In this week's issue of the New Yorker, Seymour Hersh reports that Bush and Co are stepping up covert operations in Iran. Hersh appeared on CNN's Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer and said that "Congress has authorized up to $400 million to fund the secret campaign, which involves U.S. special operations troops and Iranian dissidents."
Hersh's new article, "Preparing the Battlefield," is the latest in a series that exposes the Bush administration's preparations for and intent to go to war with Iran.
More below the fold:
From the CNN report:
President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have rejected findings from U.S. intelligence agencies that Iran has halted a clandestine effort to build a nuclear bomb and "do not want to leave Iran in place with a nuclear program," Hersh said.
"They believe that their mission is to make sure that before they get out of office next year, either Iran is attacked or it stops its weapons program," Hersh said.
Hersh reports that the Bush administration appears to be determined to go forward despite opposition from top military officials--like Robert Gates, Mike Mullen, and the booted William Fallon. From his New Yorker article:
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."
There is no indication, meanwhile, that the administration will consider the will of the people or of Congress in pressing forward with this insanity. Andrew Card just appeared on Morning Joe and said that (I'm paraphrasing) the President would LIKE to have the approval of Congress, but that it's not necessary. He might get it anyway, however--from Democrats, no less.
Again, Hersh reporting:
The Democratic leadership’s agreement to commit hundreds of millions of dollars for more secret operations in Iran was remarkable, given the general concerns of officials like Gates, Fallon, and many others. "The oversight process has not kept pace—it’s been coöpted" by the Administration, the person familiar with the contents of the Finding said. "The process is broken, and this is dangerous stuff we’re authorizing."
And as a little snapshot preview of how our helpful media will no doubt respond to this news: Andrea Mitchell, instead of questioning Card, merely remarked that Bush "IS the Commander in Chief." MSNBC resident blowhard Pat Buchanan (who just wrote a book about how we DIDN'T need to fight WWII)noted that "just one man, sitting alone in an office, will make this decision." Good old Mika was too busy talking about a cute little escaped bear to care that we're considering airstrikes on Iran.
Only the excellent Katrina Vandenheuvel of the Nation seemed a little...perturbed by this notion. Which no doubt was entirely liberal and hysterical of her.
Then the crew at MJ promptly returned to revisit the comments that Wesley Clark made about John McCain.
Is anyone else frozen in fear and shock this morning? Are Congress and the media to be duped again? My hope is, that the American people won't be. But that might not matter, sadly.