AFPC LAUNCHES AD CAMPAIGN ON IRAN

Today, the American Foreign Policy Council (AFPC) begins a week-long advertising campaign aimed at educating the American public about the growing threat posed by a nuclear Iran. The ad campaign consists of two 30-second spots that began running Tuesday on CNN, MSNBC, Headline News and the Fox News Channel in Washington, DC, Maryland and northern Virginia.

Posted by: b | Jan 25 2007 20:50 utc | 4

The campaign for war on Iran is REALLY picking up speed now.
Newsweek: Deadly Triggers – Is Iran providing devices that help insurgents detonate IEDs in Iraq?

Recent reports from U.S. intelligence agencies show that Iranian agents or brokers have ordered the devices in bulk from manufacturers in the Far East, said one U.S. counterterrorism official, who asked not to be identified discussing sensitive matters. Bruce Riedel, a senior intelligence official who retired from the CIA only two months ago, told NEWSWEEK he too was aware of reports that serial numbers of sensors retrieved from IEDs in Iraq have been traced to orders from Iran placed with infrared-sensor manufacturers in Taiwan and Japan.

Oh – a senior intelligence official, two month into retirement, is talking about CIA stuff (revealing sources and methods!!!) under his full name?

A current counterterrorism official says that bombmaking videos believed to have been prepared in Iran have been recovered from insurgents in Iraq.
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U.S. officials say they believe the supply of equipment and components to insurgents inside Iraq is being arranged in Iran by the Al-Quds brigades. This group is an offshoot of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, a national militia organization charged with protecting Iran’s theocratic government from counterrevolutionary forces. The corps is believed to operate under the direct authority of Iran’s outspoken and controversial president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who himself originally rose to prominence as a member of the organization.
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In testimony last week before the Senate Intelligence Committee, CIA Director Michael Hayden focused in particular on the presence of the explosive formed projectiles. “They are being used against our forces. They are capable of defeating some of our heaviest armor, and incident for incident cause significantly more casualties than any other improvised explosive devices do, and they are provided to Shia militia.”

But if there is a video of how to MAKE these shaped charges, why should one PROVIDE such charges. Any half-decent metal shop can put copper into a conical shape. (Thanks to a year of shipyard internship, I wouldn’t even need a video for that …)

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Nevertheless, intelligence officials contacted by NEWSWEEK insist that Iranian interference in Iraq appears significant. U.S. intelligence officials say they are aware of staging points—sometimes upgraded in unofficial accounts to “training camps”—in Iran, Syria and Lebanon that are used by insurgents traveling in and out of Iraq. Intelligence agencies believe that supplies, such as the sensors, are shipped from these locations.
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U.S. officials note that all the major Iraqi Shiite parties, including Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s, have strong historical ties to Iran; some of the groups even operated from Tehran during Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship.

Everyone but al-Sadr that is …

Posted by: b | Jan 25 2007 21:05 utc | 6

Holy shit, b, are you implying that the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq might not be the ideal party for maintaining American interests in the region, especially as regards Iran?
I never would do so – since Bush has looked into Hakim’s deep eyes, he knows there is a real soul … I would never the decider on this …

Posted by: b | Jan 25 2007 21:30 utc | 8

Note the “proof” source for the statement by the AFPC that Iran “supported attacks that have killed hundreds of Americans.”
“Iran Responsible for 1983 Marine Barracks Bombing, Judge Rules,” CNN.com, May 30, 2003
1983?! That incident has absolutely nothing to do with the current situation, government, or anything. If they had any real, current evidence, wouldn’t they cite that instead? hmm…

Posted by: Chemmett | Jan 26 2007 0:29 utc | 10

Iran Set to Try Space Launch

Iran has converted its most powerful ballistic missile into a satellite launch vehicle. The 30-ton rocket could also be a wolf in sheep’s clothing for testing longer-range missile strike technologies, Aviation Week & Space Technology magazine reports in its Jan. 29 issue.
The Iranian space launcher has recently been assembled and “will liftoff soon” with an Iranian satellite, according to Alaoddin Boroujerdi, the chairman of the Iranian parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission.
The move toward an independent space launch capacity is likely to ratchet up concern in the U.S. and Europe about Iran’s strategic capabilities and intents. Orbiting its own satellite would send a powerful message throughout the Muslim world about the Shiite regime in Tehran.
U.S. agencies believe the launcher to be a derivation of the 800-1,000-mi. range Shahab 3 missile. A Shahab 3 fired from central Iran could strike anywhere in Israel, Saudi Arabia, the entire Persian Gulf region and as far west as southern Turkey.

How dare they! Don’t they realize that we want them to remain a 3rd world country??

Posted by: the Ghost of Saddam Hussein | Jan 26 2007 2:35 utc | 12

Lunatics:
Troops Authorized to Kill Iranian Operatives in Iraq

The Bush administration has authorized the U.S. military to kill or capture Iranian operatives inside Iraq as part of an aggressive new strategy to weaken Tehran’s influence across the Middle East and compel it to give up its nuclear program, according to government and counterterrorism officials with direct knowledge of the effort.
For more than a year, U.S. forces in Iraq have secretly detained dozens of suspected Iranian agents, holding them for three to four days at a time. The “catch and release” policy was designed to avoid escalating tensions with Iran and yet intimidate its emissaries.
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The new “kill or capture” program was authorized by President Bush in a meeting of his most senior advisers last fall, along with other measures meant to curtail Iranian influence from Kabul to Beirut and, ultimately, to shake Iran’s commitment to its nuclear efforts.
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The administration’s plans contain five “theaters of interest,” as one senior official put it, with military, intelligence, political and diplomatic strategies designed to target Iranian interests across the Middle East.
The White House has authorized a widening of what is known inside the intelligence community as the “Blue Game Matrix” — a list of approved operations that can be carried out against the Iranian-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon. And U.S. officials are preparing international sanctions against Tehran for holding several dozen al-Qaeda fighters who fled across the Afghan border in late 2001. They plan more aggressive moves to disrupt Tehran’s funding of the radical Palestinian group Hamas and to undermine Iranian interests among Shiites in western Afghanistan.
In Iraq, U.S. troops now have the authority to target any member of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, as well as officers of its intelligence services believed to be working with Iraqi militias. The policy does not extend to Iranian civilians or diplomats. Though U.S. forces are not known to have used lethal force against any Iranian to date, Bush administration officials have been urging top military commanders to exercise the authority.
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The decision to use lethal force against Iranians inside Iraq began taking shape last summer, when Israel was at war with Hezbollah in Lebanon. Officials said a group of senior Bush administration officials who regularly attend the highest-level counterterrorism meetings agreed that the conflict provided an opening to portray Iran as a nuclear-ambitious link between al-Qaeda, Hezbollah and the death squads in Iraq.
Among those involved in the discussions, beginning in August, were deputy national security adviser Elliott Abrams, NSC counterterrorism adviser Juan Zarate, the head of the CIA’s counterterrorism center, representatives from the Pentagon and the vice president’s office, and outgoing State Department counterterrorism chief Henry A. Crumpton.
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Crumpton flew from Washington to U.S. Central Command headquarters in Tampa for a meeting with Gen. John P. Abizaid, the top U.S. commander for the Middle East. A principal reason for the visit, according to two officials with direct knowledge of the discussion, was to press Abizaid to prepare for an aggressive campaign against Iranian intelligence and military operatives inside Iraq.
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A senior intelligence officer was more wary of the ambitions of the strategy.
“This has little to do with Iraq. It’s all about pushing Iran’s buttons. It is purely political,” the official said. The official expressed similar views about other new efforts aimed at Iran, suggesting that the United States is escalating toward an unnecessary conflict to shift attention away from Iraq and to blame Iran for the United States’ increasing inability to stanch the violence there.
But some officials within the Bush administration say that targeting Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Command, and specifically a Guard unit known as the Quds Force, should be as much a priority as fighting al-Qaeda in Iraq. ..
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In interviews, two senior administration officials separately compared the Tehran government to the Nazis and the Guard to the “SS.” They also referred to Guard members as “terrorists.” Such a formal designation could turn Iran’s military into a target of what Bush calls a “war on terror,” with its members potentially held as enemy combatants or in secret CIA detention.

Posted by: b | Jan 26 2007 8:43 utc | 14

Chris Floyd on Bush’s orders to kill Iranian “agents”: Death and Dishonor: Bush’s New Assassination Order

If Iran is not arming their bloodsworn enemies, the Sunni insurgents, and if any Shiite group they are assisting is an integral part of the “sovereign” Iraqi government backed by the Bush Administration, then what on earth can be the purpose of a direct presidential order to the troops to kill Iranians in Iraq? The answer is simple: the purpose of the order is to provoke Iran into some action that can be trumpeted as a casus belli for the Bush Faction’s long-planned war against Iran.
What Bush has done with this order is to turn the American military into his own private death squad. It is an act of breathtaking dishonor, of unspeakable moral filth. That this pathetic little man and the jumped-up thugs around him – especially the hulking, smirking, lying coward Dick Cheney – are allowed to show their faces among civilized people, much less exercise power over a mighty nation, remains an unfathomable mystery…and a source of deep shame for all Americans.

Posted by: b | Jan 26 2007 15:08 utc | 16

Oops – re- posting:
Major WaPO article this morning on the administration’s escalation against Iran in Iraq
Toops Authorized to Kill Iranian Operatives in Iraq
~Snip

The wide-ranging plan has several influential skeptics in the intelligence community, at the State Department and at the Defense Department who said that they worry it could push the growing conflict between Tehran and Washington into the center of a chaotic Iraq war.
Senior administration officials said the policy is based on the theory that Tehran will back down from its nuclear ambitions if the United States hits it hard in Iraq and elsewhere, creating a sense of vulnerability among Iranian leaders. But if Iran responds with escalation, it has the means to put U.S. citizens and national interests at greater risk in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.
Officials said Hayden counseled the president and his advisers to consider a list of potential consequences, including the possibility that the Iranians might seek to retaliate by kidnapping or killing U.S. personnel in Iraq.
Two officials said that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, though a supporter of the strategy, is concerned about the potential for errors, as well as the ramifications of a military confrontation between U.S. and Iranian troops on the Iraqi battlefield.
In meetings with Bush’s other senior advisers, officials said, Rice insisted that the defense secretary appoint a senior official to personally oversee the program to prevent it from expanding into a full-scale conflict. Rice got the oversight guarantees she sought, though it remains unclear whether senior Pentagon officials must approve targets on a case-by-case basis or whether the oversight is more general.

Posted by: Bea | Jan 26 2007 15:34 utc | 18

Scanning headlines from around the world on Iran this morning, almost every single one I see has some version of this story:
Iran to Begin Installing Centrifuges Next Month
Right on cue, right on schedule, and in unison. How in the hell do they do this?

Posted by: Bea | Jan 26 2007 15:43 utc | 20

bea, because they’ve all got intrepid reporters like our former barkeep at Davos. Perfect place for spreading rumors to the media from the elites.

Posted by: Rowan | Jan 26 2007 15:53 utc | 22

Checking the Google news collection of articles on the authorization reveals some interesting headlines. What word is used by what news organization to describe the action which US troops are allowed to do?
The neutral, or at least most common, version seems to be: Bush OKs Countering Iranians in Iraq
The business magazines and local papers seem to like this one. But the bigger the media organization in America, the more caught up in doublespeak they get. Consider ABC: Bush: US troops may protect selves from Iranians
As though the Iranians were shooting at American troops, but the G.I.s were prevented from shooting back! Wait, that’s exactly what the New Pravda’s editors say is happening: Bush Allows Force Against Iranian Agents in Iraq
Meanwhile, a few papers are speaking clearly: Report: Us Oks Killing Iranians In Iraq.
Interestingly, the two biggest papers I saw with that headline, the Guardian and the SF Chronicle, both had newer versions using the apparently preferable “Countering” instead of “Killing”. the Guardian put up a newer article with the neutered headline; the Chronicle appears to have simply changed it.

Posted by: Rowan | Jan 26 2007 20:08 utc | 24