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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| Sy Hersch "Full of Bean" Says Pentagon |
| 2005-01-17 |
| No wonder my new edition of New Yorker carried a repugnant odor. The Pentagon on Monday criticized a published report that said it was mounting reconnaissance missions inside Iran to identify potential nuclear and other targets. "The Iranian regime's apparent nuclear ambitions and its demonstrated support for terrorist organizations is a global challenge that deserves much more serious treatment than Seymour Hersh provides in the New Yorker article titled "The Coming Wars," the Pentagon's chief spokesman, Lawrence DiRita, said in a statement. Hersh's article, published on Sunday, was "so riddled with errors of fundamental fact that the credibility of his entire piece is destroyed," DiRita said. Hersh reported that President Bush (news - web sites) had signed a series of top-secret findings and executive orders authorizing secret commando groups and other Special Forces military units to conduct covert operations against suspected terrorist targets in as many as 10 nations in the Middle East and South Asia. DiRita did not comment on that assertion. Instead, he said, Hersh's sources fed him "rumor, innuendo, and assertions about meetings that never happened, programs that do not exist and statements by officials that were never made." Asked whether U.S. military forces had been conducting reconnaissance missions in Iran, Defense Department spokesman Lt. Col. Barry Venable said, "We don't discuss missions, capabilities or activities of Special Operations forces." More sighs about Sy, now Sy say, "Good Bye" |
| Posted by:Captain America |
| #6 God, I hope someone's running a canary operation on Hersh's suspected sources. Feed each of them a slightly different story, each with a DIFFERENT absolutely juicy, must-report bit of information. Based on what Hersh "reports", you can then close off the leak. Preferably with espionage charges all around. |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2005-01-17 10:41:33 PM |
| #5 Joseph, if only it were so. Sources in the intelligence community are kept secret because any truly important bits are known to a select few individuals. Once you know _what_ was passed, then you can figure out who _could_ have passed it, or how it may have been obtained. Once this is done, then you can begin isolating those sources and either turning them, or eliminating them. The fact that Hersh was able to get this info is a bad sign, if it is true. It may be, as was pointed out, an instance of Hersh being used as a fall guy, letting the Iranians think we have bad information to sooth them into a false sense of security. |
| Posted by: Jame Retief 2005-01-17 8:16:52 PM |
| #4 "Cripple US intelligence collection in Iran" - I doubt it, as so many nations, even allies or non-aligned, spie on each other as a matter of course IT WOULD BE MORE SUSPICIOUS OR SHOCKING IF NO OPS OR COLLECTION WAS GOING ON! Few iff any lives or mission objectives should be lost unless something or someone(s) significant has been seriously or severely compromised. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2005-01-17 7:42:26 PM |
| #3 Wretchard has a post on Belmont. Intersting citation from Stratfor: "Logic tells us that these operations are going on. There is a gap between logic and confirmation that Hersh has chosen to bridge. More precisely, if Hersh is to be believed, a former U.S. intelligence officer allowed him to bridge this gap by providing him with information so sensitive that its disclosure would put in danger the lives of the members of the reconnaissance team, as well as the lives of Pakistani scientists cooperating with the United States. ... It comes down to this: On the broadest level, Hersh's story simply restates what is known or logical. On a deeper level, it reveals details that, if true, could cripple U.S. intelligence collection in Iran. That Hersh would publish this is a given. That he could get hold of information like this from the CIA is a crisis. Or, Hersh could simply have been the victim of U. S. information operations." I suspect that Hersch is a nutjob and a unsuspecting sop for U.S. information opns. |
| Posted by: Captain America 2005-01-17 7:15:06 PM |
| #2 Sorry, folks, this got in a bit late and follows the previously posted piece. |
| Posted by: Captain America 2005-01-17 6:53:37 PM |
| #1 Does Sy have a sister named Sue? Now to address the article posted... Nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah, neener neener neener, Toldyaso! |
| Posted by: Parabellum 2005-01-17 6:35:59 PM |