The Bush administration has launched a "significant escalation" of covert operations in Iran, sending U.S. commandos to spy on the country's nuclear facilities and undermine the Islamic republic's government, journalist and Pulitzer Prize laureate Seymour Hersh said in his article as well as live on CNN.
Seymour Hersh told CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer" that U.S. Congress has authorized up to 0 million to fund the secret campaign, which involves U.S. special operations troops and Iranian dissidents.
According to Seymour Hersh, the undermining activities of U.S. intelligence consist of gathering information about nuclear and weapons program, support of oppositional movements including those that are viewed as "terrorist" ones, as well as cross-border operations from Southern Iraq. These have included seizing members of Al Quds, the commando arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and taking them to Iraq for interrogation.
President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have rejected findings from U.S. intelligence agencies that Iran has halted a clandestine effort to build a nuclear bomb and "do not want to leave Iran in place with a nuclear program," Hersh said.
"They believe that their mission is to make sure that before they get out of office next year, either Iran is attacked or it stops its weapons program," Hersh said.
White House, CIA and State Department officials declined comment on Hersh's report, which appears in this week's issue of The New Yorker.
The U.S. intelligence report published December 3, 2007 says that Iran suspended its development of nuclear weapons in 2003. Thus, U.S. intelligence experts have revised their position on Iran's development of nuclear weapons, since a similar report published two years ago claimed that Tehran was strongly inclined towards continuing the development of its nuclear arsenal.
On December 4, 2007 President Bush called on the international community to put pressure on Iran concerning its nuclear program. According to President Bush, the alarming signal in the report is a possibility that Iran may resume its nuclear program.
Department of Monitoring,
Kavkaz Center
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