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The Saker
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Public Inquiry
Interested in maladministration. Estd. 2005

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Voltaire Network
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Seymour Hersh: The US War in Iran has Already Started

category international | anti-war / imperialism | other press author Monday January 17, 2005 13:47author by redjade Report this post to the editors

Seymour Hersh is the investigative reporter that uncovered My Lai and Abu Ghraib and more - certainly America's best investigative reporter....

THE COMING WARS
by SEYMOUR M. HERSH
What the Pentagon can now do in secret.
http://newyorker.com/fact/content/?050124fa_fact

George W. Bush’s reëlection was not his only victory last fall. The President and his national-security advisers hav consolidated control over the military and intelligence communities’ strategic analyses and covert operations to degree unmatched since the rise of the post-Second World War national-security state. Bush has an aggressive an ambitious agenda for using that control—against the mullahs in Iran and against targets in the ongoing war o terrorism—during his second term. The C.I.A. will continue to be downgraded, and the agency will increasingl serve, as one government consultant with close ties to the Pentagon put it, as “facilitators” of policy emanating fro President Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney. This process is well under way.

[....]

“This is a war against terrorism, and Iraq is just one campaign. The Bush Administration is looking at this as a huge war zone,” the former high-level intelligence official told me. “Next, we’re going to have the Iranian campaign. We’ve declared war and the bad guys, wherever they are, are the enemy. This is the last hurrah—we’ve got four years, and want to come out of this saying we won the war on terrorism.”

[....]

In interviews with past and present intelligence and military officials, I was told that the agenda had been determined before the Presidential election, and much of it would be Rumsfeld’s responsibility. The war on terrorism would be expanded, and effectively placed under the Pentagon’s control. The President has signed 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 ten nations in the Middle East and South Asia.

The President’s decision enables Rumsfeld to run the operations off the books—free from legal restrictions imposed on the C.I.A.

[....]

In my interviews over the past two months, I was given a much harsher view. The hawks in the Administration believe that it will soon become clear that the Europeans’ negotiated approach cannot succeed, and that at that time the Administration will act. “We’re not dealing with a set of National Security Council option papers here,” the former high-level intelligence official told me. “They’ve already passed that wicket. It’s not if we’re going to do anything against Iran. They’re doing it.”

The immediate goals of the attacks would be to destroy, or at least temporarily derail, Iran’s ability to go nuclear. But there are other, equally purposeful, motives at work. The government consultant told me that the hawks in the Pentagon, in private discussions, have been urging a limited attack on Iran because they believe it could lead to a toppling of the religious leadership.

---

oh just go read the rest.....

THE COMING WARS
by SEYMOUR M. HERSH
What the Pentagon can now do in secret.
http://newyorker.com/fact/content/?050124fa_fact

author by Polarispublication date Mon Jan 17, 2005 14:42author address author phone Report this post to the editors

Lets hope they do not screw it up they way they screwed up Korea, Vietnam, Somalia, Granada, Bay of Pigs, Iranian Hostage debacle, Iraq, and just about everywhere else they have taken it upon themselves to get involved, except against a nation like China that would sort them out.

Pax Americana indeed !

Pathetic.

author by snake - City of Angelspublication date Tue Jan 18, 2005 18:16author email snake at rasta dot nlauthor address author phone Report this post to the editors

I was recently talking to a guy from USA, asking him what is the problem that makes USA to bomb the world, why do they try to be involved in so many things? His answer was “Well, we are trying to prevent ourselves; it’s just something we have to do. We cannot let Muslims to have more power than we do, because then they are gonna bomb us!”

What could we expect from a nation which thinks this way ? (this guy is quiet educated, but he still can represent the average citizens of USA, as he is as mentally vulnerable as most of them, with his mystical fear without reason, and with his talent to generalize really not connected to each other things).
I think the problem of US foreign policy starts here, otherwise it could have easier ways of solution.
Let’s just wish that Americans will start watching other news as well, besides the ones that US Government let’s them to watch, and let’s wish that they will have enough intellect to understand those news.

There is a joke about Bush, that he saw a dream about Chinese becoming Muslims! Oops

Related Link: http://www.indymedia.org
author by Polarispublication date Wed Jan 19, 2005 07:19author address author phone Report this post to the editors

The problem with the Americans is that they tend to believe the image Hollywood projects about them.

author by redjadepublication date Wed Jan 19, 2005 15:26author address author phone Report this post to the editors

Interesting to note that the FT doesn't also mention that Hersh is also jewish. - redjade

-- -- --
Pentagon lashes out at Iran claim
Financial Times
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/671eed44-6864-11d9-9183-00000e2511c8,ft_acl=,s01=1.html

Pentagon officials on Monday lashed out at a US magazine report which claimed they were preparing for possible strikes on Iran by carrying out secret reconnaissance missions inside the country, saying the article contained "fantastic claims" about programmes that do not exist.

[....]

"Mr Hirsch's sources feed him with rumour, innuendo, and assertions about meetings that never happened, programmes that do not exist, and statements by officials that were never made," the Mr [Lawrence] DiRita said.

[....]

It is also rare that defence officials single out a specific journalist for such vitriol. In one part of his statement, Mr DiRita appears to accuse Mr Hersh of anti-Semitism. Mr Hersh reported that Douglas Feith, the number three civilian at the Pentagon, has worked with Israeli military planners to find targets in Iran, a claim the Pentagon said built on "the soft bigotry of some conspiracy theorists". Mr Feith is Jewish. The Pentagon said not such contacts exist.

author by redjadepublication date Wed Jan 19, 2005 15:33author address author phone Report this post to the editors

Pentagon Press Release:
''Arrangements Mr. Hersh alleges between Under Secretary Douglas Feith and Israel, government or non-government, do not exist.  Here, Mr. Hersh is building on links created by the soft bigotry of some conspiracy theorists.  This reflects poorly on Mr. Hersh and the New Yorker.''

http://www.dod.mil/releases/2005/nr20050117-1987.html

-- -- --

Wolf Blitzer Interviews Seymour Hersh
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0501/16/le.01.html

BLITZER: So you're suggesting that by this coming summer, which is not that far away, if the diplomacy were to fail to convince the Iranian government to stop building some sort of nuclear bomb, you think the U.S. could launch commando strikes or aerial strikes?

HERSH: There are people who've talked to me inside the government whose information has been reliable to me. Obviously, you know, I've been doing alternative history for three years. They've been very reliable in the past. They say, look, this is on, this is going to happen. It's not contingent on Iraq; Iraq's separate. And we're also, as you know, escalating our efforts in the global war on terrorism around the world. We're trying to do more.

author by redjadepublication date Thu Jan 20, 2005 23:31author address author phone Report this post to the editors

→ Section 794. Gathering or delivering defense information to aid foreign government
18 United States Code section 794, subsection (b)
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/casecode/uscodes/18/parts/i/chapters/37/sections/section_794.html

- - - - -

Espionage by any other name
By Tony Blankley
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20050118-093611-9660r.htm

''I am not an expert on these federal code sections, but a common-sense reading of their language would suggest, at the least, that federal prosecutors should review the information disclosed by Mr. Hersh to determine whether or not his conduct falls within the proscribed conduct of the statute.''

author by redjadepublication date Wed Jan 26, 2005 16:57author address author phone Report this post to the editors

New York City's comptroller has begun to enlist other large institutional investors in Halliburton to pressure the company to end its business with Iran.

William Thompson controls $42 million invested in the company's stock for the pension funds of the New York City fire and police departments. He said last week that he had contacted the treasurer of North Carolina and the California state employees pension fund to gain support for his plan to introduce a resolution at Halliburton's annual shareholder meeting in May demanding a full accounting of the company's business dealings with Iran. Vice President Cheney ran Halliburton between 1995 and 2000.

In an interview last week, Mr. Thompson said the deal Halliburton forged to help develop the South Pars oil and gas field was "outrageous."

"It is astonishing. The federal government is pushing European companies to divest in Iran, meanwhile an American-based company is acquiring new and additional contracts," Mr. Thompson said.

http://www.nysun.com/article/8108

author by redjadepublication date Thu Jan 27, 2005 13:02author address author phone Report this post to the editors

Iran’s Nuclear Posture and the Scars of War
By Joost R. Hiltermann
http://www.merip.org/mero/mero011805.html

It is even likely that Saddam Hussein was so acutely aware of the gathering danger across the border that for purposes of deterrence he kept up the pretense of hiding WMD, while declaring formally -- and truthfully -- that his arsenal had been dismantled by UN inspectors. The comprehensive report on Iraq’s WMD “program-related activities,” filed on September 30, 2004 by former inspector Charles Duelfer, certainly suggests as much.[1] Iran, too, has issued repeated denials that it is pursuing WMD, demonstrating its innocence by placing its signature beneath all the key multilateral restraints the world has designed to put a brake on the development of such weapons: the Chemical Weapons Convention, the Biological Weapons Convention, the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and others.

author by Dr. James Dwyer - Irish Druid Orderpublication date Sat Jan 07, 2006 21:14author email druidwise at eircom dot netauthor address Teach An Draoi, Killasser, County Mayoauthor phone 094 92 52737Report this post to the editors

According to an article published in the Russian journal 'Pravda' (which means 'Truth') last year, Bush was not elected the second time either, but Bush-bought electronic vote counting technology was used to swing the 'election'. We can probably conclude from that, that there are unlikely to be future elections in the U.S. and that each time these Fascists appear to be losing control it will suffice to organise yet another outrage and invoke 'Special Powers' to maintain the status quo.

author by Terrypublication date Sun Jan 08, 2006 01:44author address author phone Report this post to the editors

Hmm, I agree both elections were probably rigged and I initially also concluded there would be no further elections, but now I am not so sure.

If we consider the last election, John Kerry campaigned on a pro-war ticket also and basically claimed he would just use more troops. So really there was no real difference in terms of the net effect, although obviously PR style would differ a bit.

So I think when the time comes they may allow Bush to move off-stage and they will just have another candidate of their choice ready and overall it doesn't matter a great deal whether they are Rep or Dem. The subtle part is that when they rig the elections, they make it look realistic enough, by just swinging or inventing/destroying enough votes so that it sill looks like a contest.

With control of the electronic voting machines, the temptation would be to have your candidate win by huge margins, but really clever manipulation where you want to get the population to think there is still some form of democracy would go for the much smaller margins and I think that's exactly what they did in the last 2 elections and will likely do in the next.

author by redjadepublication date Sun Jan 08, 2006 02:21author address author phone Report this post to the editors

Terry

If you are interested in this stuff the best source, IMO, is anything written up by Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman at The Free Press.

Here two good links, but check the links on the left side of the page for their ongoing investigations into what happened in Ohio.

I'd say that at this point there's at least a 'reasonable doubt' about the authenticity of the 2004 election in Ohio...


Ohio's Diebold Debacle: New machines call election results into question
http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2005/1593

Has American Democracy died an electronic death in Ohio 2005's referenda defeats?
http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2005/1593

author by Terrypublication date Sun Jan 08, 2006 03:09author address author phone Report this post to the editors

I think you may have taken me up wrong there, which is partially to do with the way I worded the first sentence of my comment ending with:

... but now I am not so sure.' -The not so sure was supposed to refer to that I am not so sure there won't be more elections, because they want to keep up the facade but I am completely sure both elections were rigged.

Thanks for the links anyhow.

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