Seymour Hersh: US Training Jondollah and MEK for Bombing preparation

[Joanne98]

CASMII Press Release

8 July 2008

Seymour Hersh: US Training Jondollah and MEK for Bombing preparation

In an interview with NPR on his latest New Yorker Article, titled ‘Preparing the battlefield’, the renowned investigative journalist Seymour Hersh reveals more striking details of his findings on the aim of the $400 million budgeted US covert operations inside Iran. He provides valuable information on US military preparations to strike the country, on the total expansion of the Bush Administration’s executive power, about the US recognition of Iran’s overall positive role in Iraq and on the US support for the anti-Iran terrorist organisations Jondollah, PJAK and MEK.

Hersh explains that the aim of the US covert operations inside Iran is to create a pretext for attack with the goal of regime change. “The strategic thinking behind this covert operation is to provoke enough trouble and chaos so that the Iranian government makes the mistake of taking aggressive action which will give the impression of a country in acute turmoil”, he said. “Then you have what the White House calls the ‘casus belli’, a reason to attack the country. That is the thinking and it is very crazy.”

On Iran’s role in Iraq, Hersh points out: “There is absolutely no clear evidence known to the American government that the Iranian leadership has any interest in provoking trouble with the United States in Iraq by sending in people to cause mayhem or kill Americans. There is just no evidence for it.” He continues further on: “Frankly, the guys I know in the inside– in the Special Forces, high up in DoD, high up in the intelligence community–if you push them hard enough, they tell you that Iran has been more of a force for stability in Iraq than negative”.

Hersh comments that the decision to launch these covert operations was prompted by the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate’s verdict that Iran does not have a nuclear weapons programme and that the approval by the US Congress leadership of the $400 million budget for the operations “is totally an expansion” of the executive powers of the Bush Administration.

He explains how the Bush Administration’s policy of “my enemy’s enemy is my friend” has led the US to support the Baluchi organisation Jondollah and the MEK (Mujahideen-e-Khalq a.k.a PMOI), both of which have clear track records of terrorist activities including against the US. He reiterates that the US has been giving arms and cash to the terrorists in the MEK for years and reveals that “most of the leaders have been taking our money and cashing it in an awful lot of bank accounts in London.” He also reveals for the first time that the US has trained MEK teams in the state of Nevada and that “they do a lot of crazy stuff inside Iran”.

Hersh warns that “we have been moving cruise missiles there for a few months now”, and that the US military is ready. “Our submarines are there, our destroyers are there with cruise missiles aboard, our aircrafts are there, our soldiers are there” to attack Iran within “10 to 12 hours” of the go-ahead order by President Bush, he says, stressing that troops have to go on the ground in Iran in order to destroy Iran’s defensive systems.

He finally points out that Bush “is going to be a very active president, I am afraid, until 11:59:59 seconds on January 20, 2009” and raises the alarm about an “October surprise”, a military attack on Iran, in particular if Obama continues to have a lead in the polls.

http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2008/07/09/seymour-hersh-us-training-jondollah-and-mek-for-bombing-preparation/

[leveymg]

1. "The US has trained MEK teams in the state of Nevada" - they learned zero, zip, nada from 9/11

Another illegal CIA domestic operation. Is the CIA going to lose control of this one, as well?

The CIA ran the al-Qaeda operatives inside the U.S. who carried out the 9/11 attacks. It was an illegal and highly-classified joint-operation with the Saudis and Pakistanis. See, http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0310/S00257.htm

It was illegal for several reasons. First, after the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing, CIA was forced to cut UBL loose, even though he was an important operational asset against the Russians in Bosnia and Chechnya. Even after the '98 East Africa embassy bombings, the US continued to run many of his operatives in various operations. They didn't learn from those lessons.

Second, the CIA continued to bring many of these Islamic fighters into the U.S. after Operation Cyclone was officially closed down after the '93 WTC bombing. The guys who designed and built that bomb were double-agents, but somehow the bomb worked, anyway. They didn't learn from that lesson, either.

The FBI had the formal lead role in domestic counter-terrorism operations, but CIA refused to fully cooperate with the FBI in dealing with the Agency's own assets and programs. No lessons learned, here.

Third, the CIA did not seek FISA warrants to surveil these assets inside the U.S. We now know that FISA is a dead issue.

No top-ranking U.S. intelligence official is going to blow such a program just because he perceives there are risks attached. Even if they know an MEK team were wandering around lose, would they even do anything to stop them without White House orders?

The U.S. still has not admitted it aided either the Bosnian or the Chechyan militants. What about this operation?

Do you understand why nobody would do anything to shut this monster down until and unless the President ordered it?

[robertpaulsen]

4. Wow! Thanks for the link and fantastic research!

Our government has trained Middle Eastern terrorists on US soil before and after 9/11. I'm not surprised MSM is asleep at the wheel on this one, but I'm surprised this isn't being discussed more widely here on DU. I'm bookmarking this for future reference.

[sourmilk]

2. USA has been doing this since 2004...

[Doctor_J]

3. I dunno. Sy has been predicting this for at least two years now

It's starting to lose some of its urgency for me. :shrug:

[Raster]

5. It has lost NONE of its urgency for me. I believe cheney*/bush* have been thwarted in their

original attack plans several times, but the plans remain.

[Phred42]

7. Over the years Hersh is usually on the money with this stuff

My money's on Hersh.

[starroute]

6. The Nevada training story has actually been around for a while

That one seemed bizarre enough that I did a little googling and found that Hersh isn't the first to reveal it.

http://www.iran-interlink.org/files/News4/Nov06/CQWeekly271106.htm

Gates' Iran Dilemma
By Elaine Monaghan, CQ Staff, CQ Weekly, November 27, 2006

The former official, who retains close contacts with his own sources from the region, says the Pentagon has been using former members of Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), which is on the State Department's list of foreign terrorist organizations, to plant targeting "beacons" in Iran to guide any future attack.

He says U.S. intelligence operatives are recruiting MEK members at their U.S.-controlled base at Camp Ashraf in Iraq, about 60 miles west of the Iranian border.

From there, he says, new recruits are transported to Israel to be "sheepdipped" - outfitted with a national affiliation acceptable for contract warriors, since the United States is legally prevented from hiring them outright, thanks to the State Department's designation. Some supporters of regime change, such as Florida Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the odds-on favorite to become ranking Republican on the House International Relations Committee, are trying to get the State designation changed.

The former official says that as recently as last year, U.S. forces were training the recruits at a site in Nevada. He says he has it on good authority that the operation is ongoing, having spoken with individuals associated with it.

[leveymg]

8. How did you find that link?

I tried to Google it, and it doesn't come up, even when I used precise terms: Congressional Quarterly Gates Iran Dilemma MEK Nevada

Pretty strange.

[starroute]

10. Googling on Khalq plus Nevada brings it right up

Is it possible you input too many search terms and Google focused mainly on Congressional plus dilemma? Sometimes with the Google, less is more.

[agincourt]

9. Another country attacked,

that had nothing to do with 9/11. If we had any investigative media left, they would all be screaming inside job.