(New Yorker) Seymour M. Hersh - The Bush administration has increased clandestine activities inside Iran and intensified planning for a possible major air attack. Teams of American combat troops have been ordered into Iran, under cover, to collect targeting data and to establish contact with anti-government ethnic-minority groups. U.S. officials say that President Bush is determined to deny the Iranian regime the opportunity to begin a pilot program, planned for this spring, to enrich uranium. Bush and others in the White House view Iranian President Ahmadinejad as a potential Adolf Hitler, a former senior intelligence official said. "That's the name they're using. They say, 'Will Iran get a strategic weapon and threaten another world war?'" "This is much more than a nuclear issue," one high-ranking diplomat told me in Vienna. "The real issue is who is going to control the Middle East and its oil in the next ten years."
2006-04-10 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive