OldManOnFire

Report: U.S. 'preparing the battlefield' in Iran
Story Highlights

New Yorker article says Congress authorized up to $400 million for covert ops in Iran

Journalist Seymour Hersh says program is being staged from Afghanistan

U.S. officials decline comment, deny the U.S. is launching raids from Iraq

Iranian general says troops are building graves for invaders in the event of war

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.

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. Watch Hersh discuss what he says are the administration's plans for Iran

"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.

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Did you know both our problems and the solutions can be found simply by looking in our mirrors...and...Never confuse the extraordinary stuff I think and write with that of a well-balanced person...

The_Heretic

The simple solution to really defeating Iran has nothing to do with military might or slipping arms to resistance groups. I say it's time for the official policy to be a campaign of the "little red, white'n'blue book" which would detail our country's greatest atributes but also admit our flaws. Let the Iranians get the straight story and pass it along to each other as they see fit.

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"Enough!!" -so rang Barack Obama's voice off the walls of Mile High Stadium

Kanadesaga

You mean when.

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"..., because hope don't park the motherfucking car."

OldManOnFire

Iranians have the Internet, CNN, all major newspapers and magazines, books, and already know the attributes and flaws of the USA. They're not a bunch of goat farmers...in fact many are quite Westernized.

Many Iranians are educated in the USA, travel to the USA, and I'm sure their world history education in public schools includes lots of stuff about the USA.

And what is it that needs to be 'defeated' regarding Iran????? Iran is a sovereign nation and their president is no worse than the asshole running the USA for the past seven years.

__________________
Did you know both our problems and the solutions can be found simply by looking in our mirrors...and...Never confuse the extraordinary stuff I think and write with that of a well-balanced person...

OldManOnFire

Do you think it's a fine idea for the US to do an unprovoked and preemptive strike against Iran??

This is a question for anyone who gives a rip about this topic...

__________________
Did you know both our problems and the solutions can be found simply by looking in our mirrors...and...Never confuse the extraordinary stuff I think and write with that of a well-balanced person...