In a replay of Iraq, a battle is brewing over intelligence on Iran

[Pirate Smile]

In a replay of Iraq, a battle is brewing over intelligence on Iran

By Warren P. Strobel and John Walcott
McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON -
-snip-
U.S. intelligence and counterterrorism officials say Bush political appointees and hard-liners on Capitol Hill have tried recently to portray Iran's nuclear program as more advanced than it is and to exaggerate Tehran's role in Hezbollah's attack on Israel in mid-July.

-snip-
The leader of a Persian Gulf country who visited Washington recently came away without receiving assurances he sought that the military option was off the table, said a person with direct knowledge of the meetings.
"It seems like Iran is becoming the new Iraq," said one U.S. counterterrorism official.

-snip-
Some officials at the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the State Department said they're concerned that the offices of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney may be receiving a stream of questionable information that originates with Iranian exiles, including a discredited arms dealer, Manucher Ghorbanifar, who played a role in the 1980s Iran-Contra scandal.

Officials at all three agencies said they suspect that the dubious information may include claims that Iran directed Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group, to kidnap two Israeli soldiers in July; that Iran's nuclear program is moving faster than generally believed; and that the Iranian people are eager to join foreign efforts to overthrow their theocratic rulers.
The officials said there is no reliable intelligence to support any of those assertions and some that contradicts all three.

Officials at all three agencies said they suspect that the dubious information may include claims that Iran directed Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group, to kidnap two Israeli soldiers in July; that Iran's nuclear program is moving faster than generally believed; and that the Iranian people are eager to join foreign efforts to overthrow their theocratic rulers.

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/columnists/warren_p_strobel/15529884.htm?source=rss&channel=krwashington_warren_p_strobel

[Purveyor]

1. Will the "sheeple" buy into this round of lies?

[Pirate Smile]

2. More - very important:

Adding to the unease, Rumsfeld's office earlier this year set up a new Iranian directorate, reported to be under the leadership of neoconservatives who played a role in planning the Iraq war.

Current and former officials said the Pentagon's Iranian directorate has been headed by Abram Shulsky. Shulsky also was the head of the now-defunct Office of Special Plans, whose role in allegedly manipulating Iraq intelligence is under investigation by the Pentagon's inspector general.

Some officials say they fear the office, whose existence was first reported by the Los Angeles Times, is being used to funnel intelligence from Ghorbanifar, the arms dealer, and an Iranian exile group known as the Mujahedeen Khalq.

[rodeodance]

14. thanks. These names keep popping up don't they!

[struggle4progress]

3. O, did I say IraQ? I meant IraN. I blame the spell-check program ... n/t

[Pirate Smile]

4. kick

[IndianaGreen]

5. Ghorbanifar? I haven't heard that name since Iran-Contra

Manucher Ghorbanifar (nickname Gorba) is an expatriate Iranian arms dealer best known as a middleman in the Iran-Contra Affair during the Ronald Reagan presidency. He re-emerged in American politics during the lead-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq during the first term of President George W. Bush as a back-channel intelligence source to certain Pentagon officials who desired regime change in anti-American and theocratic Iran.

Iran-Contra

In the 1980s, Ghorbanifar's principal American contacts were National Security Council agents Oliver North and Michael Ledeen. Ghorbanifar also tried to get the US to support the Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK) opposition to the Khomeini government of Iran. Ledeen vouched for Ghorbanifar to National Security Advisor Robert McFarlane. Oliver North later claimed that Ghorbanifar had given him the idea for diverting profits from TOW and HAWK missile sales to Iran to the Nicaraguan Contras.

Ghorbanifar's suspected duplicity during the Iran-Contra deal led CIA Director William Casey to order three separate lie-detector tests, all of which he failed. Iranian officials also suspected Ghorbanifar of passing them forged American documents. The CIA issued a burn notice (or "Fabricator Notice") on Ghorbanifar in 1984, meaning he was regarded as an unreliable source of intelligence. A 1987 congressional report on Iran-Contra cites the CIA warning that Ghorbanifar "should be regarded as an intelligence fabricator and a nuisance".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghorbanifar

[leftchick]

8. he is one of Michael Ledeen's uh, what would the word be?

protege perhaps?

<snip>

The Italian Job

The first meeting occurred in Rome in December, 2001. It included Franklin, Rhode, and another American, the neoconservative writer and operative Michael Ledeen, who organized the meeting. (According to UPI, Ledeen was then working for Feith as a consultant.) Also in attendance was Ghorbanifar and a number of other Iranians. One of the Iranians, according to two sources familiar with the meeting, was a former senior member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard who claimed to have information about dissident ranks within the Iranian security services. The Washington Monthly has also learned from U.S. government sources that Nicolo Pollari, the head of Italy's military intelligence agency, SISMI, attended the meetings, as did the Italian Minister of Defense Antonio Martino, who is well-known in neoconservative circles in Washington.

Alarm bells about the December 2001 meeting began going off in U.S. government channels only days after it occurred. On Dec. 12, 2001, at the U.S. embassy in Rome, America's newly-installed ambassador, Mel Sembler, sat down for a private dinner with Ledeen, an old friend of his from Republican Party politics, and Martino, the Italian defense minister. The conversation quickly turned to the meeting. The problem was that this was the first that Amb. Sembler had heard about it.

According to U.S. government sources, Sembler immediately set about trying to determine what he could about the meeting and how it had happened. Since U.S. government contact with foreign government intelligence agencies is supposed to be overseen by the CIA, Sembler first spoke to the CIA station chief in Rome to find out what if anything he knew about the meeting with the Iranians. But that only raised more questions because the station chief had been left in the dark as well. Soon both Sembler and the Rome station chief were sending anxious queries back to the State Department and CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., respectively, raising alarms on both sides of the Potomac.

The meeting was a source of concern for a series of overlapping reasons. Since the late 1980s, Ghorbanifar has been the subject of two CIA "burn notices." The agency believes Ghorbanifar is a serial "fabricator" and forbids its officers from having anything to do with him. Moreover, why were mid-level Pentagon officials organizing meetings with a foreign intelligence agency behind the back of the CIA -- a clear breach of U.S. government protocol? There was also a matter of personal chagrin for Sembler: At State Department direction, he had just been cautioning the Italians to restrain their contacts with bad-acting states like Iran (with which Italy has extensive trade ties).

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0410.marshallrozen.html

[Bucky]

17. I had the same reaction. He's the last IranContra figure not hired by Bush

Between Negroponte and Poindexter, and now Ghorbanifar, it's like a class reunion.

[fshrink]

6. Spying agencies (they are more that than "intelligence") always

serve a domestic political agenda. When the government resembles a dictature, as is the case here, the spying agencies serve the interests of the faction in power. That's it. The rest is media copy and fodder for us.

[UpInArms]

7. Here is the Iraq record

[teryang]

11. Great post!

After all the documented lies they have told, how could anything these people say be given a nanogram of credibility?

[annabanana]

9. Abram Shulsky

I would think that this guy's obvious inability to tell the truth (as in the Iraq misadventure) would make him the very LAST person to still be involved in policy.

Who gave him gold plated skivvies?

[AlamoDemoc]

10. K & R

[VegasWolf]

12. Even assuming Bush gets his fake intelligence approved, then what will

Bush do? Our military is mired down in the Iraqi swamp of broken dreams, endless supplies of lost money and people, worn out military equipment, a trade deficit that would send an economist screaming into an insane asylum, Taliban now starting to control Afganistan at will, Bush's puppet president there can hardly leave the city of Kabul. Bush, what are you gonna do about it?

[BrotherBuzz]

13. We should hire Brewster Jennings & Associates to ferret out the truth..

I understand they have feet on the ground and many highly placed contacts in Iran.

They were compromised, and their highly placed contacts went to ground? Oh, never mind.

:sarcasm:

[rodeodance]

15. A Pentagon spokeswoman didn't return two phone calls

Current and former officials said the Pentagon's Iranian directorate has been headed by Abram Shulsky. Shulsky also was the head of the now-defunct Office of Special Plans, whose role in allegedly manipulating Iraq intelligence is under investigation by the Pentagon's inspector general.

Some officials say they fear the office, whose existence was first reported by the Los Angeles Times, is being used to funnel intelligence from Ghorbanifar, the arms dealer, and an Iranian exile group known as the Mujahedeen Khalq.

A Pentagon spokeswoman didn't return two phone calls seeking comment about the office.

Bill Murray, a retired CIA station chief in Paris who met with a Ghorbanifar associate and found his claims about Iran to be bogus, called the office's establishment "a big bell ringer."

"That is outright manipulation of information to suggest a predetermined policy," Murray said.

[rodeodance]

16. "There's less of an inclination to let Cheney and Rumsfeld run free."

....... But they said this time, intelligence analysts and others are more forcefully challenging claims they believe to be false or questionable.

"There's no question that people are less afraid to speak up after what happened in Iraq," said one intelligence official. "There's less of an inclination to let Cheney and Rumsfeld run free."

[Bucky]

18. I did an AltaVista Babelfish translation of the Farsi word "Ghorbanifar"

It means... "Chalabi"

[maryallen]

21. Good one!

[PerceptionManagement]

19. Chimpy will bomb Iran & delete SS next year.

I just wish he'd do it sooner. Fall is such a nice time of the year for apocalypse.

[Bonobo]

20. That's it, he bombs Iran and I'm in the mo'fo streets!!