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James Bamford on the Iran hawks
One of the leading historians of intelligence matters in the US writes on the Franklin spy case and related matters in Iran: The Next War by James Bamford Rolling Stone 07/24/06. Bamford reports:
In recent weeks, the attacks by Hezbollah on Israel have given neoconservatives in the Bush administration the pretext they were seeking to launch what former House Speaker Newt Gingrich calls "World War III." Denouncing the bombings as "Iran's proxy war," William Kristol of The Weekly Standard is urging the Pentagon to counter "this act of Iranian aggression with a military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities." According to Joseph Cirincione, an arms expert and the author of Deadly Arsenals: Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Threats, "The neoconservatives are now hoping to use the Israeli-Lebanon conflict as the trigger to launch a U.S. war against Syria, Iran or both."
His articles gives quite a bit of background on Michael Ledeen, a player in the Iran-Contra scandal (which seems to have been the template for much of the Cheney-Bush administration's foreign policy), who is still an avid advocate of the US making war on Iran.
He describes how the Iran hawks are trying to use a similar strategy of hype and fake claims to gin up war against Iran.
I haven't followed this story in close enough detail to say if Bamford's article breaks any new ground here. But it's certainly an informative and fascinating story. I was especially interested in the part dealing with an event that has been publicly reported for quite a while but hasn't really gotten much attention from our Potemkin press corps: the leaking of US signals intelligence to Iran, a far more serious breach of security than the Valerie Plame outing - and the latter was serious enough to legitimately be described as treasonous.
Bamford writes:
For years, the National Security Agency had possessed the codes used by Iran to encrypt its diplomatic messages, enabling the U.S. government to eavesdrop on virtually every communication between Tehran and its embassies. After the U.S. invaded Baghdad, the NSA used the codes to listen in on details of Iran's covert operations inside Iraq. But in 2004, the agency intercepted a series of urgent messages from the Iranian embassy in Baghdad. Intelligence officials at the embassy had discovered the massive security breach—tipped off by someone familiar with the U.S. code-breaking operation.
The blow to intelligence-gathering could not have come at a worse time. The Bush administration suspected that the Shiite government in Iran was aiding Shiite insurgents in Iraq, who were killing U.S. soldiers. The administration was also worried that Tehran was secretly developing nuclear weapons. Now, crucial intelligence that might have shed light on those operations had been cut off, potentially endangering American lives.
On May 20th [2003], shortly after the discovery of the leak, Iraqi police backed by American soldiers raided [Ajmand] Chalabi's home and offices in Baghdad. The FBI suspected that Chalabi, a Shiite who had a luxurious villa in Tehran and was close to senior Iranian officials, was actually working as a spy for the Shiite government of Iran. Getting the U.S. to invade Iraq was apparently part of a plan to install a pro-Iranian Shiite government in Baghdad, with Chalabi in charge. The bureau also suspected that Chalabi's intelligence chief had furnished Iran with highly classified information on U.S. troop movements, top-secret communications, plans of the provisional government and other closely guarded material on U.S. operations in Iraq. On the night of the raid, The CBS Evening News carried an exclusive report by correspondent Lesley Stahl that the U.S. government had "rock-solid" evidence that Chalabi had been passing extremely sensitive intelligence to Iran - evidence so sensitive that it could "get Americans killed." (my emphasis)
There's a common theme here with the Iran-Contra affair. In both cases, supposedly tough-minded American hard-liners were conned into supporting a plan that benefitted Iran at the expense of American interests. Bamford continues:
That night [May 21], Stahl followed up her original report with "new details" - the information leaked earlier that day by Franklin. She began, however, by making clear that she would not divulge the most explosive detail of all: the fact that Chalabi had wrecked the NSA's ability to eavesdrop onIran. "Senior intelligence officials were stressing today that the information Ahmed Chalabi is alleged to have passed on to Iran is so seriously sensitive that the result of full disclosure would be highly damaging to U.S. security," Stahl said. " Because of that, we are not reporting the details of what exactly Chalabi is said to have compromised, at the request of U.S. officials at the highest levels. The information involves secrets that were held by only a handful of very senior intelligence officials." Thanks to the pressure from the administration, the public was prevented from learning the most damaging aspect of Chalabi's treachery. (my emphasis)
I hope Bamford is wrong in his concluding judgment that the Iran hawks are in the driver's seat on policy right now. There have been definite indications in recent months that more sensible heads were prevailing on Iran policy. I hope the latter is correct, and that it continues.
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