A new, troubling story in the New Yorker from investigative reporter Seymour Hersh — who has had a pretty good track record in recent years — says President George Bush has already made up his mind to go to war with Iran and to use tactical nuclear weapons.
The reason: Iran is hellbent on pursuing its nuclear program despite
an international clamor so Bush is planning a devastating preemptive attack. As in the case of Iraq, there’s an assumption that the people will overthrow Iran’s government led by its extremist President. Meanwhile, according to Hersh, Democrats in Congress know little of what is being planned. It’s all quite hush-hush.
(NOTE: Hersh has always had good sources and some have suggested over the years that they’re at least close to the CIA. But — a cautionary note — these key sources are usually anonymous.)
UPDATE I: Raw Story reports that the NY Times will run a story quoting some government officials who deny Hersh’s contention about nuclear weapons and noting “that some critics see Hersh as “too eager to report assertions critical of the government that are difficult to fully substantiate.”
If Hersh’s reporting is accurate, what’s troubling isn’t only the secret plan, but the fact that it’s based on assumptions that may be faulty ones — just as some assumptions in Iraq proved faulty. Here are some key excerpts from his report:
The Bush Administration, while publicly advocating diplomacy in order to stop Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon, has increased clandestine activities inside Iran and intensified planning for a possible major air attack. Current and former American military and intelligence officials said that Air Force planning groups are drawing up lists of targets, and teams of American combat troops have been ordered into Iran, under cover, to collect targeting data and to establish contact with anti-government ethnic-minority groups. The officials say that President Bush is determined to deny the Iranian regime the opportunity to begin a pilot program, planned for this spring, to enrich uranium.
Hersh reports that there’s agreement that Iran wants a nuclear capability — but disagreement over the best way to proceed.
But, he also reports, the White House already has its mind made up on what it’s going to do:
There is a growing conviction among members of the United States military, and in the international community, that President Bush’s ultimate goal in the nuclear confrontation with Iran is regime change. Iran’s President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has challenged the reality of the Holocaust and said that Israel must be “wiped off the map.� Bush and others in the White House view him as a potential Adolf Hitler, a former senior intelligence official said. “That’s the name they’re using. They say, ‘Will Iran get a strategic weapon and threaten another world war?’ �
A government consultant with close ties to the civilian leadership in the Pentagon said that Bush was “absolutely convinced that Iran is going to get the bomb� if it is not stopped. He said that the President believes that he must do “what no Democrat or Republican, if elected in the future, would have the courage to do,� and “that saving Iran is going to be his legacy.�
NOTE TO PRESIDENT BUSH: Iraq is already your legacy. Isn’t that enough? MORE:
One former defense official, who still deals with sensitive issues for the Bush Administration, told me that the military planning was premised on a belief that “a sustained bombing campaign in Iran will humiliate the religious leadership and lead the public to rise up and overthrow the government.� He added, “I was shocked when I heard it, and asked myself, ‘What are they smoking?’ �
This is a shocking paragraph.
It suggests that there has been no learning curve with the administration. All that’s missing in that statement is administration officials predicting that Americans would be greeted as liberators and covered with garlands of flowers. Perhaps. But, as the United States has learned in Iraq, those garlands may have bombs attached to them. AND:
“This is much more than a nuclear issue,� one high-ranking diplomat told me in Vienna. “That’s just a rallying point, and there is still time to fix it. But the Administration believes it cannot be fixed unless they control the hearts and minds of Iran. The real issue is who is going to control the Middle East and its oil in the next ten years.�
A senior Pentagon adviser on the war on terror expressed a similar view. “This White House believes that the only way to solve the problem is to change the power structure in Iran, and that means war,� he said. The danger, he said, was that “it also reinforces the belief inside Iran that the only way to defend the country is to have a nuclear capability.� A military conflict that destabilized the region could also increase the risk of terror: “Hezbollah comes into play,� the adviser said, referring to the terror group that is considered one of the world’s most successful, and which is now a Lebanese political party with strong ties to Iran. “And here comes Al Qaeda.�
This would also mean more attacks on American interests abroad and, quite likely, on the American homeland as well.And then there’s this:
The lack of reliable intelligence leaves military planners, given the goal of totally destroying the sites, little choice but to consider the use of tactical nuclear weapons. “Every other option, in the view of the nuclear weaponeers, would leave a gap,� the former senior intelligence official said. “ ‘Decisive’ is the key word of the Air Force’s planning. It’s a tough decision. But we made it in Japan.�
He went on, “Nuclear planners go through extensive training and learn the technical details of damage and fallout—we’re talking about mushroom clouds, radiation, mass casualties, and contamination over years. This is not an underground nuclear test, where all you see is the earth raised a little bit. These politicians don’t have a clue, and whenever anybody tries to get it out�—remove the nuclear option—“they’re shouted down.�
The attention given to the nuclear option has created serious misgivings inside the offices of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he added, and some officers have talked about resigning. Late this winter, the Joint Chiefs of Staff sought to remove the nuclear option from the evolving war plans for Iran—without success, the former intelligence official said. “The White House said, ‘Why are you challenging this? The option came from you.’
Let that sink in again: Hersh reports that (a)some officers thought of resigning over this and (b)the Joint Chiefs of Staff sought to remove the nuclear option but have not been able to do so. So why bother consulting the military at all? Why not just do the same thing that’s done with Congress: ignore it.
If administration policy makers are serious and skillful, they would consider various aspects such as:
- The regional impact of an American preemptive strike on Iran using tactical nuclear weapons.
- Since the U.S. hasn’t used nuclear weapons since Japan, whether this would virtually invite terrorist groups to seek to use some kind of nuclear attack on a U.S. city.
- The impact on the Muslim world if it is a preemptive strike using tactical nuclear weapons.
- The reaction of other countries to a U.S. strike using tactical nuclear weapons.
The problem here: so far this administration has a poor track record on skillfully coming up with and accurate assumptions.
Will Hersh’s story prove to be a harbinger of things to come? Or will Israel be the country to take Iran’s nuclear program out?
And if George Bush takes out Iran’s nuclear program, will Americans welcome it and breathe a sigh of relief or will his polls continue moving towards the basement?
If you read Hersh’s whole piece you can see that once again policy is seemingly being moved by George Bush’s gut feeling that this is the thing to do and the Democrats are being kept largely in the dark about the plans. Preps are seemingly underway among a tightly-knit group of executive wing people and, if Hersh is correct, the military itself is uneasy about what’s being proposed.
With no real Congressional “input,” no real Congressional oversight and military opinion seemingly being downplayed or ignored, what does that say about the present administration — and what does it say about what is happening to American government?
Times Online frames what’s likely to happen this way:
It is seven o’clock in the morning eastern standard time when the news comes through to Americans at their breakfast tables. President George W Bush will shortly be addressing the nation live from the Oval Office. Moments later he is on air, announcing in a sombre drawl that Iran’s nuclear sites have been struck during the night by American bombers.
“You can see the shape of the speech the president will give,� said Richard Perle, a leading American neo-conservative. “He will cite the Iranians’ past pattern of deception, their support for terrorism and the unacceptable menace the nation would present if it had nuclear weapons.
“The attack would be over before anybody knew what had happened. The only question would be what the Iranians might do in retaliation.�
Sounds far-fetched? Think again. The unthinkable, or what Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, described only a few weeks ago as “inconceivable�, is now being actively planned in the Pentagon.
White House insiders say that Bush and Dick Cheney, his hawkish vice-president, have made up their minds to resolve the Iranian crisis before they leave office in three years’ time.
They say that military intervention — in the form of a massive strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities — is being planned and that Bush is prepared to order the raid unless Iran scraps its nuclear programme….
…White House insiders scoff that Bill Clinton left Al-Qaeda unchecked. A nuclear-armed Iran, they believe, is too dangerous to be left to a potential Democrat president.
One date is said to be etched in the minds of military planners: 2008. Word has gone out that the Iranian nuclear crisis must be resolved by then or the regime of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, with its Israel-baiting rhetoric, will face military consequences.
2008. Isn’t there something going on in the United States that year?
UPDATE 2: The Washington Post also addresses this issue, but puts it more within the context of contingency planning:
The Bush administration is studying options for military strikes against Iran as part of a broader strategy of coercive diplomacy to pressure Tehran to abandon its alleged nuclear development program, according to U.S. officials and independent analysts.
No attack appears likely in the short term, and many specialists inside and outside the U.S. government harbor serious doubts about whether an armed response would be effective. But administration officials are preparing for it as a possible option and using the threat “to convince them this is more and more serious,” as a senior official put it.
Then, further down, there’s this:
Preparations for confrontation with Iran underscore how the issue has vaulted to the front of President Bush’s agenda even as he struggles with a relentless war in next-door Iraq. Bush views Tehran as a serious menace that must be dealt with before his presidency ends, aides said, and the White House, in its new National Security Strategy, last month labeled Iran the most serious challenge to the United States posed by any country.
Many military officers and specialists, however, view the saber rattling with alarm. A strike at Iran, they warn, would at best just delay its nuclear program by a few years but could inflame international opinion against the United States, particularly in the Muslim world and especially within Iran, while making U.S. troops in Iraq targets for retaliation.
So if it takes place as Hersh suggests there could be far-reaching consequences. The question then is whether the planning Hersh wrote about is standard contingency planning or if there is indeed a an unchangeable mindset in the administration. If you judge by what has come out on pre-war Iraq decision making…..(you fill in the rest..)
HERE’S A CROSS SECTION OF WEB OPINION ON THIS CONTROVERSIAL REPORT:
—Americablog:
Here’s the dilemma for the US. Iran cannot be allowed to have nukes. But George Bush cannot be allowed to be the man running the war against Iran – he’s going to screw it up. Something has to give, and that give is Bush.
The only way to take on Iran responsibly – whether that means war or diplomacy or something else – is for Bush and his senior leadership to step down. America cannot afford this man as president any longer. He is, quite literally, going to get us all killed. We cannot afford having George Bush think that America is in the business of launching pre-emptive nuclear wars.
–Blogs for Bush’s Mark Noonan:
Unless Iran swiftly gets an attack of common sense, then there will be military action by the United States against Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. This will not take the course of invasion, because such is is not necessary in the Iranian scenario – all we need do is set the Iranians back a decade, and humiliate the mullahs into the bargain. Right now the mullahs are stoking the nightmare scenarios – Gulf oil traffic stopped, massive terrorist attacks in Iraq and around the world, that sort of thing. What is lost in this Iranian bluster is the fact that Iran can’t survive a month without selling oil in the world market. If Iran makes noise about a US airstrike, then Iran actually pays the higher price.
All we require is a President who will act (and we’ve got that) and a people who have courage (and, in spite of the left, I think we’ve got that, too).
Anybody who toys with using offensive nuclear weapons, unprovoked, has simply taken leave of his senses. If we can ‘preempt’ an attack with nuclear weapons, then by what logic can we criticize North Korea for doing the same to us? Because in some metaphysical sense America is ‘good’ and North Korea is ‘evil?’ Baloney. Any leadership willing to inflict collateral nuclear damages on a population that hasn’t attacked them first has an extremely weak claim on metaphysical goodness.
Regime change would certainly be required–and desirable if troops are put on the ground — but it might make the War on Iraq look like the Grenada operation by comparison….When there are no good option, one considers all the options. Militarily, a limited nuclear strike might indeed be feasible. Politically, however, the idea has long been essentially off the table as nuclear weapons were sold as only a deterrent.
—Truth Be Told:”Hersh’s account is consistent with other recent reports.”
—Taylor Marsh:”Our Leaker in Chief may have no credibility left, but his chutzpah remains intact, armed and loaded for bear. Now can we censure him? Because nothing short of bringing him to account, making him realize he’s not king, will stop this megalomaniac from moving from Iraq to Iran.”
—Riehl World View:
To not plan for a possible military option as regards Iran’s nuclear program would be foolish….Said planning is as much a part of the diplomatic dialog as anything else…We don’t need mushroom clouded brains thinking about and discussing options for Iran just now. We need reasoned debate on a topic which poses a serious risk to world peace. An oil-rich country with no current need for nuclear energy appears determined to develop a nuclear capability, after having declared their desire to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth.
No reasonable nation has gone on record as suggesting stopping them is a bad thing, most find it necessary. Planning for that is the prudent step. Characterizing it as demon, warmongering Bush taking up nuclear arms to confront Iran is not only silly, it’s harmful and misleading for the necessary discussion at hand.
If executed, U.S. military action would apply the Bush doctrine of preventive war in an unprecedented way that would set the template for years or decades of regional and global violence, unrestrained by law. While the doctrine was a pretext for the Iraq invasion, that lawless action could at least be seen as a continuation of hostilities going back to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. U.S. use of nuclear weapons against Iran would be an atrocious act violating the existing near taboo that has held since U.S. devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That would in turn make it far more likely that the weapons will be used elsewhere as well – including against American cities.
If you ain’t convinced yet Sy you ain’t ever gonna be. Hey I have an idea why can’t you as a nice Jewish guy from New York head on over to Tehran and sit down with Achmadiawhackjob and settle this thing over a cup of tea? What you don’t wanna go? Oh yeah that’s right HE WOULD CHOP YOUR FREAKING HEAD OFF!! You can read this jerkoff’s [Hersh’s] entire article if you like but I found him mostly to be full of crap.
—The Mahablog has the top 10 reasons why the Hersh article should scare you. Here are three of them:
10. Iran’s President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is a whackjob who is determine to enrich uranium.
9. Our President, George W. Bush, has a messiah complex and is convinced that “saving Iran is going to be his legacy.�
8. The Pentagon is already engaging in clandestine activities, called “force protection,� that can be classified as military, not intelligence, operations; e.g., preparing a battlefield. Such activities are not subject to congressional oversight.
—Bring It On:”Bush is expecting us to unite in total support of him for dropping the biggest nukes in history on Iran, and also expecting the Iranian people to rise up and support him for nuking their country. Can he possibly believe this?… Playing the only card in the deck, slaughtering brown people, creating more chaos, birthing more terrorists… All he’s trying to do is avoid the perp walk. And I think the deck is stacked against him.”
—Atlas Shrugs:
I have NO FAITH in the UN or the international community. They are paralyzed by corruption, moral inversion, and unending discourse. If they can’t save lives in Darfur, an unambiguous case of genocide, Iran is far far beyond their grasp. America must save the world, from itself, yet again….If true, I, for one, think this it overdue. No, I am not a warmonger but I am not a denier either. I love my life and recognize when it is being threatened.
—Digby:
I suppose it was inevitable. The Bush Doctrine of illegal preventive war has never ruled out the use of an unprovoked nuclear attack. So why wouldn’t they use it?…
….It’s hard to believe they think that they have the political latitude to do this. But then it was hard to believe they thought they had the political latitude to govern as if they had won landslide elections or that they could survive the 2004 election if no WMD were found in Iraq. But they did. In fact, they’ve had their biggest successes by pushing the envelope beyond the point anyone would have imagined. I do not put it past them to believe that they can do this and somehow revive their flagging popularity.
—Bluegrass Report:”Considering how well the Bush Administration managed the Iraq situation, I can only imagine what this will be like.”
—Andrew Sullivan quotes the paragraph about them considering nukes and writes one word: “Gulp.”
—Newshog:”Bush is back on his messianic crusade with a vengeance, believing that only he would have the courage to launch an attack – no successor of either party would do so – and that regime change in Iran will be his legacy, according to Hersh.”
—Liberal Avenger:”If we were to attack Iran, the three major US wars would be merged into one (Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan are contiguous) and the US military would then be responsible for securing a war theatre of approximately 2.7 million square kilometers…..So, even shorter version – World War III.”
—Mia Culpa:
I agree that the situation between the United States and Iran as it is is unacceptable. ..There are no diplomats in this administration. Sending Condi globetrotting is like sending a pitbull out to represent the nation….What a twist in the plot it would be to attack Iran at such a time. A new war to blend in with Afghanistan, and Iraq. It wouldn’t surprise me at all to see this begin on Sept.11,’06. Will congress reign in the pitbulls, or unleash the hounds of hell?
—Kevin Drum:”As usual, Hersh’s piece is based almost entirely on anonymous sources, so take it for what it’s worth. But it warrants reading regardless. It may or may not be a bluff, but the PR campaign for an air strike against Iran is clearly moving into high gear.”
—Ron Beasley writes an open letter to the mainstream media which reads in part (read it ALL after):
By acting as stenographers, verbal and written, for the Bush administration you are in part responsible for the debacle that Iraq has become. I’m sure that you did it because you thought there would be some advantages for your respective corporations….This is the here and now and is even more insane then the Iraq invasion….
…..You had the power to get us into a war, you also have the power to keep us out of one. This is the time. If you don’t do it because it’s the right thing to do for America and the world do because it because it’s in the best interest of your corporations. Give up your stenographer’s job and question all of the claims that come from this administration of mad men. Allow dissenting views. Save the US and the world from another mis-adventure by the insane incompetents in the Bush administration. Over 60% of the American people now think Bush lied about the reasons for invading Iraq so they will be receptive if you question the lies and spin regarding Iran.
No, I don’t think it will go nuclear — yet. Not unless Iran actually has built a bomb or two, and I have absolutely no faith that they will show the restraint Saddam showed in 1991, when he chose to not use his chemical and biological weapons. If they have even one, it will get used. If that happens, the US may well use nuclear “bunker-buster” bombs to destroy hardened underground facilities to make sure no more are launched.
I hope — I really, sincerely hope — that this won’t come to pass. But a negotiated settlement takes two parties who are willing to negotiate, and Iran’s President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has shown absolutely no interest in meaningful negotiations. He’s willing to talk all we want, but has made it repeatedly clear that absolutely nothing will come of it.
—Polimom:”Polimom suspects that Ahmadinejad has learned what much of the world has: whether one thinks Bush is a brave visionary or a lunatic with a messiah complex, he’s probably not rattling a sabre — and he won’t wait for everybody else to fall in line before acting, either. No, I don’t think this is a bluff; as I wrote last week, Iran is going to have to blink first. The alternative is World War III.”
—Scrutator:”I trust the administration has thought this through. There will be blowback to be sure, but we can’t very well fight with one hand tied behind our backs. In the final analysis, it is better to nuke them there than to let them nuke us here.”
—A Blog For All:
If we know where these targets are, it is possible that we could sabotage them especially if claims that we’ve already infiltrated Iran in a search for these weapons sites are accurate. Another possibility is that the claims that the US has already infiltrated Iran is just a way to push Iran into giving away where its sites are located by taking additional security precautions around those sites that would provide US authorities with the ability to trace them – essentially flushing out the Iranian program. It could also be a combination of the two; actively trying to find the sites, bluffing the Iranians into divulging the site locations.
—Michelle Malkin has some good links on this issue and also has a video of Hersh. She writes:”Seymour Hersh appeared on CNN with Wolf Blitzer today to share such pearls of wisdom as this: “Instead of talking about bombing, let’s talk about talking.” Hat tip to Allah Pundit, who writes: “Here’s the man of the hour, defending his willingness to publicize info about clandestine ops and then preaching the virtues of empty diplomacy.”
—The Glittering Eye (which is consistently one of the most thoughtful weblogs) has a post that needs to be read in FULL to completely appreciate it. Here’s a small part:
Just for the record I oppose either invading Iran or bombing it. I do think that reminding the Iranian government that if an Iranian nuclear weapon is used against America, Americans, or American interests either here or overseas (fissibles have detectable signatures; if it’s an Iranian bomb we’ll know) that we will respond in kind with disproportionate force is long overdue. That’s been our policy for more than a half century.
We also need to take this matter very, very seriously without dilly-dallying. I don’t know of a single government (other than the Iranian government) that denies that Iran has a nuclear weapons development program. The evidence, which I’ve gone into before, is pretty dispositive. I don’t deny that it’s a perfectly reasonable thing for Iran to (in fact, I’ve argued in favor of the Iran regime’s rationality) but I also don’t much care: it’s perfectly rational of us as well to do what we can to prevent their acquiring nuclear weapons.
—Rick Moran at Right Wing Nuthouse (a misnamed site) also has an extensive post that must be read in its entirety. A tiny taste 4 U:
I honestly don’t think the military option is in play in any serious way. Only if we discovered that Iran was closer to building a bomb than we thought or if they gave reliable indications that they were planning on using such a weapon against Israel or the United States would we go with a military option.
And there is absolutely zero chance – zero, zip, nada – of the US using nuclear weapons on Iran. Even with nukes that will detonate below the surface, there is going to be massive radioactive fallout drifting toward Russia – something I’m sure would cause President Putin to cancel his membership in the Official US Fan Club.
But for the loony left, it’s just one more way to bash Bush. So let them have their fun. It’s actually playing into the Administration’s strategy to give the Iranians pause and make them realize we can cause serious damage to both their military infrastructure and political unity.
Too many people are jumping to conclusions about this. In their quickness to bash Bush, they are only hurting our efforts to resolve this dangerous situation. To the left, the real enemy is not radical extremists getting their hands on nuclear weapons! To them, the enemy is President Bush. We are pursuing diplomaticly, but it doesn’t hurt to have a plan B. Once again, the left have no viable plans to diffuse this dangerous situation, only opposition to any plan of action that Bush tries. The situation is delicate here, and it shouldn’t be turned into a bash Bush episode, it should be opened up to reasonable debate.
Military action will be the last option we seek. Don’t tell Iran, but our threat at this point is most likely a tactic to get them back on the road of a diplomatic solution.
An attack on Iran would politically rescue Mr. Bush and the Congressional Republicans from the disaster in Iraq. The actual attack does not have to occur before the elections, in fact it is better politically that the attack take place after the elections. The drumbeat to war and the tension and fear it will generate for the public is much more useful as a political tool than the war itself. By this time in early November, with any luck for the Republicans, the daily death toll in Iraq, the Congressional scandals, the NSA spying and the fallout from the NIE leaking should all take a backseat to the coming war with Iran. With these constraints, the likely strike date on Iran will be in late November or early December of this year, just in time for the Christmas season…..
…..It should give all of us pause that on this day in the 21st Century we are considering the possibility that the greatest experiment in Democracy in the history of the world is about to launch a nuclear first strike against another sovereign state. May our children forgive us.
—The Heretik has a potent Bush graphic, plus a post. A portion:
What does it matter if the President has to blow up part of the world to convince the rest of the world that madmen can’t be trusted with nukes when his legacy is at stake? No one else has the fool’s courage to do it. Nuclear clouds will rise and the grateful people under the cloud of Iranian tyranny will rise up against the madman who would use the bomb. The fallout for such foolery will hit the locals first before a more ill wind blows its way west….So will we now have The Long Wide War? More to follow.”
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.