The Sunday Age this morning has a rather small item on its front page about this piece from the New Yorker by well-known, and well-connected and usually authoritative writer Seymour Hersh....that the Bush Administration is planning an attack on Iraq.
This is the opening paragraph to Hershs' piece....
"The Bush Administration, while publicly advocating diplomacy in order to stop Iran fro pursuing a nuclear weapon, has increased clandestin activities inside Iran and intensified planning for possible major air attack. Current and forme American military and intelligence officials said tha Air Force planning groups are drawing up lists of targets, and teams of American combat troops have been ordered into Iran, under cover, to collect targeting data and to establish contact with anti-government ethnic-minority groups. The officials say that President Bush is determined to deny the Iranian regime the opportunity to begin a pilot program, planned for this spring, to enrich uranium".
And further...
"There is a growing conviction among members of the United States military, and in the international community, that President Bush’s ultimate goal in the nuclear confrontation with Iran is regime change. Iran’s President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has challenged the reality of the Holocaust and said that Israel must be “wiped off the map.” Bush and others in the White House view him as a potential Adolf Hitler, a former senior intelligence official said. “That’s the name they’re using. They say, ‘Will Iran get a strategic weapon and threaten another world war?'"
It is hard to know in all the hype and probably a degree of spin - even allowing for the fact that the Iranian President and his cohorts are potentially dangerous and have a warped view of the world and history - whether Iran does pose a real threat, but another attack or war in the Middle East will surely have "nasty" and widespread repercussions.
Read the full Hersh article here.
UPDATE: If it was thought that Hersh was writing some sort of conjecture [doubtful given Hershs' impeccable track-record] then this, just in, from The Washington Post, would suggest that Iran is very much on the Administration's agenda.
This is the opening paragraph to Hershs' piece....
"The Bush Administration, while publicly advocating diplomacy in order to stop Iran fro pursuing a nuclear weapon, has increased clandestin activities inside Iran and intensified planning for possible major air attack. Current and forme American military and intelligence officials said tha Air Force planning groups are drawing up lists of targets, and teams of American combat troops have been ordered into Iran, under cover, to collect targeting data and to establish contact with anti-government ethnic-minority groups. The officials say that President Bush is determined to deny the Iranian regime the opportunity to begin a pilot program, planned for this spring, to enrich uranium".
And further...
"There is a growing conviction among members of the United States military, and in the international community, that President Bush’s ultimate goal in the nuclear confrontation with Iran is regime change. Iran’s President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has challenged the reality of the Holocaust and said that Israel must be “wiped off the map.” Bush and others in the White House view him as a potential Adolf Hitler, a former senior intelligence official said. “That’s the name they’re using. They say, ‘Will Iran get a strategic weapon and threaten another world war?'"
It is hard to know in all the hype and probably a degree of spin - even allowing for the fact that the Iranian President and his cohorts are potentially dangerous and have a warped view of the world and history - whether Iran does pose a real threat, but another attack or war in the Middle East will surely have "nasty" and widespread repercussions.
Read the full Hersh article here.
UPDATE: If it was thought that Hersh was writing some sort of conjecture [doubtful given Hershs' impeccable track-record] then this, just in, from The Washington Post, would suggest that Iran is very much on the Administration's agenda.
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