That is according to Seymour Hersh regarding a possible attack on Iran in a new article up on the New Yorker website. Sy was also on CNN this morning discussing the new story with John Roberts.
The bad news is the serious planning is still underway for an attack. And......to prove he's not trainable, Hersh reports that Rummy thinks an attack on Iran will be a cakewalk - just like Iraq was.
A Hersh source says:
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his senior aides "really think they can do this on the cheap, and they underestimate the capability of the adversary," he said.
More below:
Hersh starts out reporting that the President's new Iranian diplomacy had:
an unspoken threat: the U.S. Strategic Command, supported by the Air Force, has been drawing up plans, at the President's direction, for a major bombing campaign in Iran.
Amazingly, it is the career military who are resisting attacking Iran:
Inside the Pentagon, senior commanders have increasingly challenged the President's plans, according to active-duty and retired officers and officials. The generals and admirals have told the Administration that the bombing campaign will probably not succeed in destroying Iran's nuclear program. They have also warned that an attack could lead to serious economic, political, and military consequences for the United States.
It's the old problem of bad intelligence. I would hope that this time no one will buy Bush/Cheney lies of an Iranian threat that may or may not exist. Hersh says there is a war raging in the Pentagon over the prospects of going to war.
A crucial issue in the military's dissent, the officers said, is the fact that American and European intelligence agencies have not found specific evidence of clandestine activities or hidden facilities; the war planners are not sure what to hit.
It's a good time that Curtis LeMay is not running the Air Force or is Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs. The amazing thing Hersh reports is that Pace is telling the White House of the economic and political consequences of an attack on Iran.
In this case, I was told, the current chairman, Marine General Peter Pace, has gone further in his advice to the White House by addressing the consequences of an attack on Iran. "Here's the military telling the President what he can't do politically"--raising concerns about rising oil prices, for example--the former senior intelligence official said. "The J.C.S. chairman going to the President with an economic argument--what's going on here?" (General Pace and the White House declined to comment. The Defense Department responded to a detailed request for comment by saying that the Administration was "working diligently" on a diplomatic solution and that it could not comment on classified matters.)
A retired four-star general, who ran a major command, said, "The system is starting to sense the end of the road, and they don't want to be condemned by history. They want to be able to say, `We stood up.' "
I suspect Pace is arguing with Cheney and the NeoCONS on what to do with Iran. It seems the world is turned upside down if the military is the one arguing against an attack.
An amazing read - Updates to this diary will follow.
Link to article:
http://www.newyorker.com/...