Seymour Hersh: Bush Administration
Planning Possible Major Air Attack on Iran

From Democracy Now:

AMY GOODMAN: On Monday, President Bush dismissed Hersh’s article.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: What you're reading is wild speculation, which is -- it’s kind of a, you know, happens quite frequently here in the nation's capital.

AMY GOODMAN: Meanwhile, reporters questioned Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld Tuesday about Hersh's report.

REPORTER: In recent weeks or months, have you asked joint staff at Central Command, possibly through General Pace, to update, refine, modify the contingencies for possible military options against Iran?

DONALD RUMSFELD: We have, I don't know how many, various contingency plans in this department, and the last thing I’m going to do is to start telling you or anyone else in the press or the world at what point we refresh a plan or don't refresh a plan and why. It just isn’t useful.

REPORTER: Are you satisfied with the state of planning for Iran options right now?

DONALD RUMSFELD: I am never satisfied.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld Tuesday. Meanwhile, Iran's moving forward on its nuclear program. On Tuesday, the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced the country had succeeded for the first time in enriching uranium on a small scale. The Iranian president insists the country's nuclear program is for peaceful means and not to build nuclear weapons. We're joined right now in Washington by investigative journalist Seymour Hersh. Welcome to Democracy Now!

SEYMOUR HERSH: Good morning.

AMY GOODMAN: It's good to have you with us. Well, talk about what you have found and written about in your piece, "The Iran Plans."

SEYMOUR HERSH: Well, very simply, as you said in the introduction. This is not wild speculation. It's simply a fact that the planning has gone beyond the contingency stage, and it’s gone into what they call the operational stage, sort of an increment higher. And it's very serious planning, of course. And it's all being directed at the wish of the President of the United States. And I can understand why they don't want to talk about it, but that's just the reality.

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I think it's safe to say that we can dismiss White House denials about this immediately. After all, they're pretty much on record as lying about virtually everything, from federal agency reports on global warming, to WMDs in Iraq, to why we need tax cuts. Hersh, on the other hand, is pretty untouchable in terms of his credibility. He's got kickass contacts--he was the one who broke the My Lai massacre story back during the Vietnam war, and he was the one who broke the Abu Ghraib story in spring of '04. Hersh does not engage in "wild speculation." The Bush administration does, indeed, want to bomb the hell out of Iran, and may very well use nukes to get underground bunkers. And why wouldn't they? They've already invaded Iraq illegally, and, for a time, it served them well politically--Bush is a "war President," after all. With potentially devastating losses in Congress, which in my fondest dreams may lead to shitloads of hearings and investigations, and maybe even impeachment proceedings, facing the GOP this November, Bush has nothing to lose politically from attacking Iran, and everything to gain.

There is a very good chance that this is going to happen.

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