Imminent U.S. Attack On Iran.........?

Seymour Hersh, whose left wing sympathies are blatantly obvious reports that the Bush administration is planning for a major air attack on Iran, according to his article published on the New Yorker magazine website today (another completely leftarded magazine to which I stopped subscribing after 9/11 when Susan Sontag blamed us for the attack in the September 24th 2001 issue when the fires were still burning and the smell of burning flesh, plastic, paper, rubber, the smell of burnt everything hung heavy in the air.)

This claim of imminent attack, as IAEA watchdogs watchdoes arrived in Iran today to continue the fruitless circle jerk. Five inspectors from the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency arrived in Tehran to visit Iran's uranium enrichment and reprocessing facilities, state-run television reported Saturday. (illustration: Pete)
The scheduled inspection comes just head of a key visit to Iran by Mohammed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

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. We need our peeps, our crew, our coalition - trusted allies that share our values, to get anything done.

Hersh's left wing bias hides in plain sight. There are typical left wing jabs in the article i.e.

"the real issue is who is going to control the Middle East and its oil in the next ten years.”

and sophomoric nonsense like

" speaking of President Bush, the House member said, “The most worrisome thing is that this guy has a messianic vision.”

See what I mean? But peel away the partisan prattle and there is encouraging Intel in there.

One of the military’s initial option plans, as presented to the White House by the Pentagon this winter, calls for the use of a bunker-buster tactical nuclear weapon, such as the B61-11, against underground nuclear sites. One target is Iran’s main centrifuge plant, at Natanz, nearly two hundred miles south of Tehran. Natanz, which is no longer under I.A.E.A. safeguards, reportedly has underground floor space to hold fifty thousand centrifuges, and laboratories and workspaces buried approximately seventy-five feet beneath the surface.

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.

Apparently, U.S. undercover troops are in Iran collecting data and working to establish contacts with anti-government groups, and the Air Force is drawing up lists of targets, despite publicly advocating diplomacy in order to stop Iran from pursuing nuclear weapons.

The article goes on to say that one of the option plans presented to the White House by the Pentagon calls for the use of a bunker-buster tactical nuclear weapon against underground nuclear sites such as the Natanz centrifuge plant.

One military planner told me that White House criticisms of Iran and the high tempo of planning and clandestine activities amount to a campaign of “coercion” aimed at Iran. “You have to be ready to go, and we’ll see how they respond,” the officer said. “You have to really show a threat in order to get Ahmadinejad to back down.” He added, “People think Bush has been focussed on Saddam Hussein since 9/11,” but, “in my view, if you had to name one nation that was his focus all the way along, it was Iran.”

Fire breaks out adjacent to nuclear facilities outside Tehran

A fire broke out in a forest north of Tehran on Saturday, not far from an area intelligence agencies suspected illegal nuclear activity. It took firefighters some seven hours to contain the blaze.

A previous fire in the same forest occurred after Tehran municipality workers chopped town trees in the area, after which arsons set a fire. Analysts believe that the two fires may be linked and that they were set by intelligence officers or members of the Iranian Atomic Energy Committee, so that remnants of various materials, mainly enriched uranium, would not be detected.

There had been a military base in the vicinity of Lavizan, near where the fire raged, where, according to the Central Intelligence Agency, uranium had been enriched. The information was transferred to the International Atomic Energy Agency six months ago, and the United Nations nuclear watchdog called for inspections at the site. The Iranian government rejected the request, only allowing IAEA inspectors to visit after significant changes had been implemented.

The changes are visible in satellite images, which indicate that the Iranians destroyed the military base and built a soccer stadium and other sports facilities in the area. Constructing the stadium provided an excuse for overturning and replacing the soil in the area, so that if samples were to be taken, remnants of illegal materials would not be detected.

The President’s deep distrust of Ahmadinejad has strengthened his determination to confront Iran. This view has been reinforced by allegations that Ahmadinejad,
who joined a special-forces brigade of the Revolutionary Guards in 1986, may have been involved in terrorist activities in the late eighties. (There are gaps in Ahmadinejad’s official biography in this period.) Ahmadinejad has reportedly been connected to Imad Mughniyeh, a terrorist who has been implicated in the deadly bombings of the U.S. Embassy and the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, in 1983. Mughniyeh was then the security chief of Hezbollah; he remains on the F.B.I.’s list of most-wanted terrorists.

Robert Baer, who was a C.I.A. officer in the Middle East and elsewhere for two decades, told me that Ahmadinejad and his Revolutionary Guard colleagues in the Iranian government “are capable of making a bomb, hiding it, and launching it at Israel. They’re apocalyptic Shiites. If you’re sitting in Tel Aviv and you believe they’ve got nukes and missiles—you’ve got to take them out. These guys are nuts, and there’s no reason to back off.”

Under Ahmadinejad, the Revolutionary Guards have expanded their power base throughout the Iranian bureaucracy; by the end of January, they had replaced thousands of civil servants with their own members. One former senior United Nations official, who has extensive experience with Iran, depicted the turnover as “a white coup,” with ominous implications for the West. “Professionals in the Foreign Ministry are out; others are waiting to be kicked out,” he said. “We may be too late. These guys now believe that they are stronger than ever since the revolution.” He said that, particularly in consideration of China’s emergence as a superpower, Iran’s attitude was “To hell with the West. You can do as much as you like.”

Iran’s supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, is considered by many experts to be in a stronger position than Ahmadinejad. “Ahmadinejad is not in control,” one European diplomat told me. “Power is diffuse in Iran. The Revolutionary Guards are among the key backers of the nuclear program, but, ultimately, I don’t think they are in charge of it. The Supreme Leader has the casting vote on the nuclear program, and the Guards will not take action without his approval.

The Pentagon adviser on the war on terror said that “allowing Iran to have the bomb is not on the table. We cannot have nukes being sent downstream to a terror network. It’s just too dangerous.”

Meanwhile left winger blogs are standing at the ready, to cave and submit to dhimmitude here

UPDATE April 9th: Interesting observation from Jay;

At noon today on CNN's Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer, Seymour Hersh was interviewed on his upcoming article in the New Yorker... He told the world that US troops are already in Iran searching for sites to bomb. He also upped the anti-war panic by saying the White House may use strategic nukes to go after hardened nuke factories 75 feet underground.

Only in America can Hersh be allowed to go on TV and tell our enemies what we are planning and simultaneously endanger the safety of our men in uniform. Only in America do journalists not call Seymour Hersh a traitor.

Jay, where the left is concerned, it's party before country. They would cut off their lungs to spite their breath.

There is nothing new to Hersh's piece, of course he's right, any 2 year old knows we are at least considering military action. Nukes in the hands of mental patients? We'd be derelict in our duty if we weren't considering and planning the military option.

The objective of the Hersh's article was to make military action the national dialog. Present it with a decidedly left wing taint, play it out in the lamestream media, cite bad Intel (BUSH LIED, PEOPLE DIED! as in Iraq - the fruit the Clinton decimation of the military and intel agencies wrought ) and have the public weigh in with a decided no, which only serves to embolden Iran.

This whole psyop of Hersh's emboldens Iran. You're damn right Jay, the left is the fifth column.

Crossposted over at Atlas' phat crib