CNN

 

Journalist: U.S. planning for possible attack on Iran

White House says report is 'riddled with inaccuracies'

 

Sunday, January 16, 2005 Posted: 9:23 PM EST (0223 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-election 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."

I just hope we aren't planning to attack them for several years, considering our over-extended military.

Hopefully we can put another Western puppet in there. I'll take some a-hole that kills his own people over an a-hole that'll kill us. I could see Bush setting this one up to start right before the end of his term to give the Repubs a boost and if it's a disaster, screw over the Democrats.

I just hope we aren't planning to attack them for several years, considering our over-extended military.

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I doubt we're planning to attack them immediately. The euro's aren't done looking like gullible fools yet. We want to give them plenty of oppurtunity...

 

The nukes issue would be a smoke screen anyway if we did. The real reason would be to stop all the imported terrorist and aggitator talent flowing into Iraq through Iran.

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Even if we did attack Iran, the terrorists would just come from somewhere else in the region, like Syria or Lebanon. We would have to control the entire Middle East to completely stop the flow of foreign combatants into Iraq.

Territorial borders don't mean anything in the Middle East if they aren't guarded. Terrorists originating from Chechnya, along with Pakistan, have been found killed in Iraq alongside actual Iraqis.

 

Since we are too busy with fighting inside Iraqi cities to guard the nation's borders, they will continue to enter the country.

I would hope the military is gathering intel for a possible war with any country there's even a small chance of war with. IT makes any possible war much easier to win faster and prevent casualities.

Sometimes the conspiracy theories from the left make me want to become a Republican... Not really. But it is extremely annoying and dissapointing that all they can do is speculate over things they have not even a remote idea and then claim it as fact. Seymour Hersh is supposed to be a smart and respected man, so this really bothers me. Unless he has classified information that the US is really planning on attacking Iran, I don't see why he would conclude that reconoissance missions automatically mean "plan of attack". Could it be that the U.S just wants proof of Iran's nuclear program to enforce some resolutions in the UN or perhaps just because we want to know what the hell are these fanatics in Iran capable of?

I seriously doubt we'll attack Iran in the near future. It'd be a disaster to convince the public to go along with it.

 

I'm a little confused as to why Syria and Lebanon are being brought up. As mentioned before, Assad is no fool, and he's not going to jeopardize himself. I think if we have to worry about anyone, it's the Saudis, considering the monarchy is crumbling and no one can control anyone in that country.

I agree with the above. No way the public gets bamboozled again.

I don't think we will end up going to war with Iran, just because we would take heavy casualties.

 

North Korea already has nukes, but it would be a very bad idea to attack them, since they would launch a second Korean War in response.

 

Let's face it, neither Iran nor North Norea is crazy enough to launch a nuclear attack against another country. At least not right now.

SLCM tacnukes used along the DMZ would stop the DPRK cold (and they know it), that's why I don't worry about them. PRC would sit back and do absolutely nothing if we had to resort to that. DPRK is their version of the "crazy aunt upstairs" that they wouldn't mind being rid of anyway.

 

DPRK is running a game to scam aid that's all.

 

Iran I'm less sure about.

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100% correct on Korea.

I agree with the above.? No way the public gets bamboozled again.

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So Iran's nuke aspirations aren't a threat then?

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Assuming we do go in where will the boots come from?

I agree with the above.? No way the public gets bamboozled again.

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So Iran's nuke aspirations aren't a threat then?

658773[/snapback]

Assuming we do go in where will the boots come from?

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If we're smart we'll pull troops out of Europe. But we wouldnt have to either way, we're spread a lot less thin than the general public believes

Europe is trying to become more militarily independent anyhow, so that's an option.

Europe is trying to become more militarily independent anyhow, so that's an option.

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Its an ideal situation really. If Europe needs to pay for their own defense, they cannot pump as much money into the economy like they do now. This will cause an economic balancing act which will bring the Euro back down to around or lower than the price of the dollar. however, does the US really want a Europe that can function w/o US military help?

Europe is trying to become more militarily independent anyhow, so that's an option.

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Its an ideal situation really. If Europe needs to pay for their own defense, they cannot pump as much money into the economy like they do now. This will cause an economic balancing act which will bring the Euro back down to around or lower than the price of the dollar. however, does the US really want a Europe that can function w/o US military help?

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There is no stopping Asia, though.

There is no stopping Asia, though.

 

Why has the price of concrete and steel skyrocketed in the US?

 

Discover the answer to that question and you'll have the answer to the kind of economy crippling power we could wield.

 

The question is are we foolish enough to allow a repeat of pre-WWII Japan.

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Good point. I don't think that would be wise because we all know that Japan's reponse was to become an imperialistic machine on the move for steel + other resources.

 

Back to Iran though. Did you hear the questioning of Rice by Senators Chafee and Biden yesterday? Biden suggested that she tell Bush that dropping bombs on Iran's nucular(joke :plain ) facilities and hoping blue-jeaned young people will then throw out the mullahs is a false one. I'd like to see your thoughts here since you seem keen to follow this track from earlier comments.

Why has the price of concrete and steel skyrocketed in the US?

 

 

Because it is being sold to Cina?

Why has the price of concrete and steel skyrocketed in the US?

 

 

Because it is being sold to Cina?

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There's a huge shortage of concrete and building materials in general.

There's a huge shortage of concrete and building materials in general.

 

I know. I was made to believe that there was a shortage because Cina is using them up to fuel their unreal economic growth...Isn't their economic growth rate around 10-12%? Compared to the US which is in the 2-3% I think...

 

I was hoping tonyi knew more since he asked the question...

There's a huge shortage of concrete and building materials in general.

 

I know. I was made to believe that there was a shortage because Cina is using them up to fuel their unreal economic growth...Isn't their economic growth rate around 10-12%? Compared to the US which is in the 2-3% I think...

 

I was hoping tonyi knew more since he asked the question...

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Tonyi would tell you the sky is rainbow colored if it suited his arguments.

Why has the price of concrete and steel skyrocketed in the US?

 

 

Because it is being sold to Cina?

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There's a huge shortage of concrete and building materials in general.

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But it is true that China is buying concrete and steel by the minute.

Why has the price of concrete and steel skyrocketed in the US?

 

 

Because it is being sold to Cina?

660822[/snapback]

 

There's a huge shortage of concrete and building materials in general.

660828[/snapback]

 

But it is true that China is buying concrete and steel by the minute.

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I know they're buying tons of steel, but not sure about concrete.

Yay, we better not :| I was going to go into the Army or Marines.

I know they're buying tons of steel, but not sure about concrete.

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Yea, consuming 45% of the world's supply is a pittance :plain

 

Have you been drinking heavily lately? I'm sensing a degraded frontal lobe efficiency in your responses.

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Since when did the comment "not sure" mean that I was discounting what he said about the concrete. You're a friggin' moonbat. Then again, I guess I could adopt your policy of avoiding admitting errors and just fabricating opinions and passing them off as facts.