SCOOP LINK:
The military's problem with the President's Iran policy.
By Seymour M. Hersh
The New Yorker
10 July 2006 Issue
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On May 31st, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced what appeared to be a major change in U.S. foreign policy.
The Bush Administration, she said, would be willing to join Russia, China, and its European allies in direct talks with
Iran about its nuclear program. There was a condition, however: the negotiations would not begin until, as the President
put it in a June 19th speech at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, "the Iranian regime fully and verifiably suspends its
uranium enrichment and reprocessing activities." Iran, which has insisted on its right to enrich uranium, was being
asked to concede the main point of the negotiations before they started. The question was whether the Administration
expected the Iranians to agree, or was laying the diplomatic groundwork for future military action. In his speech, Bush
also talked about "freedom for the Iranian people," and he added, "Iran's leaders have a clear choice." There was an
unspoken threat: the U.S. Strategic Command, supported by the Air Force, has been drawing up plans, at the President's
direction, for a major bombing campaign in Iran.
Inside the Pentagon, senior commanders have increasingly challenged the President's plans, according to active-duty and
retired officers and officials. The generals and admirals have told the Administration that the bombing campaign will
probably not succeed in destroying Iran's nuclear program. They have also warned that an attack could lead to serious
economic, political, and military consequences for the United States.
A crucial issue in the military's dissent, the officers said, is the fact that American and European intelligence
agencies have not found specific evidence of clandestine activities or hidden facilities; the war planners are not sure
what to hit. "The target array in Iran is huge, but it's amorphous," a high-ranking general told me. "The question we
face is, When does innocent infrastructure evolve into something nefarious?" The high-ranking general added that the
military's experience in Iraq, where intelligence on weapons of mass destruction was deeply flawed, has affected its
approach to Iran. "We built this big monster with Iraq, and there was nothing there. This is son of Iraq," he said.
"There is a war about the war going on inside the building," a Pentagon consultant said. "If we go, we have to find
something."
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