06.29.08
Hersh: Bush Admin in “Major Escalation” of Covert Ops Against Iran
The July 7-14 issue of The New Yorker includes a major new piece by Seymour Hersh, “Preparing the Battlefield” (already available in its entirety online), which reveals that late in 2007…
…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, …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.
Meanwhile, there has been mounting pressure within the Bush Administration for a military strike against Iran, the extent of which is unclear but various accounts and recent developments suggest it would be a major one.
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.
…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 [2008], Fallon resigned under pressure, after giving a series of interviews stating his reservations about an armed attack on Iran.
Read the latest article online. For further context, see also Hersh’s earlier reporting for The New Yorker on the Bush Administration’s covert policies viz. Iran:
“The Next Act” (Nov. 27, 2006) — The debate within the Bush Administration over the extent of Iran’s nuclear weapons program and how best to counter it.
“The Redirection” (March 5, 2007) — A major policy shift, or “redirection,” in the Bush Administration’s Middle East strategy. The redirection has brought the U.S. closer to an open confrontation with Iran and propelled it into the sectarian conflict between Shiite and Sunni Muslims.
“Shifting Targets” (Oct. 8, 2007) — The Bush Administration’s shifting policy toward Iran and the Pentagon’s preparations for possible “surgical strikes” against key Iranian targets. Hersh discusses how the Bush Administration is seeking to redefine the war in Iraq as a strategic battle between the United States and Iran.
