Bush und Rumsfeld bereiten Iran-Angriff vor

--- Der investigative US-Reporter Seymour Hersh, der zuletzt mit seinen Enthüllungen rund um Abu Ghraib Aufmerksamkeit erregte, hat mal wieder zugeschlagen. In seinem Stammmagazin New Yorker verrät er, dass die Bush-Regierung mit ihrem Oberfalken Rumsfeld bereits konkrete Angriffsziele im Iran ausspäht, während die Europäer noch auf Verhandlungen setzen: Despite the deteriorating security situation in Iraq, the Bush Administration has not reconsidered its basic long-range policy goal in the Middle East: the establishment of democracy throughout the region. Bush’s reëlection is regarded within the Administration as evidence of America’s support for his decision to go to war. It has reaffirmed the position of the neoconservatives in the Pentagon’s civilian leadership who advocated the invasion, including Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, and Douglas Feith, the Under-secretary for Policy. According to a former high-level intelligence official, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld met with the Joint Chiefs of Staff shortly after the election and told them, in essence, that the naysayers had been heard and the American people did not accept their message. Rumsfeld added that America was committed to staying in Iraq and that there would be no second-guessing. “This is a war against terrorism, and Iraq is just one campaign. The Bush Administration is looking at this as a huge war zone,” the former high-level intelligence official told me. “Next, we’re going to have the Iranian campaign. We’ve declared war and the bad guys, wherever they are, are the enemy. This is the last hurrah—we’ve got four years, and want to come out of this saying we won the war on terrorism.” ... The Administration has been conducting secret reconnaissance missions inside Iran a least since last summer. Much of the focus is o the accumulation of intelligence and targetin information on Iranian nuclear, chemical, an missile sites, both declared and suspected. Th goal is to identify and isolate three dozen, an perhaps more, such targets that could b destroyed by precision strikes and short-ter commando raids. “The civilians in th Pentagon want to go into Iran and destroy a much of the military infrastructure as possible, the government consultant with close ties to th Pentagon told me.

Das Desaster im Irak hin oder her -- die Mullahs sollen dran glauben, auch wenn die Beziehungen mit der EU dann endgültig in die Brüche gehen würden. Aber zunächst will Bush ja erst mal mit höchstem Sicherheitsaufwand und trotzdem gleichzeitig unbeschwert seine Wiederwahl feiern, was die Nachrichten über einen bevorstehenden Iran-Angriff in dieser Woche erst einmal überlagern wird. Und überhaupt, ein Bericht "voller Ungenauigkeiten", tönt es aus dem Weißen Haus. Eine schöne Bestätigung der Recherchen, denn natürlich weiß man dort noch besser über die eigenen Pläne Bescheid. Aber die Richtung des Wahnsinnsunternehmens scheint zu stimmen.