-Caveat Lector-
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From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: January 9, 2007 6:13:00 PM PST
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: The Usual Suspects, with the Same M.O., Prepping for "Pre-
emptive" War with Iran
Pentagon confirms Iranian directorate as officials raise new
concerns about war
Larisa Alexandrovna
Published: Thursday June 15, 2006 http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/
Pentagon_confirms_Iranian_directorate_as_intelligence_0615.html
Current military and former intelligence officials remain concerned
about a US-led strike on Iran, despite the recent appearance of
diplomacy on the part of the US State Department and the offer of
an incentives package to Iran.
Officials point to new developments, such as a recent meeting in
Rome between an Iranian arms dealer and controversial
neoconservative Michael Ledeen and the March creation of the
Iranian directorate inside the Pentagon, as examples of recent
events similar to the lead up with war in Iraq.
These officials also add that an as-yet uncompleted ‘Phase II’
investigation into pre-war Iraq intelligence suggests the same
problems may recur when addressing Iran. They note that the
Pentagon’s Iranian directorate mirrors the so-called Office of
Special Plans, which played a major role in feeding [doctored]
intelligence to the President that bolstered a case for war.
Ledeen goes to Rome
A recent trip by Michael Ledeen to Rome has raised red flags among
those concerned about a potential war with Iran. Some believe that
Ledeen -- a long-time advocate of Iranian regime change -- was
involved in the Niger forgeries scandal.
In late 2001, Ledeen, mid-east expert Harold Rhode and Pentagon
analyst Larry Franklin (who later pleaded guilty to passing
classified information to a Washington pro-Israel lobbying group)
traveled to Rome to meet with Iranian arms dealer Manucher
Ghorbanifar and various Italian, Iranian, and Egyptian intelligence
agents. Not long after, documents falsely purporting that Iraq had
attempted to buy yellowcake uranium surfaced in the international
intelligence community, ending up at an Italian magazine, Panorama,
for which Ledeen wrote periodic articles.
Ghorbanifar and Ledeen were directly involved in the Iran-Contra
scandal of the 1980s, which implicated then-President Ronald
Reagan, Vice President George H. W. Bush and the highest ranking
members of the Reagan administration in the illegal sales of
weapons to Iran.
Ledeen’s recent visit to Rome and meeting with Ghorbanifar have
created new concern that something is developing with regard to US
plans for Iran.
Ledeen, however, denies that his visit to Italy was anything other
than a personal trip with his wife Barbara.
“I did not ‘go to Rome.’ I went to Naples to see the San Gennaro
celebration and the opening of the Fontanelle cemetery after more
than twenty years of closure,” Ledeen wrote in an email to RAW STORY.
“You'll be able to read descriptions in my forthcoming book,
Virgil's Golden Egg and Other Neapolitan Miracles," he added.
Ledeen, who has spent the last year working on a book about Naples,
confirmed traveling to Rome as part of a visit to meet with
friends. When asked if he had met with Ghorbanifar while in Rome,
Ledeen confirmed the allegation by intelligence sources, but said
that this visit was of a personal nature, unlike his previous visit.
“We visited various friends in Rome and Florence,” Ledeen said.
“[Ghorbanifar] is a friend of mine, and so, as it has been for more
than twenty years, I talk to him from time to time and I meet with
him when our schedules intersect,” Ledeen added.
Ledeen characterized the meeting as part of a "normal friendship."
“I would say on average I see him twice a year for a day or half a
day," he said. "And it's not just him, it's sometimes his wife, his
daughter... imagine! A normal friendship.”
Pentagon confirms Iran Directorate
Military and non-military intelligence sources have also raised
worries over what some describe to as “the Iran group” and others
as “the Iran working group” and still others as a “cabal” operating
out of the Pentagon.
A recent article by Laura Rozen for the Los Angeles Times revealed
the Pentagon has created yet another Office of Special Plans-type
body called the Directorate for Iran, or the Iranian Directorate.
“The Pentagon's directorate began with six full-time staff
members," Rozen reported. "But they can draw on expertise
throughout the government, providing access to potentially hundreds
of specialists."
The notorious Office of Special Plans – which focused on Iraq -- is
now believed by most experts to have provided a secondary conduit
of cherry-picked intelligence on Iraq to Secretary of Defense
Donald Rumsfeld and the White House.
One former intelligence official, wishing to remain anonymous for
this article, described OSP in a mocking tone as a “separate
channel of information.”
John Pike of Global Security, a Washington-based intelligence
clearinghouse, was less polite in his description of OSP.
“It was created to, as Dean Acheson urged Harry Truman, to scare
hell out of the American people by making things a little bit
clearer than the truth,” he said.
Lt. Col. Barry E. Venable, a spokesman for the Pentagon, confirmed
the creation of the directorate for Iran in both a phone
conversation and an email message.
“As the State Department stated in early March (Daily Press Brief,
Mar. 3), the U.S. Government is organizing itself better to address
what Secretary Rice called ‘one of the great challenges for the
United States, a strategic challenge for the United States and for
those who desire peace and freedom,’” Venable wrote.
“As a counterpart to the State Department's new Office of Iran
Affairs, the Department of Defense has split off a new directorate
for Iran-related policy issues from the existing Directorate of
Northern Gulf Affairs in the Office of Near East and South Asia
Affairs (NESA),” he added. “These regional policy offices fall
within the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for
International Security Affairs.”
Venable also confirmed that the new directorate falls under the
policy side -- more specifically -- under the new number three at
the Pentagon, Eric Edelman. Edelman, Undersecretary of Defense for
Policy, holds the same position that Douglas Feith held when he ran
OSP at the Pentagon in the lead-up to the Iraq war.
Moreover, sources say that the Iranian Directorate is staffed with
many of the same people, including OSP’s former director Abram
Shulsky, and receives expert analysis from such controversial
figures as Project for the New American Century member Reuel Marc
Gerecht, who by all accounts was a failure as a CIA field officer.
It also includes military personnel such as Ladan Archin, who
appears to be serving in the Larry Franklin analyst role among a
sea of think-tank operatives and neoconservative war hawks.
When asked specifically about Shulsky, Venable described his
involvement as follows:
“Mr. Shulsky continues in his position as Senior Advisor to the USD
(P), focusing on Mid-East regional issues and the [global war on
terror].”
Ledeen says that he is not involved with the new Iran operation out
of the Pentagon.
Iraq intelligence inquiry remains incomplete
Former intelligence officials also point to a yet-to-be completed
Phase II investigation of Iraq pre-war intelligence by the Senate
Select Committee on Intelligence.
“The committee continues its work on Phase II and hopes to complete
it as soon as possible,” said Wendy Morigi, Communicators Director
for Senator Rockefeller, Vice Chairman of the Intelligence
Committee. “One of the key sections, however, which was to review
the office of former Undersecretary Doug Feith, has been postponed
by the Chairman until the Pentagon IG completes its own
investigation.”
As previously reported by RAW ST0RY, Phase II consists of several
areas of focus that the Committee is investigating in order to
determine Iraq pre-war planning and post-invasion failures --
specifically in five key areas:
--Whether public statements and reports and testimony regarding
Iraq by U.S. Government officials made between the Gulf War period
and the commencement of Operation Iraqi Freedom were substantiated
by intelligence information;
--The postwar findings about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and
weapons programs and links to terrorism and how they compare with
prewar assessments;
--Prewar intelligence assessments about conditions to be expected
in postwar Iraq;
--Any intelligence activities relating to Iraq conducted by the
Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group (PCTEG) and the Office of
Special Plans within the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense
for Policy; and
--The use by the Intelligence Community of information provided by
the Iraqi National Congress.
The Office of Special Plans aspect of the investigation has been
part of the reason for the delay in the delivery of Phase II by the
Committee and is contingent on the Pentagon Inspector General’s
office concluding its own investigation.
The lack of a comprehensive report as to how the Pentagon conducted
itself prior to the Iraq war, as well as afterward, raises
suspicions among some still in uniform about the Pentagon’s Iran
Directorate's role going forward. Many see parallels between what
is already known about the Office of Special Plans and what appears
to be escalating activity surrounding Iran.
Trita Parsi, a specialist on Iranian foreign policy at Johns
Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, told
RAW STORY that “In the short term the risk for military
confrontation [with Iran] has been reduced,” but cautions that “In
the long run, however, unless there are talks taking place, the
risk for a military strike remains the same.”
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