US 'Making Secret Plans
To Attack Iran'
By Rupert Cornwell
18 January 2005
IndependentRead The New Yorker Report Here
The Pentagon has been conducting secret reconnaissance of potential target sites inside Iran, The New Yorker magazine claimed yesterday, reigniting the debate here over whether the US should take military action to destroy Tehran's suspected nuclear weapons programme.
The report in The New Yorker, by Seymour Hersh, the journalist who uncovered the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, paints a picture of a rampant Pentagon that under the Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, is steadily gaining complete control of covert operations.
According to Mr Hersh, President George Bush has authorised commando and special forces units to take action against terrorist targets in "as many as 10" countries in the Middle East and south Asia. But the top strategic target is Iran, say unidentified officials interviewed for the article. Both US and European experts believe that the regime in Tehran is only a few years from acquiring a nuclear weapon and a delivery system, under development at "three dozen or more" sites scattered across the country.
The reconnaissance missions are said to have been under way "at least since last summer", to identify targets that could be hit either by air strikes or commando raids on the ground. "It's not 'if' we're going to do anything against Iran," one former high-level intelligence official is quoted as saying. "They're doing it."
If the report is correct, the Pentagon is on the verge of triumph in its long struggle with a discredited CIA for control of most covert operations. It now appears that the CIA's paramilitary arm will be placed under Mr Rumsfeld's control. Its operations would be reclassified as steps to "prepare the battlefield" in the continuing war on terror. The Pentagon would thus not be required to inform Congress of such activities - in contrast to the CIA, which has to keep the House and Senate broadly abreast of its activities.
There was no immediate comment from the Pentagon on the claims. But Dan Bartlett, Mr Bush's communications director, told CNN that the New Yorker report was "riddled with inaccuracies", though he did not deny it outright.
The administration was committed to negotiations over Iran, Mr Bartlett said. However, he added, "no President at any juncture in history has ever taken military options off the table" - implicit confirmation that the Pentagon at the very least has contingency plans for military action.
The issue is sure to feature during the confirmation hearing of Condoleezza Rice, at which the Secretary of State-designate will be grilled on the administration's second-term plans for Iran and North Korea, the other member of the "axis of evil" identified by Mr Bush in his 2002 State of the Union address. Her answers during the two-day session which begins this morning should throw more light on where she stands in the tug of war between moderates and neo-conservative hardliners over US foreign policy.
As national security adviser during the first Bush term, Ms Rice mostly steered a middle course between the two factions. But if the New Yorker report is only half right, there seems little doubt that, like her predecessor Colin Powell, she will soon be embroiled in turf fights with Mr Rumsfeld - usually allied with Dick Cheney, the Vice-President.
With some misgiving, the Bush administration has gone along with a Europeaninitiative to strike a deal with Tehran, whereby the latter would abandon its nuclear ambitions in return for aid from the European Union.
