Preparing the Battlefield: The Bush Administration steps up its secret moves against Iran.
by Seymour M. Hersh New Yorker
Operations outside the knowledge and control of commanders have eroded “the coherence of military strategy,” one general says.
Late last year, Congress agreed to a request from
President Bush to fund a major escalation of covert operations against
Iran, according to current and former military, intelligence, and
congressional sources. These operations, for which the President sought
up to four hundred million dollars, were described in a Presidential
Finding signed by Bush, and are designed to destabilize the country’s
religious leadership. The covert activities involve support of the
minority Ahwazi Arab and Baluchi groups and other dissident
organizations. They also include gathering intelligence about Iran’s
suspected nuclear-weapons program.
Clandestine operations against
Iran are not new. United States Special Operations Forces have been
conducting cross-border operations from southern Iraq, with
Presidential authorization, since last year. These have included
seizing members of Al Quds, the commando arm of the Iranian
Revolutionary Guard, and taking them to Iraq for interrogation, and the
pursuit of “high-value targets” in the President’s war on terror, who
may be captured or killed. But the scale and the scope of the
operations in Iran, which involve the Central Intelligence Agency and
the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC),
have now been significantly expanded, according to the current and
former officials. Many of these activities are not specified in the new
Finding, and some congressional leaders have had serious questions
about their nature. more