Iran war has begun
Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008The Bush administration’s secret war against Iran has already begun. Seymour Hersch reveals in the New Yorker that covert military operations, and covert “intelligence” operations, are already occurring. Armed Special Forces units are on the ground inside Iran, with orders to assassinate various “high value targets.” They are authorized to use “defensive lethal action,” which I imagine means killing any Iranians who have the temerity to defend themselves. The target list, the list of people to be murdered, was drawn up by the Vice President’s office, a fact Hersch reiterated in this Fresh Air interview.
The White House denies it.
“I can tell you flatly that U.S. forces are not operating across the Iraqi border into Iran, in the south or anywhere else,” U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan C. Crocker said Sunday during an interview on CNN’s Late Edition.
This is something Hersch must be used to by now. So far, he always turns out to be right: about the My Lai massacre, among other stories of American war crimes.
Key members of Congress approved $400 million in funding for the secret war. According to the article,
None of the four Democrats in the Gang of Eight—Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Intelligence Committee chairman John D. Rockefeller IV, and House Intelligence Committee chairman Silvestre Reyes—would comment on the Finding, with some noting that it was highly classified. An aide to one member of the Democratic leadership responded, on his behalf, by pointing to the limitations of the Gang of Eight process. The notification of a Finding, the aide said, “is just that—notification, and not a sign-off on activities. Proper oversight of ongoing intelligence activities is done by fully briefing the members of the intelligence committee.” However, Congress does have the means to challenge the White House once it has been sent a Finding. It has the power to withhold funding for any government operation. The members of the House and Senate Democratic leadership who have access to the Finding can also, if they choose to do so, and if they have shared concerns, come up with ways to exert their influence on Administration policy.
In other words, they signed off. More to the point, if the Democratic Party had any intention of interfering with secret Presidential wars, they would have repealed the law authorizing covert wars in the first place. And they would have impeached George W. Bush by now.
There has been a recent surge of violence inside Iran.
