Seymour Hersh: U.S. escalating covert ops against Iran.»

[babylonsister]

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/06/29/hersh-us-escalating-covert-ops-against-iran/


Hersh: U.S. escalating covert ops against Iran.»


The New Yorker’s Seymour Hersh reports that late last year, “Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran.” The “Presidential Finding” was designed to destabilize religious leadership and gather “intelligence about Iran’s suspected nuclear-weapons program“:

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.

“The Finding was focused on undermining Iran’s nuclear ambitions and trying to undermine the government through regime change,” a person familiar with its contents said, and involved “working with opposition groups and passing money.”

[jaxx]

1. Another article on this...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25438312

<snip> The article by reporter Seymour Hersh, from the magazine's July 7 and 14 issue, centers around a highly classified Presidential Finding signed by Bush which by U.S. law must be made known to Democratic and Republican House and Senate leaders and ranking members of the intelligence committees.

<snip> Funding for the covert escalation, for which Bush requested up to $400 million, was approved by congressional leaders, according to the article, citing current and former military, intelligence and congressional sources.

[seemslikeadream]

2. significantly expanded

[OhioChick]

3. K&R

:kick:

[PerfectSage]

4. Late last year... ...right arround the time Iran stopped selling oil for US dollars.

Iran stops selling oil in U.S. dollars -report
Sat Dec 8, 2007

http://uk.reuters.com/article/oilRpt/idUKDAH83366720071208

If Iran gets bombed before Bush leaves office that'll be the real ulterior motive. Socalled nuclear weapons program will just be bs to justify bombing Iran.

Iran is enriching uranium for a nuclear energy program not a nuclear weapons program. The NIE on Iran is right.

[EFerrari]

5. I figured out that Bush will go after Iran before he leaves office

directly or by proxy, when the story about North Korea popped up.

He's a pragmatic, authoritarian control freak and he can't leave Iran alone after he's "taken care of" the other two in his phony "Axis of Evil". He wants to be able to point to that statement and say he did his job. :shrug:

[mdmc]

6. could be