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U.S. Conducting Secret Reconnaissance Missions in Iran, Preparing for Attack, Report Says
The United States has been sending special forces personnel into Iran to identify 36 or more nuclear, chemical and missile sites that could be destroyed by raids and precision strikes, the New Yorker reported yesterday (see GSN, Jan. 14). “The civilians in the Pentagon want to go into Iran and destroy as much of the military infrastructure as possible,” a government consultant with close ties to the U.S. Defense Department told the New Yorker. A former intelligence official said a U.S. commando task force is working closely with a group of Pakistani scientists who had had dealings with their Iranian counterparts. In exchange for this cooperation, U.S. officials pledged that Pakistan would not have make nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan available for outside questioning regarding his role in a nuclear black market operation, according to the official. “It’s a deal — a trade-off,” the former official said. “‘Tell us what you know about Iran and we will let your A. Q. Khan guys go.’ It’s the neoconservatives’ version of short-term gain at long-term cost. They want to prove that Bush is the antiterrorism guy who can handle Iran and the nuclear threat, against the long-term goal of eliminating the black market for nuclear proliferation.” Defense Department civilians have also been working with Israeli personnel to identify nuclear, chemical and missile sites inside Iran, the consultant told the New Yorker. The former official added that obtaining accurate intelligence on Iranian WMD programs is a priority for the Bush administration. “They don’t want to make any WMD intelligence mistakes, as in Iraq. The Republicans can’t have two of those. There’s no education in the second kick of a mule,” the former official said. Strategists at U.S. Central Command headquarters have also been asked to revise the U.S. contingency plan for an invasion of Iran, providing for a maximum ground and air attack, the New Yorker reported. “We’re not dealing with a set of National Security Council option papers here,” the former high-level intelligence official said. “They’ve already passed that wicket. It’s not if we’re going to do anything against Iran. They’re doing it” (Seymour Hersh, The New Yorker, Jan. 17). The Pentagon dismissed the allegations in the New Yorker in a release yesterday, saying, “Mr. Hersh’s source(s) feed him with rumor, innuendo, and assertions about meetings that never happened, programs that do not exist, and statements by officials that were never made.” “Mr. Hersh’s preference for single, anonymous, unofficial sources for his most fantastic claims makes it difficult to parse his discussion of Defense Department operations,” the statement adds (U.S. Defense Department release, Jan. 17). Pakistan yesterday denied allegations in the New Yorker article that it was helping to identify suspected Iranian weapons sites for air strikes, Agence France-Presse reported. “There is no such collaboration,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Masood Khan. “We do not have much information about Iran’s nuclear program so I think this report is far-fetched and it exaggerates facts which do not exist in the first place,” Khan said. “I do not think there is any substance in what has been reported. I think this is pure conjecture,” he added (Agence France-Presse/SpaceWar.com, Jan. 17). Meanwhile, U.S. President George W. Bush yesterday told NBC news that he would not rule out military action against Iran if disputes over its nuclear program were not resolved, Deutsche Presse-Agentur reported. “I hope we can solve it diplomatically, but I will never take any option off the table,” Bush said (Deutsche Presse-Agentur, Jan. 18). Iranian Defense Minister Ali Shamkhani said Iran was not fearful of an attack, Reuters reported. “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 Mehr news agency quoted Shamkhani as saying. “We can claim that we have rapidly produced equipment that has resulted in the greatest deterrent,” he said (Reuters, Jan. 18).
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