...but my heart still sank as I read this. PLEASE someone make November come sooner! We don't need a third war to fight! :(
Report: U.S. "preparing the battlefield" in Iran
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Bush administration has launched a "significant escalation" of covert operations in Iran, sending U.S. commandos to spy on the country's nuclear facilities and undermine the Islamic republic's government, journalist Seymour Hersh said Sunday.
An Iranian flag flies outside the building containing the reactor of Bushehr nuclear power plant, south of Tehran.
White House, CIA and State Department officials declined comment on Hersh's report, which appears in this week's issue of The New Yorker.
Hersh told CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer" that Congress has authorized up to $400 million to fund the secret campaign, which involves U.S. special operations troops and Iranian dissidents.
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.
The new article, "Preparing the Battlefield," is the latest in a series of articles accusing the Bush administration of preparing for war with Iran. He based the report on accounts from current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources.
"As usual with his quarterly pieces, we'll decline to comment," White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe told CNN.
"The CIA, as a rule, does not comment on allegations regarding covert operations," CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano said.
Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador in Baghdad, denied U.S. raids were being launched from Iraq, where American commanders believe Iran is stoking sectarian warfare and fomenting attacks on U.S. troops.
"I can tell you flatly that U.S. forces are not operating across the Iraqi border into Iran, in the south or anywhere else," Crocker said.
Hersh said U.S. efforts were staged from Afghanistan, which also shares a border with Iran.
He said the program resulted in "a dramatic increase in kinetic events and chaos" inside Iran, including attacks by Kurdish separatists in the country's north and a May attack on a mosque in Shiraz that killed 13 people.
The United States has said it is trying to isolate Iran diplomatically in order to get it to come clean about its nuclear ambitions. But Bush has said "all options" are open in dealing with the issue.
Iran insists its nuclear program is aimed at providing civilian electric power, and refuses to comply with U.N. Security Council demands that it halt uranium enrichment work.
U.N. nuclear inspectors say Tehran held back critical information that could determine whether it is trying to make nuclear weapons.
Israel, which is believed to have its own nuclear arsenal, conducted a military exercise in the eastern Mediterranean in early June involving dozens of warplanes and aerial tankers.
The distance involved in the exercise was roughly the same as would be involved in a possible strike on the Iranian nuclear fuel plant at Natanz, Iran, a U.S. military official said.
In 1981, Israeli warplanes destroyed an Iraqi nuclear reactor.
Iran's parliament speaker, Ali Larijani, warned other countries against moves that would "cost them heavily." In comments that appeared in the semi-official Mehr news agency Sunday, an Iranian general said his troops were digging more than 320,000 graves to bury troops from any invading force with "the respect they deserve."
"Under the law of war and armed conflict, necessary preparations must be made for the burial of soldiers of aggressor nations," said Maj. Gen. Mirfaisal Baqerzadeh, an Iranian officer in charge of identifying soldiers missing in action.
12 comments:
At what level does action like that of Seymour Hersh, no matter how credible or true, become treason? To unveil U.S. militarty strategy, budget, or potentially endanger the lives of military personnel involved in covert operations, not good.
Consider moving to Iran Mr. Hersh.
You know, not that offhand support a military strike on Iran, but it's not whether or not to fight a war with Iran, but that this president only has 7 months left in office, and only 4 months before he reaches the classical American "lame duck" status. The long tradition in final-term American executive branch politics is that, perhaps earlier, but especially after, the presumptive nominees from both major parties are established, the sitting president involves himself with benign legacy-building projects, campaigning for the presumptive nominee from his party, and maybe working on "pet" domestic projects he looked forward to creating during his two terms but the spare time, funding and legislative support never lined up.
Let's say John McCain wins the November general. He won't, but let's say he were to win. Still, with his presently similar approach to US foreign policy in Mid-South Asia, it is his decision to make, his crackerjack thinking for which to reap the rewards or his catastrophe for which to except blame. But all this president is doing, the only thing he can do in the time he has left unless he is working behind the scenes with McCain -- possible sure, but no matter McCain's policy shift, these two guys are NOT the best of comrades in arms -- is two start a conflagration of untold proportions... We are have greater military strength and resources than Iran, but we are stretched thin, we are a volunteer military, and Iran is no unequipped, disorganized, backwater patsy, either. Is two start a massive conflict he will have perhaps six months to prosecute and has no chance of finishing to anything even approaching resolution.
The strangest thing is that the nominal role of the sitting president is NOT to do anything so unpopular it will kneecap his possible fellow party member successor. But that is EXACTLY what he will do should he attack Iran or openly support Israeli military strikes on Iran. Making matter EVEN worse, there is no reasonable evidence at all whatsoever that there is any imminent danger within the next 12 months or so of Iran developing a SINGLE atomic device, let alone developing the rocket delivery system -- an Iranian bomber will just be shot down, legitimately, by US and/or Israeli fighters -- to reliably get that ONE device to some place so close as Tel Aviv.
If Bush "declares" war -- exercises his rights to attack Iran first, without approval of Congress -- this will be the most apt example of a fool's errand I've ever seen. He will destroy any tenuous stability in Mid-South Asia, including Iraq and Afghanistan, quite possibly Pakistan, too; he will very likely instigate an air and ground war between Iran and Israel. He'll certainly start a firestorm between the US and Iran, quite probably to bleed over into the United States in the form of an all-out terrorist assault at many locales, some of which we have long thought mostly safe from such attacks. On top of it, Syria will likely invade Israel from the north through Lebanon. Iraq will totally destabilize and there's a good chance Turkey will invade Iraqi Kurdistan via air and ground; Turkish air and ground forces might even push southward, deeper into Iraq proper.
I've long though my heavy "left" friends saying that Bush was in someway trying to rush up what is, more or less, the Apocalypse of John due to his religious beliefs was just so much laughable conspiracy theorizing over cocktails in our secure little corner bar. Now I'm not so sure.
This CNN story does not have one Fact in it. CNN would never want facts in their stories, would they?
What, I'm supposed to take the word of someone who capitalizes common nouns in order to lend them some sort of enhanced gravity? Thanks, I'll pass.
The executive branch -- AFTER our own foreign intelligence section's report, and the reports of two international agencies concerned with atomic weapons proliferation, state unequivocally this is nowhere near necessary at this time -- has been funding, to the tune of hundreds of millions -- goes a long way in contract operatives -- the destabilization of the Iranian government. No reason to disbelieve that.
Israel operates an aerial military exercise outside their own airspace, what appears to be more dry run than warning, almost exactly approximating the flight distance time required to strike almost certainly INACTIVE Iranian atomic weapons research and fuel enriching facilities. I definitely believe that. People saw it. We saw it. Everyone saw it.
All this mere months before the current president CAN BY UNITED STATES LAW NO LONGER BE THE PRESIDENT, when US presidents have a LONG HISTORY of NOT starting protracted, complicated wars a wink before their successors are elected and take office.
Hmm. So what's he doing? Laying the groundwork for a two men who said they would CONSIDER military action against Iran regarding development of atomic weapons IF Iran were indeed developing atomic weapons AND repeated attempts at diplomacy failed, threatening the lives of the citizens and the sovereignty of neighboring nations? Rushing up the groundwork in a matter of months, with a heavily focused effort, for a military invasion that, IF it happens, won't take place for at least a couple of years? Is that what he's doing. If so, it's damn efficient, ain't it.
Problem is, the policies and administration of foreign diplomacy by either McCain or Obama may, in fact may LIKELY, allow Iran to stabilize in the interim, making the expense and effort all for naught.
So, to speculate with some great concern that the current president, for reasons that defy rational logic, and are starting to appear to be motivated by either insanity or extreme religious zealotry -- which is, as we well know from our own run-up against religious zealotry, tantamount to insanity, is contemplating military action not sanctioned by the duly elected representatives of the people of the United States, there by causing not the end of the world, as he may wish, but the end of the world as we know it... Well, mine is a pretty damn rational position of studious evaluation and circumspect address.
Not to mention the fact it's not CNN's story but, rather next week's New Yorker story released to major news outlets in order to build interest in that issue of the magazine. The fact The New Yorker is marketing the story doesn't make it inaccurate. This is a capitalist society: We market products, be they of great quality or miserable design.
Oh, yeah,
"At what level does action like that of Seymour Hersh, no matter how credible or true, become treason?"
It doesn't rise to that level when it's perhaps the only thing that stands a chance of saving our asses. We'll win of course; we always win. And we deserver to: We spent a lot of money, time and effort in support of armed forced. But are you familiar with the concept of a pyrrhic victory?
"Consider moving to Iran Mr. Hersh."
Nah, let's keep him. Since he's looking out for us and all.
Seriously, all confrontational, emphatic rhetoric and politicizing the issue aside: Neither of you two others posting comments here, nor the vast majority of Americans -- not even the ones firmly against war with Iran and/or Iraq and/or Afghanistan -- have no idea what a heavy-duty attack on Iran contemporarily means in context of the region. This has been going on in some, this business of trying to control these mercurial nations of Mid-South Asia, for a century and a half, even longer. The problem now, the stakes are raised to the level of decimating global civilization due to the scale of an all-out, everybody-in conflict in the region.
Believe me, you don't want to invade or attack Iran, or in anyway support Israel in doing so in preemptive strike, but only with incontrovertible evidence of imminent peril to that nation, i.e., the Iranian bombers are in the air and inbound to Tel Aviv.
(And I'm typing fast because I know of what write, so deal with the typos. Rampant capitalizers don't get this grace; not unless you can reasonably prove to me through your position in this debate that you have a clue.")
Capa! and anonymi! Welcome :)
I admit I don't know a tenth of what you do on this topic, Capa, but I know enough to be scared silly. This guy is completely insane. I've thought so since the git. I don't understand why he's still alive. SERIOUSLY. So many people hate him and he's F*'d up our country royally-- in more ways than can be touched upon in a few thick tomes! I appreciate your long posts and find them informative!!! Muchissimas Gracias!
The sad part of all this is that I'm not convinced that either of our two options provide a solution to our problems. I guess we'll find out soon enough!
Tejana,
I think one, there's not as much to worry about in practice as in theory. Bush and Cheney have managed to bumble and screw things up quite well so far. Why should we imagine they can manage, especially with US armed forces deployment presently in the state it is now, to get an attack on Iran, one which they can militarily back up, off the ground before late January of next year? (People can scream DRAFT!, but it's going to take more than a few months to reestablish a conscripted military in a nation like the US.)
It's the individual Americans support of the mere idea of just lunatic idiocy that bothers me. You admit you don't know all that much about Mid-South Asia or the intricacies of intercessory policies in the region now or in the past. Yet you still, instinctively, realize from even the flawed information you've over the past few years gleaned from the press, if you play with matches you're gonna get burned. I don't think this is too high a standard, a bit of introspection, to which to hold our fellow Americans. I'm a patriot of the highest order. I love this country, it's history and it's "grand experiment". But to love this country is not to willingly sacrifice the entire lives of my children and, hopefully forthcoming in about twenty years or so, grandchildren, in rebuilding a new order of global society -- a society standing a reasonable chance of being quite alien and insufficient to what we have today -- to support the ridiculous agenda of two madmen (there were, of course, more madmen, but most of them have been run off, quite possibly for the two top whackjobs to avoid criminal prosecution).
Otherwise, despite my voluminous SHOUTING north of this comment, I'm, perhaps surprisingly, not very "political". I don't like Bush, but this is due to the fact I believe he's both sinister, foolish and to some degree mentally incompetent. Likewise Cheney, perhaps by an order of magnitude. I like Obama as a man. I did like McCain as a man, but am now ambivalent about him, as I've watched him sell large chunks of his intellectual soul to position himself a more appealing Republican presidential nominee. I'm frankly more interested in the history and future of forms of governance of large populations, and also in national, regional and continental economies. Finer grained, the effect of these two intertwined human constructs on the psychological makeup of individuals and the sociological character of large groups.
Though I certainly do not favor all Democrat politicians, I tend to find Republican politicians objectionable because, whether they actually believe these things or not, they must subscribe to untenable concepts in order to be elected by Republicans as a whole. (No, I'm not harping on religion. I have no issues with religious faith, and no issues with individuals adhering to canons of their faiths with which I may not agree. Lovely part of the history of this country: Religion used to be more so one's own private thing, a right rather than a requirement.)
In regard to Bush, by your blogging name, Tejanamama, I presume you or were a resident of South Texas, and if you've moved away, you likely seem have some family or sentimental ties to that part of the country. I've from North Texas. We lived under Bush -- and his second, Rick Perry, who has done nothing else but continue in this sate the botched overarching policy of the man now president. We of course had our fair warning. Others did not, not without digging deep into the Bush background. I am most surprised Bush NOT elected by a popular majority in his first term, however WAS by a good margin for his second term, even after implementing numerous foreign and domestic policies unpopular on both sides of the two-party line. And then not three months after they'd affirmed in a strong reelection bid, something like 60% of our nation hated the man. I think the reason he's still alive is that we are not, not beyond our founding in a bloody war for liberty against Britain, a society of violent revolutionaries. In many nations of Africa, Central and South America, Eastern Europe, and Asia, you're most likely correct: Not just a lone person, but likely an organized faction, would have by now eliminated him. But those countries have different histories, suffered European colonialism longer, suffered pseudo-colonialism through economic dicatorship even LONGER, and suffered greater consequences of this European colonialism followed by abrupt withdrawal, leaving a void of organized governance. (Not to mention, especially in Central and South America, egregious meddling by the United States in the latter half of the 20th century.) These nations developed in environments where bloody revolution, ugly as it may be, was the only viable chance for a better life for the people.
Take heart, though, for now and after the November general election, no matter who is elected. I've always said no American president has yet brought this nation to its knees. Some have saved us -- FDR comes immediately to mind -- but none have crushed us. If Bush and Cheney fail to successfully implement their aggressive designs on Iran, I won't have been wrong yet.
NO... DO NOTHING! The only way we can bring order to Washington is to let the rogue nations build their weapons of mass destruction and let them use them. This is the ONLY thing that will convince the likes of Obama, Clinton, Pelosi, Boxer, Algore and Feinstein that we must nip it at the bud before terrorist nations unleash their evil will. The Washington Liberals won't GET IT until a more spectacular event than 9/11/01 takes place! Let them have their cake and make them eat it too!
Howdy neighbor! I am in South Texas :) I just relocated here after a long stay in both IN and NJ but South Texas is my home. I have a lot to learn about politics on the local level!!! I appreciate your posts. VERY interesting! :)
I think what I've learned (among other things) in the past few years and especially the last few months, is that Americans are patient and more tolerant that I had ever imagined. I expected a lot worse out of people just for the rise in gas prices! I feel like a woman on the edge myself sometimes, but I have a very strong, probably healthy, fear of law-breaking. :) I really thought we had a lot more yahoos among us. We probably do but with the phones being tapped and emails/internet usage being monitored, its hard to get a good revolution going! ;)
Okay, I have *no* idea how US politics work, but why does the Pres have *so* much power??! There seems to be a lack of accountability that leaves me completely confounded.
If this article is true (which we are not certain of), it would be utter and complete reckless stupidity for Bush to either "attack or stop the weapons program" in the meager months before he leaves office. That will just leave the next Pres (Obama?) with a crisis to avert in his first few months in the WH. At what point did Bush stop valuing human life?!? He is a disappointment in every sense of the word.
Loquacious,
The executive branch of the US government may actually be the weakest of the three. Congress makes law, the judicial branch enforces and interprets that law, while the presidency is more of a sales job, trying to get what he (or she, of course) wants out of the Congress and if he has the opportunity during his tenure, appoint justices to the Supreme Court who will in the future more than likely interpret law the way he likes it. Of the everyday powers, this is the most powerful. Supreme appointments are for life -- or until the justice determines to retire -- and a youngish justice who lives a long productive life can influence the interpretation of US law for a long, long time. But, still, it's hit or miss: A liberal justice planning to retire, surprised by a conservative win in the executive branch, he or she will postpone retirement if at all possible so he or she will not be replaced by a conservative.
The president has the power of vetoing any bill (proposal for law) presented him passed by both houses of Congress. However, with enough support in Congress, more than the mere majority required to present the bill to the president but no requirement of a unanimous vote, the Congress can override the president's veto, the bill becomes law. And there's nothing the president can do about it.
Where the president appears on the most powerful on the international stage is in his role as commander in chief of the US armed forces. Bombs and guns get a lot of attention. In 1973, Congress resolved that the president may command the entirety of the US military into action without first asking permission of the Congress. This is known as the War Powers Act. It was passed at a time when we were struggling with defeat in Vietnam, smack in the middle of the Cold War, when we had to face, one, we actually could be defeated -- people call that defeat as they wish, but we did not got about nothing of what we wanted in Vietnam, Hanoi got most of what they wanted, and we withdrew our forces; that's tantamount to defeat anyway you cut it -- and we were smack in the middle of the Cold War. There was the credible threat at the time a strong Soviet Union, which we perceived as even stronger than they probably were, could set the stage to decimate the US, by itself or via allied nations, in the time it took to get Congress together, and wrangle with them even a short time, to declare war or authorize other intercessory military action.
There are all kinds of stipulations to the War Powers Act. Notification requirements and a limit on the time US forces could remain in-theater without a formal declaration of war from Congress. However, these stipulations have been about roundly ignored by every congress and every president since 1973. Presidents have taken the War Powers Act to mean they are the one and only commander of the US armed forces, and the legislators have more or less let them believe this and act as such. There's much judicial debate over the specific powers granted by the War Powers Act, only obscuring the basic issue: Does the US president have to get the approval of Congress before going to war, or not? Part of this is hung up, and I know this sounds like a joke, but seriously, on what the definition of "war" is.
What we're left with is a president who does have an enormous amount of power to command the US military in both offensive and defensive operations, on any scale he desires. But we haven't fought a formal war, a war declared by congress, since Congress declared war on Germany in WWII, preceded only a short time after Congress declared war on the Empire of Japan after the Japanese naval attack on a US naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii -- at the time, Hawaii was not even a state in the Union, but the offensive attack by Japan, intended to be a surprise attack, on the US forces stationed there was deemed, and almost surely was, reasonable provocation upon which to base a declaration of war.
I know, the question is, when the Democrats control Congress, and they're upset with, say, the undeclared war in Iraq, why don't they vote to repeal, or severely limit in concrete terms, the War Powers Act? Simple answer, and it is all about politics: A Democratic Congress desires, when a Democratic president is on office, that he or she have the same near-total power to command the US armed forces. Reverse that for the Republicans. Nobody wants their president to not have the loose, nebulously interpreted powers of the War Powers Act, and there's no guarantee a future Congress will be controlled by the party of a future president; and a Congress dominated by the opposing political party might be loath to reactivate the War Powers Act -- out of spite for the president's party having stripped the opposing parties president of those powers in the past.
There ya go. It's a game, big boys playing with tanks. The worst example of the otherwise fairly excellent checks and balances of the structure of the US government. Unfortunately, it's a game in which a lot of people get killed, and the infrastructure and society of many countries is destroyed. Better the US president have total and complete control over spending as much as he'd like on landscaping the front lawn of the White House.
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