On NPR's "Fresh Air" today was an interview by Terri Gross with Seymour Hersh regarding his story in the next issue of the New Yorker regarding a big escalation in covert activity by the U.S. in Iran through the issuance of a "presidential finding", strangely enough at about the same time that the Combined Intelligence report on Iran NOT being a threat was issued late last year. (Hersh didn't think this was a coincidence, either.)
The most difficult and horrifying thing to listen to during the interview was the complicity of members of Congress in approving the funds ($400 million) to do this, and their rationale. For more, follow me below the jump for an approximation of transcript highlights (by the way, the interview can be found here).
Terri Gross: How is this being done?
Seymour Hersh: (As knowledgeable Kossacks already are aware), for years the U.S. has been trying to destabilize the Shi'ite government of Iran (inserting Kurds, Sunnis, and whoever else was interested to do so). Now for first time (as of February 2008) we have elite special ops command forces (hunter/killers) to lead attacks on high level targets and capture or kill them. These U.S. covert ops. guys come in from Afghanistan (troops, weapons, and supplies to come in from Herat province in Afghanistan) into Iran and work out of dissidents' base camps. There is a list of targets from the VP's office, including a nuclear scientist (capture of course preferred) to see if they will say that there is some secret nuclear weapons program that we don't know about (Ed. note: I'm sure that we would use "humane" methods to get this information, right?).
This particular presidential finding stated that we needed to do *"defensive lethal activity"* in Iran. As such, it got a very high classification, which made it hard to get sources in the U.S. government to talk. Members of Congress were very upset about this language (ed. comment: presumably because they could therefore not discuss it with anyone without being locked up by the Bush administration).
TG: What is the goal?
SH: They have 6 mos left and they really want to do something about Iran. The VP (ed. surprise, surprise, surprise!) is directly involved via back channel communications to the field through VP aides. They want to provoke enough trouble so Iran does something aggressive in response, and maybe then they'd have a causus belli for an Iran War/attack and regime change that will resonate with the American People Part of the activity includes overtly funding groups, some of which are associated with the Osama bin Laden version of Al Qaeda.
There's been a significant spike in violence in Iran, per the "controlled" Iranian media. It's not an illogical inference that we are the cause of this through our covert activity. Their idea is to get Iran roiling and make them make the mistake of taking action against one of the dissident groups. The strategic thinking: make Iran unstable enough to get them to do something stupid.
TG: Why did congress sign off, especially with the Iraq War so unpopular? This sounds so familiar to what we tried in Iraq before the invasion. Who had to sign off on this in Congress?
SH: Under the law on the presidential finding, he can choose to only brief the congressional leadership (Speaker and Minority leader of the House, Senate Majority Leader and minority member, heads of Intelligence committees; the so-called "gang of eight"). To my astonishment, I learned that no objections were raised, because " we don't want to give Bush reason to complain about D's not wanting to fight the "war on terror". Another reason given: we don't pay much attention to these findings; we just sign off on 'em (ed. comment: WTF? With this "administration"?) There has been no discussion of the contents within this group of eight, especially astounding when Mr. Obama is campaigning on wanting to TALK to the Iranians, in direct conflict with what the Congressional leadership has decided to do.
TG: Does Congress have a funding weapon? Some power to stop? If so, who can stop, and how many?
SH: Funding must go through the House and Senate defense appropriations subcommittees. I've heard that Murtha and Obey were upset by the finding, particularly the phrase "defensive lethal activities".
At some point after 9/11, the administration decided "we don't want oversight". One of the things that the Bush administration has done to muddy the waters and avoid oversight is to combine covert CIA and military activities. CIA and military forces then can be sent anywhere with a list of capture/assassination, and no one needs to be told. The White House says the President doesn't have to tell congress about ANY military activity, covert or not, so they're lucky they got this much out of us.
CIA has local language skills the military doesn't have. To go in with the special ops forces, the CIA said they needed a legal finding to use "defensive legal force", because they were already in so much hot water over the torture issue. It's been made to be very complicated; next to impossible to ferret out who is doing what (CIA vice military).
(ed. Now this quote is STUNNING!) House Intelligence chair Obey said: "Look, Cheney wants to do stuff and he's going to want to do stuff until the end of his game ... and I don't really know what's going on".
TG: How can you describe it?
SH: "Out of control". I think we can compare this to some equivalent, like Iranian covert operatives approaching American groups to start trouble (e.g. Sons of the Revolution), and we can expect the same results from what we are doing to what they are doing. This is how silly this is to do, and shows how little the Bush administration understands Iran. Iran is not a country that can be easily broken down along factional lines, like Iraq was.
We're funding a group that is on U.S. terrorist list to work against the Iranian government (ed. MEK?). They've been on the border for years. The enemy of my enemy is my friend (even if they're on our terrorist watch list). This group has had covert training in America (in Nevada).
TG: You were surprised that there was no resistance at all. Did Bush tell them something that made them think this is really justified (in secret) to us?
SH: (Bluntly,) no. Some, maybe even an enormous amount, of resistance resulted because of the "LETHAL" part of the finding. However, there was no sense that I could obtain that there was any overarching justification that no one could talk about. Bush just used a presidential finding to make it secret.
There was an especially disturbing escalation in the LANGUAGE (the "lethal" phraseology) of the finding. It's very hard for a leader of congress to stand up and take the heat and say it is wrong. This is not my definition of a democracy.
TG: Do you see this as an (forced) expansion of executive power?
SH: (chuckles) If it walks like a duck, talks like a duck ... are you kidding?!?!? This is definitely an expansion of executive power.
Planning on this operation (including placement of armaments, subs., carriers, troops) is complete ... if Obama looks like he's going to get elected especially, though if McCain is looking good they'll figure he's going to do it anyway. Everything is ready to go within 12 hours.
TG: It's been stated that Israel might do the job instead of us.
SH: The thinking is that Israel really can't do it; since we'll be blamed for it and Israel can't do it right, we might as well do it. We have the air power to take out radar and missile sites in advance, too, and then get on with the rest of it.
TG: How can this be justified?
SH: A number of things have already been tried. WMD, no good. Iran making trouble in Iraq, no good (thanks to some good reporting, in fact!). Justification now? Go back to make case that Iran is killing American boys (that was already shown to be false). Weapons have been going in to Iraq from Iran for 100s of years. No clear evidence that Iran wants to provoke trouble with U.S. by sending people into Iraq to stir up things. Iraq has good relationship with Iran; why would they want to screw that up?
So the Bush administration says, Six months left! How do we get public support? Use clandestine operations to incite Iran to do something dumb in response, with a goal to get public support for an attack. I don't think Bush cares about John McCain. NEED TO GENERATE HEAT FOR AN ATTACK ON IRAN.
TG: What about N Korea? That worked out, finally, AFTER they started to talk with N Korea.
SH: That makes me even MORE worried. Look, we (bush) did something good! So trust us on Iran. It also takes one element of the "axis of evil" off the table.
TG: What about the mess in Iraq that resulted from similar activities we have now started with Iran? How can we even afford this? Does Cheney (after disclaimer that SH not sure Cheney is running the show) even care?
SH: Look at what they (neocons) SAY about Iraq. They say we're winning! Iraq is good, we're turning the corner, the surge worked, it's wonderful! They don't see it as a mess! So, they think we're doing fine in iraq; why not go to iran?
Regarding change in supreme commander, Admiral Fallon: he was kept out of the chain of command for clandestine activities in Iran ... he wanted to know all the secrets, and Cheney insisted that he NOT know all the secrets. Because Fallon had the audacity to want to be kept in the loop, he was summarily dismissed.
There was more, but I think this is enough to chew on. (BIG SIGH)