http://www.cnn.com/2005/ALLPOLITICS/01/16/hersh.iran/index.html

"Bring 'em on" - GWB

I thought Bush's re-election was a mandate to continue the moral crusade. Oh wait...wasn't it a mandate to reform social security? Or was it a mandate to rework the tax code?

Shit, I guess it was a mandate the Bush administration to do whatever the hell they feels like doing.

Jesus, I feel like a Republican today.

We have the right to make war plans on any fucking country we want. We probably have a war plan for attacking France or Canada, but we're not going to implement it. Until it starts looking like we're actually going attack someone, take a Paxil and chill on the hystrionics.

--PunkDavid

You don't suppose they're just trying to sell papers, do you?

That's so, so....real!!

[/quote]

sell papers?naaaaa
anyway,if they really wanted to sell papers the cover would be like Ruport Murdoch's NY Post


I think Bush thinks he is "anti-terrorist man" a superhero
who will stop all global terrorism.

Funny, the only report in that liberal rag The New York Times, is a denial by the Pentagon.

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/politics ... n-usa.html

Seymour Hersh has to get back to journalism and stop trying to break the "big story".

--PunkDavid

I concur.

Condaleezz0rz Rice is golden?

is it weird if i feel more like laughing than crying? maybe it's by a total lack of surprise....i dunno....



that's funny...common you gotta give 'em that. Quick regime collapse....short war....walk in the park.... i mean....given all that happened during the last 2 and a half, 3 years with you know what.... that's fuckin' funny.

What was the other story Seymour Hersh broke? I agree, its probably just media scaremongering, but the Pentagon never denied the Hersh's claims either. I'm guessing if attacks continue, we may attack Iran, which would of course be a very, very bad mistake.

im pretty sure the pentagon has denied the whole article as one big falsehood

http://www.cnn.com/2005/ALLPOLITICS/01/17/hersh.iran/index.html


Pentagon blasts article alleging reconnaissance missions in Iran

Pentagon, White House say report 'riddled' with errors

Tuesday, January 18, 2005 Posted: 7:43 AM EST (1243 GMT)
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Pentagon is criticizing an article by investigative journalist Seymour Hersh that says the United States has been carrying out reconnaissance missions in Iran to identify nuclear, chemical and missile sites for possible airstrikes as soon as this summer.

But the Pentagon's response Monday did not specifically address Hersh's contention that the United States has been "conducting secret reconnaissance missions inside Iran since at least last summer" to identify and isolate at least three dozen targets in Iran "that could be destroyed by precision strikes and short-term commando raids." (Full story)

In a written statement, Pentagon spokesman Lawrence DiRita said Iran's "apparent nuclear ambitions and its demonstrated support for terrorist organizations is a global challenge that deserves much more serious treatment than Seymour Hersh provides in The New Yorker article titled 'The Coming Wars.' "

"Mr. Hersh's article is so riddled with errors of fundamental fact that the credibility of his entire piece is destroyed."

The statement cited Hersh's description of a post-election meeting between Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and the Joint Chiefs of Staff and said it "did not happen."

In the article, Hersh said the meeting was described to him by "a former high-level intelligence official."

The statement also disputed Hersh's assertion that "Rumsfeld and two of his key deputies, Stephen Cambone, the undersecretary of defense for intelligence, and Army Lt. Gen. William G. [Jerry] Boykin, will be part of the chain of command for the new commando operations."

"The only civilians in the chain of command are the president and the secretary of defense, despite Mr. Hersh's confident assertion that the chain of command now includes two department policy officials. His assertion is outrageous, and constitutionally specious."

Hersh also said Doug Feith, the undersecretary of defense for policy, oversaw Defense Department civilians who "have been working with Israeli planners and consultants to develop and refine potential nuclear, chemical-weapons and missile targets inside Iran."

But DiRita said ties between Feith and Israel "do not exist."

The defense spokesman added, "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.' "

Hersh described DiRita's criticisms as "quibbling."

Hersh said his information came from "very, very senior" sources.

"There are serious people on the inside who don't like what's going on and don't have a way to communicate that," he said. "The real issue is: What are we doing? Who's in control here? The Pentagon? The White House? That's the real issue."

Senior officials told CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr that there is no immediate planning for a strike against Iran.

Iran has refused to dismantle its nuclear program, which it insists is legal and intended solely for peaceful purposes. Hersh said U.S. officials were involved in "extensive planning" for a possible attack -- "much more than we know."

He said his information came from "inside" sources who divulged it in hopes that publicity about the alleged plans would force the administration to reconsider them.

"I think that's one of the reasons some of the people on the inside talk to me," he said Sunday on CNN's "Late Edition."

In an interview on the same program, White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett said the story was "riddled with inaccuracies."

"I don't believe that some of the conclusions he's drawing are based on fact," Bartlett said.

The United States is working with its European allies to help persuade Iran not to pursue nuclear weapons, Bartlett said.

Asked if military action is an option should diplomacy fail, Bartlett said, "No president at any juncture in history has ever taken military options off the table."

That the Pentagon would have contingency plans for an attack on Iran is "not unusual," former Secretary of Defense William Cohen told CNN Monday.

"The issue really is whether or not this information being gathered is to help put pressure on the Europeans to bring more pressure on Iran to cease and desist from its nuclear ambitions," Cohen said. "Or whether or not that decision's already been made and they're actually planning a military operation."

Cohen noted that Hersh's article has not been "categorically denied" by the Bush administration.

"So there seems to be some confirmation that there is a fairly serious effort under way to gather this kind of information for potential military operations," he said.

Iran, meanwhile, on Tuesday said it has the power to deter any attacks.

"We are able to say that we have strength such that no country can attack us because they do not have precise information about our military capabilities due to our ability to implement flexible strategies," the semi-official Mehr news agency quoted Iranian Defense Minister Ali Shamkhani as saying. (Full story)

Of course the Pentagon would deny it. I'm not rushing to conclusions, but it wouldn't surprise me in the least that U.S. intelligence is looking into Iran's weapons programs. How they are doing it is another thing.

I think I just want to ask how people here feel about the idea of going to war against Iran?
I see the administration is paying very close attention to their development of nuclear capabilities, which I don't necessarily find to be a bad this (the administration keeping watch over them), but what happens if we go to war against them? Do people think they'll start dropping bombs etc? will we do the same? should we?
Iranians (a majority of them) already think of the USA as a country of devils etc, I don't know that they'd show much hesitation or restraint in using nuclear weapons if we engaged them in a war.

This isn't really on topic but it's gotten me wondering about it.

you have me totally confused here, you said youre not going to jump to conclusions, yet you said you havent seen the pentagon denying this, when the first day this hit the airwaves i had seen where it was denied and was all lies and conjecture.

im sure the US has plans for all countries, its just ones that are trying to be sneaky more or less

A war against Iran will never happen. We are stretched far to thin on troops, and I'm hoping that the people in the administration would have more sense that this. Most people here view the war in Iraq as a mess if not a failure, not to mention the entire world would be against us, including Britain. Again, I would hope that our leaders have more sense than this.

Seymour Hersh first became famous by breaking the My Lai story about the atrocities done by American soldiers upon civilians in Vietnam. More recently, he has been at the forefront of breaking the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal, and was the first to publish a story showing the now famous photos, and publicizing the existence of the Teguba Report showing that the abuse was known at the highest levels of the government several months before his story broke.

--PunkDavid