Central Intelligence Agency and the Joint Special Operations Command
(JSOC), have now been significantly expanded, according to the current
and former officials. Many of these activities are not specified in
the new Finding, and some congressional leaders have had serious
questions about their nature.

Under federal law, a Presidential Finding, which is highly classified,
must be issued when a covert intelligence operation gets under way
and, at a minimum, must be made known to Democratic and Republican
leaders in the House and the Senate and to the ranking members of
their respective intelligence committees—the so-called Gang of Eight.
Money for the operation can then be reprogrammed from previous
appropriations, as needed, by the relevant congressional committees,
which also can be briefed.

“The Finding was focussed on undermining Iran’s nuclear ambitions and
trying to undermine the government through regime change,” a person
familiar with its contents said, and involved “working with opposition
groups and passing money.” The Finding provided for a whole new range
of activities in southern Iran and in the areas, in the east, where
Baluchi political opposition is strong, he said.

Although some legislators were troubled by aspects of the Finding, and
“there was a significant amount of high-level discussion” about it,
according to the source familiar with it, the funding for the
escalation was approved. In other words, some members of the
Democratic leadership—Congress has been under Democratic control since
the 2006 elections—were willing, in secret, to go along with the
Administration in expanding covert activities directed at Iran, while
the Party’s presumptive candidate for President, Barack Obama, has
said that he favors direct talks and diplomacy.

The request for funding came in the same period in which the
Administration was coming to terms with a National Intelligence
Estimate, released in December, that concluded that Iran had halted
its work on nuclear weapons in 2003. The Administration downplayed the
significance of the N.I.E., and, while saying that it was committed to
diplomacy, continued to emphasize that urgent action was essential to
counter the Iranian nuclear threat. President Bush questioned the
N.I.E.’s conclusions, and senior national-security officials,
including Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice, made similar statements. (So did Senator John
McCain, the presumptive Republican Presidential nominee.) Meanwhile,
the Administration also revived charges that the Iranian leadership
has been involved in the killing of American soldiers in Iraq: both
directly, by dispatching commando units into Iraq, and indirectly, by
supplying materials used for roadside bombs and other lethal goods.
(There have been questions about the accuracy of the claims; the
Times, among others, has reported that “significant uncertainties
remain about the extent of that involvement.”)

Military and civilian leaders in the Pentagon share the White House’s
concern about Iran’s nuclear ambitions, but there is disagreement
about whether a military strike is the right solution. Some Pentagon
officials believe, as they have let Congress and the media know, that
bombing Iran is not a viable response to the nuclear-proliferation
issue, and that more diplomacy is necessary.

A Democratic senator told me that, late last year, in an off-the-
record lunch meeting, Secretary of Defense Gates met with the
Democratic caucus in the Senate. (Such meetings are held regularly.)
Gates warned of the consequences if the Bush Administration staged a
preëmptive strike on Iran, saying, as the senator recalled, “We’ll
create generations of jihadists, and our grandchildren will be
battling our enemies here in America.” Gates’s comments stunned the
Democrats at the lunch, and another senator asked whether Gates was
speaking for Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney. Gates’s answer, the
senator told me, was “Let’s just say that I’m here speaking for
myself.” (A spokesman for Gates confirmed that he discussed the
consequences of a strike at the meeting, but would not address what he
said, other than to dispute the senator’s characterization.)

The Joint Chiefs of Staff, whose chairman is Admiral Mike Mullen, were
“pushing back very hard” against White House pressure to undertake a
military strike against Iran, the person familiar with the Finding
told me. Similarly, a Pentagon consultant who is involved in the war
on terror said that “at least ten senior flag and general officers,
including combatant commanders”—the four-star officers who direct
military operations around the world—“have weighed in on that issue.”

The most outspoken of those officers is Admiral William Fallon, who
until recently was the head of U.S. Central Command, and thus in
charge of American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. In March, Fallon
resigned under pressure, after giving a series of interviews stating
his reservations about an armed attack on Iran. For example, late last
year he told the Financial Times that the “real objective” of U.S.
policy was to change the Iranians’ behavior, and that “attacking them
as a means to get to that spot strikes me as being not the first
choice.”

Guest

Can't wait for this one. Millions of new jhadists, ten-buck gas and
rationing, endless war. Possible obliteration of Israel? Let's get
going!

Clay · Guest

On Jun 29, 1:17 pm, thylacoleocarni...@clearwire.net wrote:
...

Kevin Cunningham · Guest

On Jun 29, 1:22 pm, Clay <ClaysRi...@gmail.com> wrote:

Clay · Guest

On Jun 29, 1:27 pm, homoKev must've had another miserable Friday night
stroll <LOL>:
...

Commander Burrito · Guest

Clay wrote:

T-Bone · Guest

On Jun 29, 1:27 pm, Kevin Cunningham <sms...@mindspring.com> wrote:

T-Bone · Guest

On Jun 29, 1:22 pm, Clay <ClaysRi...@gmail.com> wrote:

Guest

On Jun 29, 12:16 pm, Commander Burrito <CommanderBurr...@dot.net>
wrote:

Gary DeWaay · Guest

In article <97ed8c1e-71a6-4fc8-852d-e49431a8844a@
79g2000hsk.googlegroups.com>, smskjc@mindspring.com Kevin Cunningham
wisdom..

..

Kevin Cunningham · Guest

On Jun 29, 10:43 pm, T-Bone <mrtim5...@yahoo.com> wrote:

Kevin Cunningham · Guest

On Jun 29, 1:30 pm, Clay <ClaysRi...@gmail.com> wrote:

Guest

On Sun, 29 Jun 2008 19:43:44 -0700 (PDT), T-Bone <mrtim5700@yahoo.com> wrote:

Rich Travsky · Guest

Clay wrote:

Rich Travsky · Guest

Clay wrote: