URGENT: British on board with coming air strikes on Iran (according to what Seymour Hersh mentioned in the following interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN yesterday morning):

URGENT: British on board with coming air strikes on Iran (according to
what Seymour Hersh mentioned in the following interview with Wolf
Blitzer on CNN yesterday morning):


Here is the transcript of what Seymour Hersch said on Wolf Blitzer's
'Late Edition' broadcast earlier today (Sunday) in the USA (can watch
such via the video link included at:
http://rawstory.com//news/2007/Seymo...will_0930.html
):

CNN LATE EDITION WITH WOLF BLITZER

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIP.../30/le.01.html

Interview With Seymour Hersh; Interview With Hoshyar Zebari
Aired September 30, 2007 - 11:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND
MAY BE UPDATED.

WOLF BLITZER, HOST: It's 11 a.m. here in Washington, 8 a.m. in Los
Angeles, 6 p.m. in Baghdad. Whenever you're watching from around the
world, thanks very much for joining us for "Late Edition."
As the rhetoric between the United States and Iran ratchets up over
Iran's nuclear ambitions and its involvement in Iraq, so do the
questions about whether a U.S.-led military confrontation between the
two countries is inevitable. The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist
Seymour Hersh has an article in new issue of The New Yorker magazine.
It's entitled "Shifting Targets: The Administration's Plans for
Iran."

Seymour Hersh is here in our studio. Sy, thanks very much for coming
in.

SEYMOUR HERSH, NEW YORKER MAGAZINE: Sure.

BLITZER: I want get to the article in a second. But I want to show the
viewers the cover of The New Yorker magazine, and we'll put it up on
the screen. You can see it right there.

I guess it's fair to say it's Ahmadinejad with, what, a Senator Larry
Craig kind of pose in a men's room, tapping toes. What was the theory
behind this cover going after Ahmadinejad like this right now?

HERSH: You're asking me about a New Yorker cover? You might as well
ask me about a Rembrandt. The only thing I can say is, I don't think
Ahmadinejad's going to be coming back to New York very soon. It was a
rough trip.

BLITZER: It was a rough trip. And I guess in part that cover is
motivated by his statement, there are no gay people, there are no
homosexuals in Iran, a statement that was obviously ridiculed around
the world.

HERSH: Yes. That's a fair guess.

BLITZER: All right. let's talk a little about your article entitled
"Shifting Targets: The Administration's Plan for Iran." I want to play
for you a clip of what the president, President Bush, said back on
August 28th in Reno, Nevada. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: The attacks on our bases and our troops by
Iranian-supplied munitions have increased in the past few months,
despite pledges by Iran to help stabilize the security situation in
Iraq.

I will take actions necessary to protect our troops. I have authorized
our military commanders in Iraq to confront Tehran's murderous
activities.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: You cite that among many other statements as, what,
escalating the rhetoric coming out of Washington right now. What's
going on?

HERSH: Well, they've changed their rhetoric, really. The name of the
game used to be, they're a nuclear threat. Iran is going to have a
bomb soon. We have to do it.

Sort of the same game we had before the war in Iraq. And what's
happened is in the last few months, they've come to the realization
that they're not selling it. It isn't working. The American people
aren't worried about Iran as a nuclear threat, certainly as they were
about Iraq. There's some skepticism. So they switched, really.

BLITZER: Is it just a public relations tactic or, as the
administration maintains, there is evidence, they say, of extensive
Iranian involvement in fueling this sectarian violence in Iraq.

HERSH: Absolutely, as far as their concerned, the Iranians are deeply
involved in the killing of Americans and coalition British Forces. And
it's also fair to say it's not -- we don't know whether Iran is really
trying to get a bomb or not.

But the fact is, there's no evidence. And the White House has come to
terms finally with the idea that it's the American community's pretty
much total consensus that they're five years at least away. They're
not getting any...

BLITZER: From getting a nuclear bomb.

HERSH: Absolutely. They're going nowhere with their research, despite
the braggadocio. So the White House has shifted.

Instead of trying to sell it, not only to the American people but to
its allies, the notion of a massive bombing against the
infrastructure, what they call counterproliferation against the
infrastructure of the Iraqi bomb, hitting the various facilities we
know that exist, instead they're now decided they're going to hit the
Iranians, payback for hitting us.

They're going to hit the Revolutionary Guard headquarters and
facilities. They're going to tone down the bombing. They're going to
shift it. It's going to be more surgical. It's going to be much more
limited.

BLITZER: Airstrikes. Let me read to you from your article: "During a
secure video conference that took place early this summer, the
president told Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, that he was
thinking of hitting Iranian targets across the border and that the
British were on board. Bush ended by instructing Crocker to tell Iran
to stop interfering in Iraq or it would face American retribution."

And you see that as a change in the U.S. strategy?

HERSH: Well, the strategy is, it's a targeting change. We're
threatening Iran. We've been doing it constantly. But instead of
saying to the American people, instead of saying internally it's going
to be about nuclear weapons, it's now going to be about getting the
guys that are killing our boys.

We're going to hit the border facilities, the facilities inside Iraq
we think are training terrorists. We're going to hit the facilities we
think are supplying some of the explosive devices into Iraq. This is
the administration's position.

BLITZER: And this would be air power, what you're saying, cruise
missiles or surgical airstrikes, is that what you're saying?

HERSH: Of course. A lot of cruise missiles, a lot of surgical
airstrikes. You also have to go on the ground because you've got to
suppress their anti-air defenses. You've got to make sure you, as
somebody said to me, a path in, a path out.

And one of the problems with all of this, of course, is that inside
the intelligence community, the notion that Iran is doing as much as
the president says is not accepted. I mean, there's a great debate
about how deeply involved Iran really is.

BLITZER: In what's going on in Iraq?

HERSH: Yes.

BLITZER: Let me read again from the article. This is what you write:
"I was repeatedly cautioned in interviews that the president has yet
to issue the 'execute order' that would be required for a military
operation inside Iran, and such an order may never be issued. But
there has been a significant increase in the tempo of attack
planning."

I want you to explain what you mean. What does that mean, an increase
in the tempo?

HERSH: Well, publicly, they've castigated the Revolutionary Guards.
The language is increasing, just as you heard the president say to the
-- last August in the clip you showed.

On the inside, the CIA has really been ramping up very hard. There's
something called the Iranian Operations Group. We had the same kind of
a group for the Iraqi war. Before the war in Iraq, we had an
operations group. It's suddenly exploding in manpower. And they've
been going around, just dragging a dozen people here, a dozen there.
They built it up into a large, large operational group.

I'm told also, I didn't write this in the article, I'm told that the
National Security Council inside the White House is focused much more
on attacking Iran and what's going on in Iran than it has been before.
There's been a significant increase on the inside. BLITZER: On the so-
called military option. Here's what the White House press secretary
Dana Perino told us: "The president believes this issue can be solved
diplomatically. And the administration is working with the
international community through the United Nations Security Council,
plus Germany, to bring diplomatic measures to bear on Iran to put an
end to its enrichment and reprocessing activities."

HERSH: At the same time, as I write in this article, they've been
pitching this new idea of hitting the Revolutionary Guards, more
limited, more surgical, more carefully drawn up, planned attack. And
where, for example, the Brits, who were very hostile to the idea of a
thousand points of lights, bombing, all the heavy air force coming and
bombing the nuclear facilities, it takes a lot of bombs. Many of them
are underground.

The Brits are interested in this idea. There's been expressions of
interest from Australia, other countries. The Israelis, of course,
have gone bananas. They're very upset about the idea of not going.

If you're going into Iran, the Israeli position is very firm. They
want us to go. And they want us to hit hard. You do not, as somebody,
an Israeli, told me, if you run into a lion, you either shoot it or
ignore it. You don't pluck out its eyebrows.

Going in and taking out the Revolutionary Guards and not taking out
the nuclear facilities for the Israelis is a non-starter. But that's
the plan. The plan is to be more surgical, more careful and they're
getting some of their allies on board.

BLITZER: And here's what also you write. You say, "Now the emphasis is
on surgical strikes on Revolutionary Guard Corps facilities in Tehran
and elsewhere, which the administration claims have been the source of
attacks on Americans in Iraq. What had been presented primarily as a
counter-proliferation mission has been reconceived as
counterterrorism."

And there's obviously different kinds of military moves you deal with
fighting terrorism as opposed to proliferation, nuclear weapons, for
example.

HERSH: Absolutely. And you can also sell counterterror. It's more
logical. You can say to people, the American people, we're only
hitting those people that we think are trying to hit our boys and the
coalition forces. And so that seems to be more sensible.

Because the White House thinks they can actually pitch this, this
would actually work. In other words, you can do a bombing and not have
the world scream at us and also get the British on board.

BLITZER: Let me also read this line: "A Pentagon consultant on
counterterrorism told me that if the bombing campaign took place, it
would be accompanied by a series of what he called 'short, sharp
incursions' by American Special Forces units into suspected Iranian
training sites. He said, quote, 'Cheney is devoted to this, no
question.'" So it wouldn't just be airstrikes. You're saying there
would be limited ground strikes as well, involving U.S. Special
Operations Forces?

HERSH: We've got Special Operation Forces on the border right now,
championing to go in there. They're in Waziristan too. They want to go
into go look for bin Laden. We've got a lot of very competent,
aggressive Special Forces guys that want to go in. And it's going to
be touch and go. I think -- I don't know what's going to happen.

If we do go in, you're going to have to go in on the ground, not only
to get the camps with the Special Forces, the Iranians have a lot of
antiaircraft missiles along the coast that are dug in. And you
probably get to them from air, so you might have to send Marines in to
go blow them up one by one. You don't want these guys shooting down
your airplanes.

BLITZER: Now, you've been writing about this possibility of a U.S.
military strike on Iran for some time.

HERSH: A year-and-a-half.

BLITZER: It hasn't happened yet but you're convinced before the
president leaves office it might happen?

HERSH: Oh, well, there's no -- that's easy. I don't know. What I do
know -- what I do know -- is he wants to do something. He will not
leave Iran in a position to be a nuclear power, in a position to be
the threat.

And the other point that's made in the article, one of the other
points is, the White House understands that the world perceives Iran
as the winner of the American sort of colossal failure we've had in
Iraq. I mean, the screw-up in Iraq has put Iran in enormous power
because the Shiites in the south of Iraq are very close to their
needs.

BLITZER: And one new element in all of this -- you mentioned the
British on board, the Australians -- but France, the new government of
President Sarkozy, the new foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, who was
here last week on "Late Edition," they're sounding a lot different
than their predecessors, President Chirac and Dominique de Villepin.

HERSH: Absolutely. They're very tough. The French really believe the
Iranians are very close to a bomb, and they see that as an issue. But
it's also interesting because my friends who -- there are people --
the French also are communicating they are not in favor of a strike.

So the more -- they're the loudest on the outside. They're making a
lot of noise about we must do something politically. They're putting a
lot of pressure on the Iranians. I think the French would very much
like to see the Iranians get serious.

But they're not serious in talks at this point, from our point of
view, because until they agree to give up developing enriched uranium,
as far as we're concerned, we're not going to deal with them.

BLITZER: "Target Iran: Why the Administration is Redefining its Case
Against Tehran." Seymour Hersh is the reporter writing in the new
issue of the New Yorker Magazine. Sy, thanks for coming in.

HERSH: Glad to be here.


Hersh: 'War with Iran will be about protecting the troops in Iraq'
09/30/2007 @ 12:51 pm

http://rawstory.com//news/2007/Seymo...will_0930.html

Filed by Greg Wasserstrom

The only thing different about the Bush Administration's rhetoric
about Iran and statements made Iraq before the US invasion in 2003 are
the words chosen, says journalist Seymour Hersh.
Advertisement
"They've changed their rhetoric, really. The name of the game used to
be nuclear threat," Hersh said on CNN's Late Edition with Wolf
Blitzer, adding a moment later, "They've come to the realization that
it's not selling, it isn't working. The American people aren't worried
about Iran as a nuclear threat certainly as they were about Iraq. So
they've switched, really."
The Bush Administration is all but set to authorize a campaign of
limited, surgical airstrikes against Iranian targets, Hersh reports in
the New Yorker's latest edition. In his piece, Hersh writes, "During a
secure videoconference that took place early this summer, the
President told Ryan Crocker, the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, that he was
thinking of hitting Iranian targets across the border and that the
British 'were on board'... Bush ended by instructing Crocker to tell
Iran to stop interfering in Iraq or it would face American
retribution."
The sites in Iran being targeted however, reflect the change in the
White House selling of armed conflict with Iran.
"Instead of... hitting the various [nuclear] facilities we know that
exist, instead they're going to hit the Iranians as payback for
hitting us [in Iraq]," Hersh told Blitzer in the CNN interview.
Such targets, Hersh says, would include Iran's Revolutionary Guard
headquarters and other sites of Iran's alleged support for the
insurgency in Iraq.
Hersh does not seem to think that direct conflict with Iran is
inevitable however. He writes: "I was repeatedly cautioned, in
interviews, that the President has yet to issue the "execute order"
that would be required for a military operation inside Iran, and such
an order may never be issued. But there has been a significant
increase in the tempo of attack planning. In mid-August, senior
officials told reporters that the Administration intended to declare
Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps a foreign terrorist organization. And
two former senior officials of the C.I.A. told me that, by late
summer, the agency had increased the size and the authority of the
Iranian Operations Group."
Those statements were echoed in the piece by former National Security
Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski. "'A lot depends on how stupid the
Iranians will be,' Brzezinski told me. 'Will they cool off Ahmadinejad
and tone down their language?' The Bush Administration, by charging
that Iran was interfering in Iraq, was aiming 'to paint it as 'We're
responding to what is an intolerable situation,'' Brzezinski said.
'This time, unlike the attack in Iraq, we're going to play the victim.
The name of our game seems to be to get the Iranians to overplay their
hand.'"
READ HERSH'S FULL ARTICLE AT THIS LINK.
VIDEO FROM LATE EDITION, BROADCAST SEPTEMBER 30, 2007

-----------------------------------------------------------------------



Annals of National Security
Shifting Targets
The Administration's plan for Iran.

by Seymour M. Hersh October 8, 2007

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2...8fa_fact_hersh

--------------------------------------------------------------

('JINSA John') Bolton calls for bombing of Iran (for Israel)

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/tory2...180555,00.html

Ros Taylor
Sunday September 30, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
John Bolton: 'I think we have to look at a limited strike against
their nuclear facilities.' Photograph Win McNamee/Getty Images.
John Bolton, the former US ambassador to the United Nations, told Tory
delegates today that efforts by the UK and the EU to negotiate with
Iran had failed and that he saw no alternative to a pre-emptive strike
on suspected nuclear facilities in the country.
Mr Bolton, who was addressing a fringe meeting organised by Lord
(Michael) Ancram, said that the Iranian president, Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad, was "pushing out" and "is not receiving adequate push-
back" from the west.
"I don't think the use of military force is an attractive option, but
I would tell you I don't know what the alternative is.
"Because life is about choices, I think we have to consider the use of
military force. I think we have to look at a limited strike against
their nuclear facilities."
He added that any strike should be followed by an attempt to remove
the "source of the problem", Mr Ahmadinejad.
"If we were to strike Iran it should be accompanied by an effort at
regime change ... The US once had the capability to engineer the
clandestine overthrow of governments. I wish we could get it back."
The fact that intelligence about Iran's nuclear activity was partial
should not be used as an excuse not to act, Mr Bolton insisted.
"Intelligence can be wrong in more than one direction." He asked how
the British government would respond if terrorists exploded a nuclear
device at home. "'It's only Manchester?' ... Responding after they're
used is unacceptable."
Mr Bolton, now a fellow at the conservative thinktank the American
Enterprise Institute and the author of a forthcoming book called
Surrender is Not an Option, was applauded by delegates when he
described the UN as "fundamentally irrelevant".
Defending the decision to invade Iraq, he mocked the Foreign Office's
"softly softly" approach to Iran's imprisonment of 15 British sailors
accused of straying into Iranian waters in April this year.
They were released after Mr Ahmadinejad announced he was making a
"gift" to the British people. "They [Iran] got no response from the UK
or the US. If you were the Iranian leader, what conclusion do you
draw?"
Mr Bolton said he did not really want "to get into the specifics of
your own internal politics here" and made no comment on David
Cameron's foreign policy. But he said that Gordon Brown's performance
under pressure had not been tested and he hoped that Britain would not
withdraw from Iraq.
"There is too much of a view in Europe that you have passed beyond
history," Mr Bolton told delegates. "That everything can be worked out
by negotiation ... Democrats or Republicans, we [Americans] don't see
it that way."
However, he praised the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, and his
forthright criticism of Iran in recent weeks.
Raising the spectre of George Bush's "axis of evil", Mr Bolton said
that Kim Jong-il's regime in North Korea was akin to a "prison camp"
and that he would "sell anything to anyone".
Those who thought North Korea would give up its nuclear capability
voluntarily were wrong, he said.
The regime had made similar promises during the past decade. Only
reunification between North and South Korea could resolve the problem.
That could be achieved "if China were to get serious" and cut off fuel
supplies to Mr Kim, but the country feared a reunited Korea.
Mr Bolton told an inquiring delegate that he was not and had never
been a neoconservative: "I'm not even a Reagan conservative. I'm a
[Barry] Goldwater conservative. They [neocons] have somewhat - I would
say excessively - Wilsonian views about the benefits of democracy."
However, the threat to world peace did not come from neoconservatives
but from the perception that "we have passed beyond history", he
said.
The meeting was organised by the Global Strategy Forum, of which Lord
Ancram is chairman. Earlier this month, the former Conservative deputy
leader criticised the direction in which David Cameron was taking the
party and for "trashing" its Thatcherite heritage.

------------------------------------------------------

Bolton was (and I assume still is) associated with JINSA (Jewish
Institute for National Security Affairs) as Brit MP (and former Father
of the Commons) Tam Dalyell even conveyed that JINSA had too much
influence on the Bush regime (see the articles linked at the following
of the following URL):

http://www.democracynow.org/article....3/05/13/179248

-----------------------------------------------------------

Read more about JINSA (Jewish Institute for National Security) via the
UPI article which is at the beginning of the following URL about the
Mearsheimer & Walt book
(www.israellobbybook.com):

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/zone0...ic.php?t=49800

---------------------------------------------------------------

Colin Powell even conveyed that the 'JINSA crowd' was in control of
the Pentagon for Washington Post correspondent Karen DeYoung's bio
book about him (simply look up 'JINSA/Jewish Institute for National
Security Affairs' in the index) as Cheney has been associated with
JINSA (and PNAC as well) as Fisk conveyed via http://tinyurl.com/2poj3o
for the London Independent:

A War for Israel: Colin Powell Seems to Think So:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/zone0...ic.php?t=61128

-----------------------------------------------------------

Teflon Alliance with Israel:

http://www.itszone.co.uk/zone0/viewtopic.php?t=79679

---------------------------------------------------------------

What World War III
May Look Like

http://tinyurl.com/yqpapa

------------------------------------------------------------------

Meet the "Whack Iran" Lobby
Exiles peddling shaky intelligence, advocacy groups pressing for
regime change, neocons bent on remaking the Middle East. Sound
familiar?
Daniel Schulman
October 06 , 2006
http://www.motherjones.com/news/upda...6/09/iran.html
Exiles peddling back-channel intelligence, upstart advocacy groups
pressing for regime change, administration hawks intent on remaking
the Middle East-the scene in Washington is looking eerily familiar as
the Iran standoff grows more tense. Instead of Ahmad Chalabi, we have
the likes of Iran-Contra arms-dealer Manucher Ghorbanifar. A new Iran
directorate inside the Pentagon features some of the same people who
brought you the Iraq intel-cherrypicking operation at the Office of
Special Plans. Whether calling for outright regime change or pushing
"democracy promotion" initiatives to undermine the Iranian government,
an expanding cast of characters has emerged to promote confrontation
between the U.S. and Iran. What follows is an abridged list of the
individuals and organizations agitating to bring down the mullahs.
Abram Shulsky
An acolyte of political philosopher Leo Strauss, one of the
intellectual forbears of the neoconservative movement and an advocate
of the "noble lie,"-the notion that deception is morally acceptable
when used by a wise, but misunderstood elite--Shulsky headed the
Pentagon's Office of Special Plans, which trafficked in faulty
intelligence on Iraq (including information from Ahmad Chalabi's Iraqi
National Congress) and circumvented the CIA to "stovepipe" WMD
intelligence directly to the White House. As Laura Rozen reported in
the Los Angeles Times in May, Shulsky, along with two former OSP
staffers, John Trigilio and Ladan Archin, is now involved with the
Pentagon's Iran directorate. Already there are fears that the office
has become a conduit for Iranian expatriate and one-time arms dealer
Manucher Ghorbanifar, an Iran-Contra figure whom the CIA deemed a
fabricator as far back as 1984. In a 1999 paper called "Leo Strauss
and the World of Intelligence," co-authored with the American
Enterprise Institute's Gary Schmitt, Shulsky writes that "Strauss's
view certainly alerts one to the possibility that political life may
be closely linked to deception. Indeed, it suggests that deception is
the norm in political life, and the hope, to say nothing of the
expectation, of establishing a politics that can dispense with it is
the exception."
Elizabeth Cheney
The vice president's eldest daughter's official title is Vice
Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern
Affairs; in that capacity, Cheney, until her maternity leave earlier
this year, oversaw the State Department's Iran-Syria Operations Group,
whose mission is to aggressively push democracy promotion campaigns.
Sometimes referred to as the agency's "democracy czar," Cheney had no
Middle East assignments before being appointed to her current post,
which involves launching a $85 million democracy promotion/propaganda
campaign targeting Iran. At Foggy Bottom, she "has not shied away from
throwing her weight around," according to the American Prospect, and
has been said to operate a "shadow Middle East policy." She rarely
speaks publicly or grants interviews; in an appearance at the Foreign
Policy Association in 2005, she called Iran "the world's leading
sponsor of terror. No word on when and in what capacity Cheney will
return from her leave.
David Wurmser
Long before being recruited to the Pentagon from the American
Enterprise Institute following September 11, Wurmser was one of the
loudest voices calling for Saddam Hussein's ouster. During the 1990s
he co-authored a strategy paper-intended as advice to then-Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu-with a string of neoconservatives
including Douglas Feith, Richard Perle, and his wife, Meyrav, a Middle
East policy wonk at the Hudson Institute. It suggested "removing
Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq... as a means of foiling Syria's
regional ambitions" and advancing Israel's. As Mother Jones reported,
Wurmser was also the "founding participant of the unnamed, secret
intelligence unit at the Pentagon, set up in Feith's office, which
would be the nucleus of the Defense Department's Iraq disinformation
campaign that was established within weeks of the attacks in New York
and Washington." He served as an assistant to John Bolton at the State
Department before becoming one of the Vice President's Middle East
advisors. Less than two weeks after September 11, Wurmser described
discontent within Iran as "a strategic opportunity" for the U.S.
Elliott Abrams
Since his return to public service after pleading guilty to two
misdemeanor counts for withholding information from Congress as it
probed the Iran-Contra scandal (he was later pardoned by President
George H. W. Bush), Abrams has been a key player in shaping the Bush
administration's Middle East agenda. In 2005, he was tapped as deputy
national security adviser and is now responsible for pushing the
administration's reform agenda in the Middle East. A founding member
of the neocon think tank Project for the New American Century, Abrams
joined Paul Wolfowitz and Donald Rumsfeldin signing a 1998 letter to
Bill Clinton urging regime change in Iraq. Abrams has written that
"our military strength and willingness to use it will remain a key
factor in our ability to promote peace."
Michael Ledeen
From his perch at the American Enterprise Institute, Michael Ledeen
has long advocated toppling the Iranian regime. Criticizing U.S.
policy toward Iran in March, he wrote, "Iran has been at war with us
for 27 years, and we have discussed every imaginable subject with
them. We have gained nothing, because there is nothing to be gained by
talking with an enemy who thinks he is winning.... If this
administration were true to its announced principles, we would be
actively supporting democratic revolution in Iran, but we do not seem
to be serious about doing that." In the mid-1980s, Ledeen played a
part in Iran-Contra by arranging meetings between the U.S. and his
close friend Manucher Ghorbanifar; in 2001, he rekindled that
relationship when he set up a meeting in Rome between Ghorbanifar and
two Pentagon officials, Harold Rhode and Larry Franklin, to talk about
regime change.
Manucher Ghorbanifar
Though Manucher Ghorbanifar has failed a CIA-administered lie detector
test and the agency has issued not one but two "burn notices" warning
field agents against using him, he continues to have the ear of
neocons within the Pentagon. He has claimed, among other things, that
there was an Iranian plot afoot to attack U.S. soldiers in
Afghanistan, that Tehran was planning attacks against the U.S., and
that weapons-grade uranium had been smuggled into Iran from Iraq.
Ghorbanifar, via a middleman, is also alleged to be the source behind
Congressman Curt Weldon's more outlandish claims about the Iranian
threat to the U.S., which he compiled in his 2005 book Countdown to
Terror. As Laura Rozen reported recently in Mother Jones, "Weldon's
main source, a mysterious Iranian whom the congressman code-names
'Ali,' is, in fact, Ghorbanifar's longtime business partner and
personal secretary, Fereidoun Mahdavi.... Mahdavi, in turn, told me that
the information he gave Weldon came from Ghorbanifar, who appears to
have used him as a kind of cutout - a vehicle for laundering
intelligence." This same Ghorbanifar associate told Rozen in late
September that Ghorbanifar "is again giving his information to
Washington. He implied that U.S. officials call him up frequently."
Committee on the Present Danger
First formed in 1950 as a lobby to alert the nation to the Soviet
menace and revived in 1976, the committee was resurrected for a third
time in 2004, its mission to "educate free people everywhere about the
threat posed by global radical Islamist and fascist terrorist
movements" and to support "policies aimed at winning the global war
against terrorism and the movements and ideologies that drive it." Co-
chaired by former CIA director James Woolsey and former Secretary of
State George Shultz - Senators Joe Lieberman and Jon Kyl are honorary
co-chairs - the committee is packed with academics and former
government officials who share hawkish perspectives and a particular
fixation on Iran. One of the committee's first actions upon re-forming
was to release a policy paper advocating "non-violent" regime change
in Iran.
Iran Policy Committee
Directed by former CIA officer Clare Lopez, the IPC's membership
includes former military and intelligence officials who believe that
the U.S. should pursue a "third alternative" on Iran (the first and
second being diplomacy or pre-emptive military action). While leaving
both military and diplomatic options on the table, IPC advocates
propping up the Iranian opposition to "facilitate regime change."
Among its favored dissident factions are the militant group MEK and
its political arm, the National Council of Resistance of Iran. But in
order for the U.S. to enter direct talks with these groups, as the IPC
has suggested, the State Department will first have to remove them
from its roster of foreign terrorist organizations - a move the IPC is
actively lobbying for.
Foundation for Democracy in Iran
Co-founded in 1995 by investigative journalist and activist Kenneth
Timmerman, the Foundation is among the oldest of a constellation of
advocacy groups -- including the now defunct Coalition for Democracy
in Iran established by Michael Ledeen, James Woolsey, and former AIPAC
director Morris Amitay - that have sprung up to push a hard line on
Iran. "We are not in a political debate with this regime," Timmerman
has said. "We are in the business of overthrowing them." Timmerman's
group, like the Iran Policy Committee, supports aiding Iranian
opposition groups to bring down the regime. Timmerman, according to
his Web site, is also working with the families of 9/11 victims to put
together a class action suit against the Iranian government "because
of its direct, material involvement in the al Qaeda plot to attack
America."
Daniel Schulman is a Mother Jones investigative fellow.

-------------------------------------------------------------


http://nomorewarforisrael.blogspot.com


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------


Neocon 'godfather' Norman Podhoretz tells Bush: bomb Iran

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle2558296.ece

Sarah Baxter, Washington

ONE of the founding fathers of neoconservatism has privately urged
President George W Bush to bomb Iran rather than allow it to acquire
nuclear weapons.
Norman Podhoretz, an intellectual guru of the neoconservative movement
who has joined Rudolph Giuliani's 2008 presidential campaign as a
senior foreign policy adviser, held an unpublicised meeting with Bush
late last spring at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York.
The encounter reveals the enduring influence of the neoconservatives
at the highest reaches of the White House, despite some high-profile
casualties in the past year.
Karl Rove, who was still serving in the White House as Bush's deputy
chief of staff, took notes. But the meeting, which lasted 45 minutes,
was not logged on the president's schedule.
"I urged Bush to take action against the Iranian nuclear facilities
and explained why I thought there was no alternative," said Podhoretz,
77, in an interview with The Sunday Times.
"I laid out the worst-case scenario - bombing Iran - versus the worst-
case consequences of allowing the Iranians to get the bomb."
He also told Bush: "You have the awesome responsibility to prevent
another holocaust. You're the only one with the guts to do it." The
president looked very solemn, Podhoretz said.
For the most part Bush simply listened, although he and Rove both
laughed when Podhoretz mentioned giving "futility its chance", a
phrase used by his fellow neoconservative, Robert Kagan, about the
usefulness of pursuing United Nations sanctions against Iran.
"He gave not the slightest indication of whether he agreed with me,
but he listened very intently," Podhoretz said.
He is convinced, however, that "George Bush will not leave office with
Iran having acquired a nuclear weapon or having passed the point of no
return" - a reference to the Iranians' acquisition of sufficient
technical capability to produce a nuclear weapon.
"The president has said several times that he will be in the
historical dock if he allows Iran to get the bomb. He believes that if
we wait for threats to fully materialise, we'll have waited too long -
something I agree with 100%," Podhoretz said The question of how to
stop Iran has acquired renewed urgency after Mahmoud Ahma-dinejad, the
Iranian president, declared at the United Nations last week that the
dispute over his country's nuclear programme was now "closed".
He added that Iran would disregard any sanctions imposed by "arrogant
powers" for pursuing peaceful nuclear energy.
President Nicolas Sarkozy of France said flatly: "Everyone knows that
this programme has military aims." However, his call for stronger
sanctions against Iran was ignored in favour of further delays.
The UN security council, facing deadlock with Russia and China, agreed
on Friday to give Iran until November to answer questions from the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) about its nuclear
programme.
The National Council of Resistance of Iran, a controversial opposition
group that first revealed the existence of the Natanz uranium
enrichment plant, claimed last week that Iran was fooling the IAEA by
constructing a secret underground military facility three miles south
of Natanz under a granite mountain.
Kayhan, one of the most influential pro-regime newspapers in Iran,
hinted in a recent editorial entitled "Why there won't be a war" that
there are more nuclear projects than have been disclosed. "Are Iran's
nuclear installations confined only to those places which have been
declared?" it asked.
"Can America be sure that if it destroys these it will have eradicated
the whole of Iran's nuclear programme, or at least set it back for a
long time?"
The paper, which is edited by Hossein Shariatmadari, a senior member
of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and a close adviser of Ayatollah
Ali Khame-nei, Iran's spiritual leader, concluded that the
"hullaballoo" about American military action was "psychological
warfare aimed only at frightening us".
The editorial touched on several sore points, as US military and
intelligence sources admit that not all Iran's suspected nuclear
facilities have been identified and others may be buried almost
impenetrably deep in mountainous areas of the country.
Admiral William Fallon, US commander in the Middle East, said last
week that the "constant drumbeat of war is not helpful". But he added
that the pressure on Iran would continue: "We have a very, very robust
capability in the region, especially in comparison to Iran. That is
one of the things people might like to keep in mind."
Podhoretz told Bush that he thought America could strike Iran
militarily without nuclear weaponry. "I'm against using nuclear
weapons and I don't think they are necessary," he said. He believes
the British response to Iran's seizure of Royal Navy hostages last
spring will have convinced Tehran's leaders that they will be able to
act with even greater impunity if they became a nuclear power.
Podhoretz has laid out his views in a new book, World War IV: The Long
Struggle Against Islamofascism. He believes that it has a good deal in
common with the cold war, an ideological battle lasting 42 years,
which he describes as world war three.
"The key to understanding what is happening is to see it as a
successor to the previous totalitarian challenge to our civilisation,"
he said.
Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran are merely different fronts of the same
long war, he believes.
Podhoretz, who described himself as a neoconservative before the term
was invented, has seen the movement develop from a small band of
"dissident intellectuals" to one of the intellectual forces behind
Ronald Reagan and, later, the war in Iraq.
Along the way, key people such as "Scooter" Libby, the senior aide to
Dick Cheney, the vice-president, and Paul Wolfo-witz, the former World
Bank president, have fallen from grace. "Some of us have been picked
off and others have lost heart," Podhoretz said.
However, neoconservatives are helping to shape the foreign policy of
Giuliani, the Republican frontrunner for the White House, who said in
London recently that he would not tolerate a nuclear-armed Iran.
Podhoretz has already explained his theory about Islamofascism to the
former New York mayor. "He doesn't call it world war four, but I know
he thinks it is," Podhoretz said.
Watch the video
During the CNN Republican Presidential Debate, Giuliani said he would
use nuclear weapons to destroy Iranian nuclear power (June 2007)

-------------------------------------------------------------------

One can read more about Podhoretz and his Neoconservatism (which is a
Jewish movement even if not all Jews support it) via the 'Thinking
about Neoconservatism' and 'Neoconservatism as a Jewish Movement'
pieces which are linked near the top of the following URL:

http://www.itszone.co.uk/zone0/viewtopic.php?t=32606

-----------------------------------------------------------

New book challenges US support for Israel

http://tinyurl.com/3ay3wg

-----------------------------------------------------------------



Joseph A. Palermo
Senate Urges Bush to Attack Iran
Posted September 27, 2007 | 06:51 PM (EST)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joseph...a_b_66223.html


Yesterday, Democratic Senators Hillary Clinton (NY), Chuck Schumer
(NY), Bob Menendez (NJ), Barbara Mikulski (MD), and Ben Cardin (MD)
all voted in favor of the "Kyl-Lieberman Iran Amendment." This piece
of legislation actually encourages the practitioner of cowboy
diplomacy, George W. Bush, to be even more belligerent in his foreign
policy. The Kyl-Lieberman Amendment passed by a vote of 76 to 22.
Chris Dodd and Joe Biden voted against it, and Barack Obama missed the
vote.

The amendment states: "The United States should designate Iran's
Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps as a foreign terrorist
organization . . . and place the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps on
the list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists."

Kyl-Lieberman is the first step in providing Congressional legitimacy
for military action against Iran. The 76 to 22 vote, which also had
the support of Majority Leader Harry Reid, codifies U.S. Iran policy
and comes very close to sounding like a declaration of war.
Designating a four decades old military branch of a sovereign state a
"foreign terrorist organization" is an extreme step that is only
necessary or useful if there are plans "on the table" to do something
about it.

The U.S. troops in Iraq are not considered "foreign." The U.S. calls
those Iraqis who are resisting occupation "terrorists." Now a segment
of the Iranian armed forces is being labeled a terrorist organization.
Such a step is tantamount to a foreign government designating the U.S.
Marines a "foreign terrorist organization."

The Democratic Senate is playing right into the hands of those neo-
cons and crazies who think a military strike against Iran will improve
the situation in the Middle East. On the contrary, it will magnify the
current disaster in Iraq tenfold.

If the Senate and the Neo-Cons convince Bush to strike Iran they will
be sparking a real war with a nation that can fight back. With its 70
million people, high literacy rate, key geographic location, level of
economic development, and its control of a significant share of the
world's oil production, Iran is a nation that could cause quite a stir
if Bush is dim-witted enough to go down that terrible road.



I can envision a scenario where the United States launches a sustained
set of air raids against most of the infrastructure of Iran,
specifically targeting the "nuclear facilities" that are widely
dispersed throughout the country. The Democrats in Congress will be
jumping through hoops like well-trained circus dogs as they vote for
resolutions and give speeches validating the aggression. And then
we're off to the races in another illegal war against a nation that
has not attacked us.

Iran accounts for about 4 percent of the world's daily oil production,
and will surely shut off the spigots if it is attacked sending the
price of oil skyward. (Iran's ally Venezuela might follow suit.)
Petroleum analysts estimate that the world runs only about a 2 percent
excess capacity of oil production, which could mean an instant drop to
a negative world supply if Iran chooses to stop pumping. This
reduction in output alone could wreak havoc with global energy
markets.

Iran might also take the step of disrupting the oil production of
neighboring Gulf States through missile attacks on their oil
infrastructure and sabotage. The world production of oil could then
drop to a negative 10 percent or more, and the price could shoot up
even higher. The American people, who consume more oil per capita than
any people on earth, will be waiting in long lines to fill up our
tanks as we did during the Iranian revolution in 1978-79. Ordinary
Americans don't only get the privilege of paying for the costs of the
missiles and ordnance Bush will throw at Iran, but we also get the
honor of paying triple the amount for a gallon of gas while we are
queued up at the pump.

The Iranian silkworm missiles, supplied by China, (which recently
signed a $100 billion oil and gas deal with Iran), will rip through
the shipping of the Persian Gulf. Explosions of undetermined origin
will rake through the oil platforms and infrastructure of the Gulf
States. Iraq's civil war will reach a new intensity. And bombs will go
off throughout the region wreaking havoc with the smooth transport of
oil.

The Iranians and their allies in the Gulf will cause trouble in the
Straights of Hormuz where 40 percent of the world's oil passes. They
will turn the Gulf into a garbage dump of damaged ships and flaming
oil dereks. Russia and China will supply arms to Iran and the conflict
will continue, like Iraq, for as long as the United States tries to
impose its will on the region through brute force.

They will also probably have agents blow up U.S. embassies and other
targets all over the world. The war will be the most destabilizing the
Persian Gulf has ever seen.
Compounded with the financial strains of the $600 billion Iraq
occupation, the new war with Iran will run the risk of bankrupting the
United States. China might cash in some of its $1 trillion in U.S.
treasury bonds and exchange them for Euros. The value of the dollar
could then be suddenly devalued. The life savings of millions of
Americans could be threatened as the dollar tanks, and interest rates
shoot up when the central banks try to entice foreigners' to hang on
to their dollars to stop the hemorrhaging. And this devaluing of the
dollar could occur in an environment of hyperinflation because the
high price of oil will drive up the costs of everything.

So let's not let those narrow interests who seek another wider war in
the Middle East prevail. They don't really know what they're getting
themselves into.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

War with Iran real risk according to former CIA operative :

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/zone0...ic.php?t=71055

wrote:

URGENT: British on board with coming air strikes on Iran (according to
what Seymour Hersh mentioned in the following interview with Wolf
Blitzer on CNN yesterday morning):

You guys are barking mad.

The likelihood of the RAF bombing Iran is as close to zero as it could possibly get. An
absence of legal authority would probably mean the RAF wouldn't comply with any such
(political) orders. There would be public uproar here not least for being America's
puppet again.

We want to get out of the damn region not stir it up.

Graham

On Oct 1, 7:27 am, Eeyore
wrote:
wrote:
URGENT: British on board with coming air strikes on Iran (according to
what Seymour Hersh mentioned in the following interview with Wolf
Blitzer on CNN yesterday morning):

You guys are barking mad.

The likelihood of the RAF bombing Iran is as close to zero as it could possibly get. An
absence of legal authority would probably mean the RAF wouldn't comply with any such
(political) orders. There would be public uproar here not least for being America's
puppet again.

We want to get out of the damn region not stir it up.

Graham

Seymour Hersh has been so discredited (ever since his utterly false
allegations about the KAL 007 shootdown) that no one except the more
gullible segments of the controversy-loving American media would pay
the slightest attention to anything he said. This silliness just adds
to his fact-free view of the world.

Matt wrote:
On Oct 1, 7:27 am, Eeyore
wrote:
wrote:
URGENT: British on board with coming air strikes on Iran (according to
what Seymour Hersh mentioned in the following interview with Wolf
Blitzer on CNN yesterday morning):
You guys are barking mad.

The likelihood of the RAF bombing Iran is as close to zero as it could possibly get. An
absence of legal authority would probably mean the RAF wouldn't comply with any such
(political) orders. There would be public uproar here not least for being America's
puppet again.

We want to get out of the damn region not stir it up.

Graham

Seymour Hersh has been so discredited (ever since his utterly false
allegations about the KAL 007 shootdown) that no one except the more
gullible segments of the controversy-loving American media would pay
the slightest attention to anything he said. This silliness just adds
to his fact-free view of the world.

Hey, who needs facts when one has delusions? KAL 007 was shot down
by the single bullet that took out JFK when it ricocheted off of Jimmy
Hoffa.

Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired

Dan wrote:

Matt wrote:

On Oct 1, 7:27 am, Eeyore
wrote:

wrote:

URGENT: British on board with coming air strikes on Iran (according to
what Seymour Hersh mentioned in the following interview with Wolf
Blitzer on CNN yesterday morning):

You guys are barking mad.

The likelihood of the RAF bombing Iran is as close to zero as it
could possibly get. An
absence of legal authority would probably mean the RAF wouldn't
comply with any such
(political) orders. There would be public uproar here not least for
being America's
puppet again.

We want to get out of the damn region not stir it up.

Graham


Seymour Hersh has been so discredited (ever since his utterly false
allegations about the KAL 007 shootdown) that no one except the more
gullible segments of the controversy-loving American media would pay
the slightest attention to anything he said. This silliness just adds
to his fact-free view of the world.

Hey, who needs facts when one has delusions? KAL 007 was shot down by
the single bullet that took out JFK when it ricocheted off of Jimmy Hoffa.

Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired


Dan, no one with *brain* needs Seymour Hersh to see that the Bush
administration is playing from the same script, they were successful to
launch their aggression against Iraq. A aggression on Iran has already
been decided, in my opinion. The question is, what is after that?

So far Bush, the neocons quest for world domination has been a disaster
for our country, but for the military industrial complex and the oil
interest. With the support of the Democrats, don't be fooled by their
seeming resistance to the war, it will go on for a long time. Until our
nation is hollowed out by its imperial wars.

dapra wrote:

Dan wrote:

Matt wrote:

On Oct 1, 7:27 am, Eeyore
wrote:

wrote:

URGENT: British on board with coming air strikes on Iran (according to
what Seymour Hersh mentioned in the following interview with Wolf
Blitzer on CNN yesterday morning):

You guys are barking mad.

The likelihood of the RAF bombing Iran is as close to zero as it
could possibly get. An
absence of legal authority would probably mean the RAF wouldn't
comply with any such
(political) orders. There would be public uproar here not least for
being America's
puppet again.

We want to get out of the damn region not stir it up.

Graham


Seymour Hersh has been so discredited (ever since his utterly false
allegations about the KAL 007 shootdown) that no one except the more
gullible segments of the controversy-loving American media would pay
the slightest attention to anything he said. This silliness just adds
to his fact-free view of the world.

Hey, who needs facts when one has delusions? KAL 007 was shot down by
the single bullet that took out JFK when it ricocheted off of Jimmy Hoffa.

Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired


Dan, no one with *brain* reads Seymour Hersh .......

typo fixed.

redc1c4,
that also explains your fascination with his idiocies. %-)
--
"Enlisted men are stupid, but extremely cunning and sly, and bear
considerable watching."

Army Officer's Guide

redc1c4 wrote:

dapra wrote:

Dan wrote:


Matt wrote:


On Oct 1, 7:27 am, Eeyore
wrote:


wrote:


URGENT: British on board with coming air strikes on Iran (according to
what Seymour Hersh mentioned in the following interview with Wolf
Blitzer on CNN yesterday morning):

You guys are barking mad.

The likelihood of the RAF bombing Iran is as close to zero as it
could possibly get. An
absence of legal authority would probably mean the RAF wouldn't
comply with any such
(political) orders. There would be public uproar here not least for
being America's
puppet again.

We want to get out of the damn region not stir it up.

Graham


Seymour Hersh has been so discredited (ever since his utterly false
allegations about the KAL 007 shootdown) that no one except the more
gullible segments of the controversy-loving American media would pay
the slightest attention to anything he said. This silliness just adds
to his fact-free view of the world.


Hey, who needs facts when one has delusions? KAL 007 was shot down by
the single bullet that took out JFK when it ricocheted off of Jimmy Hoffa.

Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired


Dan, no one with *brain* reads Seymour Hersh .......


typo fixed.

redc1c4,

What else do you fix, redc1c4?

Do you fix the two millions of Iraqis forced to leave their country as
'freedom to travel, explore the world'?

Do you fix an other two millions of Iraqis forced to leave their homes
because of ethnic cleansing as 'free to live wherever they choose to live'?

I think, you did fix already that the close to 4 thousands American
soldiers did not die for the oil interests of the corporate oligarchy,
but for 'our freedom and democracy'.

What a fixer, you are redc1c4!

We want to get out of the damn region not stir it up.

Graham

What is your source for that?

No, we -absolutely- want bases in the Middle East. What we had/have
in Saudi Arabia was not satisfactory. Too many limits.

Let's give the Neo-Cons who run Bush some credit.

They knew the chance of reconciling Sunni and Shia after overthrowing
Saddam were vanishingly small.

They knew that disbanding the Iraqi army would cause chaos and civil
war.

They don't want an Iraqi national government. It might ask us to leave
some day.

They haven't been grossly incompetent; they've been as brilliant as
the Sun.

All of you that voted for Bush should be very proud of their success.

Walt



Walt

On Oct 1, 9:50?am, Matt wrote:
Seymour Hersh has been so discredited (ever since his utterly false
allegations about the KAL 007 shootdown) that no one except the more
gullible segments of the controversy-loving American media would pay
the slightest attention to anything he said. This silliness just adds
to his fact-free view of the world.

Sources please. How has Hersh been discredited?

Walt

On Oct 1, 6:04 pm, Walt wrote:
On Oct 1, 9:50?am, Matt wrote:

Seymour Hersh has been so discredited (ever since his utterly false
allegations about the KAL 007 shootdown) that no one except the more
gullible segments of the controversy-loving American media would pay
the slightest attention to anything he said. This silliness just adds
to his fact-free view of the world.

Sources please. How has Hersh been discredited?

Walt

Hersh claimed the Space Shuttle was involved in relaying KAL data even
though it was on an unclassified mission and had no suitable
equipment. Add that zero documentation or testimony has ever been
produced, and how does Hersh retain any credibility whatsoever?