Hersh: New Pentagon Unit Developing Contingency Plan To Bomb Iran

In the latest issue of The New Yorker, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh reports that a special Pentagon unit has been charged in recent months with developing plans for U.S. air attacks on Iran. From Reuters:

Despite the Bush administration’s insistence it has no plans to go to war with Iran, a Pentagon panel has been created to plan a bombing attack that could be implemented within 24 hours of getting the go-ahead from President George W. Bush, The New Yorker magazine reported in its latest issue.

The special planning group was established within the office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in recent months, according to an unidentified former U.S. intelligence official cited in the article by investigative reporter Seymour Hersh in the March 4 issue. via

THE REDIRECTION
Is the Administration’s new policy benefitting our enemies in the war on terrorism?
by SEYMOUR M. HERSH

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WATCHING LEBANON - Washington's interests in Israel's war. --by SEYMOUR M. HERSH

The White House was more focused on stripping Hezbollah of its missiles, because, if there was to be a military option against Iran's nuclear facilities, it had to get rid of the weapons that Hezbollah could use in a potential retaliation at Israel. Bush wanted both. Bush was going after Iran, as part of the Axis of Evil, and its nuclear sites, and he was interested in going after Hezbollah as part of his interest in democratization, with Lebanon as one of the crown jewels of Middle East democracy.

..."If the most dominant military force in the region the 'Israel Defense Forces' can't pacify a country like Lebanon, with a population of four million, you should think carefully about taking that template to Iran, with strategic depth and a population of seventy million," Armitage said. "The only thing that the bombing has achieved so far is to unite the population against the Israelis."

...A former intelligence officer said, "We told Israel, 'Look, if you guys have to go, we’re behind you all the way. But we think it should be sooner rather than later—the longer you wait, the less time we have to evaluate and plan for Iran before Bush gets out of office.' "

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More truth on laying the foundation for a war with Iran. Hersh always cuts through the mountains of bullshit and also has an incredible way of getting people of the highest ranks to confide in him.

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I couldn't be in politics. I don't have the thick skin for it. It's a little wimpy but I can't even read that Seymour Hersch New Yorker piece without crying. It's a long article, but here's what got me in the solar plexus:

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."

And that's just for starters. We know Bush is a stooge, but he has a messianic vision and that vision makes him extremely dangerous.

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:: {Tuesday Morning Webtrail}
May 4, 1970 - Four Dead In Ohio - Kent State Massacre. Today is the 34th annual Commemoration events with William Rivers Pitt the Keynote speaker this afternoon. [link]

::Torture At Abu Ghraib - A "do not miss" piece in the New Yorker by Seymour Hersh about the tortured and abused Iraqi soldiers. [link]; and another link of those revolting photos for the many website visitors coming by in search of it. I'm so heartsick over their treatment and humiliation that I want to rise up against the US. How do you think the other inhabitants of the planet feel about us?

:: Paul Krassner - Gadfly of the ’60s still buzzing sounds off on Bush, Nixon and Clay Aiken. [link]

:: Love Parade and Fuck Parade - both held in Berlin; Fuck Parade is on July 5 , Love Parade is July 10. The grassroots Fuck Parade was born in 1997, in Berlin, as a counter-demonstration to the commercialization of the Love Parade and to the creeping gentrification of the neighborhoods around the center of East Berlin. I'd like to see them both.[link]

:: Mondo Man's New Millenium - [link]

:: Keith Richards, Rickie Lee Jones, Ben Harper, Jerry Lee Lewis, along with several other music notables will toast Willie Nelson's 71st birthday by performing at a concert Wednesday in Los Angeles. The USA network is expected to air the event, titled Outlaws and Angels, on May 31. [link]

:: Jagger sings for Alfie. Mick Jagger and the Eurhythmics' Dave Stewart have collaborated on three new songs and the theme music for an upcoming remake of the classic 1966 film Alfie, which stars Jude Law. [link]

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