WAR: US Conducting Missions Inside Iran

Seymour Hersh is reporting in this Sunday's edition of The New Yorker that the US has been running reconaissance missions inside Iran since last summer. Along with overflights by jets and unmanned planes - which Iran has already stated they'll shoot down - is a special task force that has been making incursions into Eastern Iran to look for nuclear facilities. Hersh says that the President has signed Executive Orders allowing for covert ops in as many as ten Middle East and Southeast Asian nations.

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This - if true - gives some creedence to the fears that Iran is next. However, I'm sure that we've been doing recon of Iran for a very, very long time. It doesn't suprise me to hear this, it seems like it's just standard M.O. that I'm sure has been happening long before the War on Terror.

The White House, through top aide Dan Bartlett, says that Hersh's findings are "riddled with inaccuracies, and I don't believe that some of the conclusions he's drawing are based on fact." He also stated on CNN's "Late Edition" that the US will be doing all it can to convince Iran not to pursue nuclear weapons.

On Monday the Pentagon made further statements debunking Hersh's claims.



Related AboveTopSecret.com Discussion Threads:
WAR: US Jets Over Iran, Unidentified Aircraft Ordered Shot Down

[edit on (1/17/0505 by PistolPete]

It stands to reason, they are after all a member of dubyas axis
of evil.......... he was just waiting to get re-elected and now that
that has happened, he has a green light to do whatever he wants
to get rid of the Iranians and North Koreans!

Watch for another earthquake in Iran and possibly N. korea.

[edit on 1/16/2005 by Soul Reaper]

Well, there we go, not to say I didn't see it coming a few light-years away...

And with Iran, comes Syria, with Syria, we will soon be dabbling in other areas, like North Korea. All I can say, is that the people who voted for Bush have blood on there hands and it is not of the enemy, it is of the innocent.

Provocation, provocation, provocation~

The US for some reason wants Iran to react violently. Iraq isn't enough, the land bridge must have Iran as well.

Iran is not Iraq. Iran is mountainous and fairly unified. IF the US just wants excuses to shut down Iranian oil and trade then maybe this is the goal. Conquest, at this stage, is out of the question. Embargo or destabilization could be the present US goals.

Opps, dern, seems Mr. Hersh has now made something that was so-deemed "secret", public knowledge. Its not a secret anymore, huh?





seekerof

My one question about a supposed invasion if Iran is where the hell is the money going to come from? The US is already spending Billions in Iraq so i guess you can double the current spending after an invasion of Iran.
Also are there enough troops in country to have an effective presence in Iraq as well as effectivly taking out Iran as well. Its no good blowing a few instalations and then leaving it at that. They will have to put boots on the ground to ensure Iran doesnt charge over the border like a swarm of angry bees afterwards. I think ill take any invasion of Iran with a pinch of salt for now.

[edit on 16-1-2005 by Janus]

I think it looks pretty plausible that the Pentagon did close recon for means of a feasabillity study. Especially if they can disrupt irans nuclear program with a surgical strike at their faccillites and/or political leaders, OR they conclude that Irans program is too dispersed / stealth to guarantuee success.

The latter case would need a full scale ground invasion to really check out what's going on and destroy it, I think this alternative looks much less attractive than cruise missile strikes ?

Not only considering the resistence that might come from the iranian army and or insurgants, but also I would expect China to be seriously piss off if Bush messes with their oildealer. Also there is the little campfire going in iraq that just doesn't want to be smothered....Put some sji'ite uprise on top of that and your campfire has just become a Bushfire, pretty soon the president will have a sleepless night considering the nuclear option

I therefore expect a surgical faccility strike first, Maybe Teheran will get the message, maybe not, if it turns out that Iran would give green light to Hizbollah in south lebanon to harass Israel with the much hypothised medium range missiles, well, then things escalate bigtime and all bets are off....

Syria would become involve as well, maybe Turkey graps oppertunity to play the hero for the West and speed up access to the European Union, by settling some old scores with Syria.

.....A pretty explosive situation that might blow up in your face, reason why I think the White House might be cautious about setting the whole middle east on fire, unless they want to run the whole middle-east by marshall law and bring back the good old colonial times, well good luck to you....better have some good backup plans...



[edit on 16-1-2005 by Countermeasures]

Anyone remember one of the ploys Hitler cooked up to "validate" his invasion of Poland. He had some prisoners dress up as Polish soldiers and raid a German radio station, killed a few people, shot some of the "poles" and used that as evidence of Polish Border incursions. Next think you know the German Army was rolling into Poland. I wonder if we can expect something like that? false flag ops anyone?

i can't see the US starting anything with iran on a large scale anytime soon. at the moment they have neither the man power, the funding, or the polular support at home for another full scale war. besides, the iranian people are already pro-democratic and it's only a matter of time before they take some kind of action themselves, or with some help from the cia. the problems far outweigh the benifits of a major iranian invasion by the US. simply put: it's not worth it.

i think it far more likely that the US target syria as it will open supply lines to iraq from the sea, is a likely place to find iraqi WMD, and will disrupt the higher levels of the insurgency operating from syria. you can bet israel will be keen to get in on that as well.

for a succesful iranian invasion to happen a US draft would have to take place, the US economy would likely plunge and therefore the world economy would plunge, and the american people.....well who knows what might happen. but then again maybe that has been the goal all along.

-raven

If this story pans out and is confirmed, Bush is leading us down a dangerous road. Not only has he the Muslim world up in arms, here he is authorizing covert ops. in Iran. It would appear that he is he.. bent and bound to lead us into another altercation in that region of the world. Just how far is Bush and Cheney willing to go in hopes of securing the final drops of oil? Is it fair they should trade the blood of our young men and women so that they can make the sharholders of Haliburton even more wealthy? In deed not. Im starting to think that Bush has something up his sleave. His recent actions give me a bad feeling about this. Whatever it is I wish it would be exposed before it takes the lives of more of our men and women in uniform.

bush is obsessed with taking revenge and will go through anything to do it, even if it is a dangerous road or not.

The Iran / Iraq war lasted more than a decade with hundreds of thousands (if not more) deaths. Great. Use Iraq as a staging post and get them involved in another war with the neighbour and let the neighbour inflict heavy casualties on the Iraqi people. Just great. A better life for Iraqis.

The Coming Wars, by Seymour Hersch

www.newyorker.com...

It looks like the U.S. is dead set on eliminating the nuclear program in Iran and toppling the government while the other major coutnries try to find a way for Iran to satisfy U.S. inquiries into their program. The diplomatic situation is very similar to Iraq in 2002.

If it is true that the U.S. has covert operatives in Iran checking on nuclear sites, will Hersch and his CIA source take any responsibility for deaths or capture due to his story? - doubt it.

If it not true then a couple of reasons for the supposed leak come to mind......

A turf war between the Pentagon and CIA is occuring over control of covert ops teams.

The administration wants to apply more pressure on the Iranians in order to get diplomatic leverage.

Some how over the next 6-18 months NORAD will be asleep (once again) on some unforeseeable day when a small detonation of a nuclear device goes off in one of our economically dying cities killing half a million citizens. My guess says it will be Detroit, some where in the ghetto region. On the very next day George W. Bush will address the people of the United states of America claiming Iran responsibility in their acts of evil paranoia. Later on in his speech Bush will also advise that he is seeking to remit the draft for men/women between the ages of 18-28, because our nation must rise up and lead everyone to freedom for the sake of security.

There you have it folks, World War III and the 2012 dooms day prediction when China finally decides to join in on the middle east fun.

Too bad it won't be our side.

[Just a hunch and nothing more]