U.S. planning for possible attack on Iran
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U.S. planning for possible attack on Iran
Journalist: U.S. planning for possible
attack on Iran
White House says report is 'riddled with naccuracies'
Monday, January 17, 2005 Posted: 8:11 AM EST (1311 GMT)
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- 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.
Iran has refused to dismantle its nuclear program,
which it insists is legal and is intended solely for
civilian purposes. (Full story)
Hersh said U.S. officials were involved
in "extensive planning" for a possible attack --
"much more than we know."
"The goal is to identify and isolate three dozen,
and perhaps more, such targets that could be
destroyed by precision strikes and short-term
commando raids," he wrote in "The New Yorker"
magazine, which published his article in editions
that will be on newsstands Monday.
Hersh is a veteran journalist who was the first to
write about many details of the abuses of prisoners
Abu Ghraib in Baghdad.
He said his information on Iran came from "inside"
sources who divulged it in the hope that publicity
would force the administration to reconsider.
"I think that's one of the reasons some of the
people on the inside talk to me," he said.
Hersh said the government did not answer his request
for a response before the story's publication, and
that his sources include people in government whose
information has been reliable in the past.
Hersh said Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld view Bush's re-
lection as "a mandate to continue the war on
terrorism," despite problems with the U.S.-led war
in Iraq.
Last week, the effort to find weapons of mass
destruction in Iraq -- the Bush administration's
stated primary rationale for the war -- was halted
after having come up empty.
The secret missions in Iran, Hersh said, have been
authorized in order to prevent similar embarrassment
in the event of military action there. (Full story)
"The planning for Iran is going ahead even though
Iraq is a mess," Hersh said. "I think they really
think there's a chance to do something in Iran,
perhaps by summer, to get the intelligence on the
sites."
He added, "The guys on the inside really want to do
this."
Hersh identified those inside people as
the "neoconservative" civilian leadership in the
Pentagon. That includes Rumsfeld, Deputy Defense
Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Undersecretary of
Defense Doug Feith -- "the sort of war hawks that we
talk about in connection with the war in Iraq."
And he said the preparation goes beyond contingency
planning and includes detailed plans for air
attacks:
"The next step is Iran. It's definitely there.
They're definitely planning ... But they need the
intelligence first."
Emphasizing 'diplomatic initiatives'
Bartlett said the United States is working with its
European allies to help persuade Iran not to pursue
nuclear weapons.
Asked if military action is an option should
diplomacy fail, Bartlett said, "No president at any
juncture in history has ever taken military options
off the table."
But Bush "has shown that he believes we can
emphasize the diplomatic initiatives that are under
way right now," he said.
Hersh said U.S. officials believe that a U.S. attack
on Iran might provoke an uprising by Iranians
against the hard-line religious leaders who run the
government. Similar arguments were made ahead of the
invasion of Iraq, when administration officials
predicted U.S. troops would be welcomed as
liberators.
And Hersh said administration officials have chosen
not to include conflicting points of view in their
deliberations -- such as predictions that any U.S.
attack would provoke a wave of nationalism that
would unite Iranians against the United States.
"As people say to me, when it comes to meetings
about this issue, if you don't drink the Kool-Aid,
you can't go to meetings," he said. "That isn't a
message anybody wants to hear."
The plans are not limited to Iran, he said.
"The president assigned a series of 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," he wrote.
Under the secret plans, the war on terrorism would
be led by the Pentagon, and the power of the CIA
would be reduced, Hersh wrote in his article.
"It's sort of a great victory for Donald Rumsfeld, a
bureaucratic victory," Hersh told CNN.
He said: "Since the summer of 2002, he's been
advocating, 'Let me run this war, not the CIA. We
can do it better. We'll send our boys in. We don't
have to tell their local military commanders. We
don't have to tell the ambassadors. We don't have to
tell the CIA station chiefs in various countries.
Let's go in and work with the bad guys and see what
we can find out.'"
Hersh added that the administration has chipped away
at the CIA's power and that newly appointed CIA
Director Porter Goss has overseen a purge of the old
order.
"He's been committing sort-of ordered executions'"
Hersh said. "He's been -- you know, people have been
fired, they've been resigning."
The target of the housecleaning at the CIA, he said,
has been intelligence analysts, some of whom are
seen as "apostates -- as opposed to being true
believers." (Full story)
http://www.cnn.com/2005/ALLPOLITICS/01/16/hersh.iran/
attack on Iran
White House says report is 'riddled with naccuracies'
Monday, January 17, 2005 Posted: 8:11 AM EST (1311 GMT)
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- 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.
Iran has refused to dismantle its nuclear program,
which it insists is legal and is intended solely for
civilian purposes. (Full story)
Hersh said U.S. officials were involved
in "extensive planning" for a possible attack --
"much more than we know."
"The goal is to identify and isolate three dozen,
and perhaps more, such targets that could be
destroyed by precision strikes and short-term
commando raids," he wrote in "The New Yorker"
magazine, which published his article in editions
that will be on newsstands Monday.
Hersh is a veteran journalist who was the first to
write about many details of the abuses of prisoners
Abu Ghraib in Baghdad.
He said his information on Iran came from "inside"
sources who divulged it in the hope that publicity
would force the administration to reconsider.
"I think that's one of the reasons some of the
people on the inside talk to me," he said.
Hersh said the government did not answer his request
for a response before the story's publication, and
that his sources include people in government whose
information has been reliable in the past.
Hersh said Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld view Bush's re-
lection as "a mandate to continue the war on
terrorism," despite problems with the U.S.-led war
in Iraq.
Last week, the effort to find weapons of mass
destruction in Iraq -- the Bush administration's
stated primary rationale for the war -- was halted
after having come up empty.
The secret missions in Iran, Hersh said, have been
authorized in order to prevent similar embarrassment
in the event of military action there. (Full story)
"The planning for Iran is going ahead even though
Iraq is a mess," Hersh said. "I think they really
think there's a chance to do something in Iran,
perhaps by summer, to get the intelligence on the
sites."
He added, "The guys on the inside really want to do
this."
Hersh identified those inside people as
the "neoconservative" civilian leadership in the
Pentagon. That includes Rumsfeld, Deputy Defense
Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Undersecretary of
Defense Doug Feith -- "the sort of war hawks that we
talk about in connection with the war in Iraq."
And he said the preparation goes beyond contingency
planning and includes detailed plans for air
attacks:
"The next step is Iran. It's definitely there.
They're definitely planning ... But they need the
intelligence first."
Emphasizing 'diplomatic initiatives'
Bartlett said the United States is working with its
European allies to help persuade Iran not to pursue
nuclear weapons.
Asked if military action is an option should
diplomacy fail, Bartlett said, "No president at any
juncture in history has ever taken military options
off the table."
But Bush "has shown that he believes we can
emphasize the diplomatic initiatives that are under
way right now," he said.
Hersh said U.S. officials believe that a U.S. attack
on Iran might provoke an uprising by Iranians
against the hard-line religious leaders who run the
government. Similar arguments were made ahead of the
invasion of Iraq, when administration officials
predicted U.S. troops would be welcomed as
liberators.
And Hersh said administration officials have chosen
not to include conflicting points of view in their
deliberations -- such as predictions that any U.S.
attack would provoke a wave of nationalism that
would unite Iranians against the United States.
"As people say to me, when it comes to meetings
about this issue, if you don't drink the Kool-Aid,
you can't go to meetings," he said. "That isn't a
message anybody wants to hear."
The plans are not limited to Iran, he said.
"The president assigned a series of 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," he wrote.
Under the secret plans, the war on terrorism would
be led by the Pentagon, and the power of the CIA
would be reduced, Hersh wrote in his article.
"It's sort of a great victory for Donald Rumsfeld, a
bureaucratic victory," Hersh told CNN.
He said: "Since the summer of 2002, he's been
advocating, 'Let me run this war, not the CIA. We
can do it better. We'll send our boys in. We don't
have to tell their local military commanders. We
don't have to tell the ambassadors. We don't have to
tell the CIA station chiefs in various countries.
Let's go in and work with the bad guys and see what
we can find out.'"
Hersh added that the administration has chipped away
at the CIA's power and that newly appointed CIA
Director Porter Goss has overseen a purge of the old
order.
"He's been committing sort-of ordered executions'"
Hersh said. "He's been -- you know, people have been
fired, they've been resigning."
The target of the housecleaning at the CIA, he said,
has been intelligence analysts, some of whom are
seen as "apostates -- as opposed to being true
believers." (Full story)
http://www.cnn.com/2005/ALLPOLITICS/01/16/hersh.iran/
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