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The move reveals a "major escalation" in clandestine operations aimed at destabilizing the Islamic republic's religious leadership amid concerns over Tehran's nuclear ambitions, said the report in the New Yorker magazine citing former military, intelligence, and congressional sources.

It seems somewhat ironic to me that if this article is true, wouldn't printing an article about it, defeat the purpose of 'covert' operations? Unless of course, it's just a mindf**k on the Iranians.

Something really covert doesn't get published, unless everything hits the fan and there's no way to deny it. Even dissenting military people won't speak to a reporter about it, because they know it's going to mean people in their brotherhood are going to get killed , wounded, or captured.

Iran's Ahmadinejad issues new threats against Israel, U.S.

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BY ADAM NICHOLS
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Sunday, September 23rd 2007, 4:00 AM

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

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Ahmadinejad (3rd from left on dais) looks at anti-Israel and anti-U.S. slogans on jeeps yesterday.

Iranian leaders made a show of their military might, including this Fateh 110 missile.
On the eve of his trip to New York City, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stood before a banner blaring "Death to America," showed off his military might and declared his extremist regime will not bow to Western pressure.

"Those who think, that by using such decayed tools as psychological warfare and economic sanctions, they can stop the Iranian nation's progress are making a mistake," Ahmadinejad said yesterday outside of Tehran.

As the hatemonger spoke, a parade of anti-aircraft guns, missiles and military hardware moved before him. Three jet fighters flew overhead.

In a menacing move, Ahmadinejad's military henchmen said the medium-range missiles could reach Israel and U.S. bases in the Gulf.

Ahmadinejad, who is coming to New York to address the United Nations General Assembly, is expected to land at Kennedy Airport today.

The White House and U.S. military leaders have accused Iran of supplying training and weapons to terrorists who are attacking and killing U.S. troops in Iraq.

Large protests will greet Ahmadinejad - an accused terrorist, Holocaust denier and member of the Axis of Evil - when he speaks at Columbia University on Monday and when he addresses the UN Tuesday.

Ahmadinejad sparked outrage last week by requesting an official tour of Ground Zero. The proposed visit, which was promptly rejected by the NYPD, sickened victims' relatives and U.S. leaders.

Ahmadinejad said he was "amazed" by the negative reaction. But he has said he will abandon his plans to lay a wreath on the hallowed ground where nearly 3,000 people were killed by terrorists - an attack he has suggested was an inside job carried out by U.S. intelligence agents.

Columbia has refused to cancel Ahmadinejad's appearance at its School of International and Public Affairs. University President Lee Bollinger has vowed to challenge Ahmadinejad on his denial of the Holocaust, his alleged sponsorship of terrorism, his pursuit of nuclear weapons and the imprisonment of journalists and scholars in Iran.

But several political leaders and religious groups have slammed Columbia for inviting the madman to mouth off.

"Anyone who supports terror, pledges to destroy a sovereign nation [Israel], punishes by death anyone who 'insults' religion ... denies the Holocaust and thumbs his nose at the international community has no legitimate role to play at a university," Catholic League President Bill Donohue said.

The State Department has issued Ahmadinejad an extremely restrictive C-2 visa. It lasts 29 days and the holder must remain within a 25-mile radius of Columbus Circle.

The NYPD and a Secret Service detail will accompany Ahmadinejad during his visit - and protect him despite his repeated threats against the U.S.

At the military parade in Iran yesterday, the head of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, Mohammad Ali Jafari, said Western powers would regret it if they attacked the Islamic republic over Tehran's nuclear activities.

"They will regret it, as they are regretting it in Iraq," Jafari said.

Asked how Iran would respond if a neighboring country let its territory be used to launch attacks, Jafari said, "You have seen the missiles - just pull the trigger and shoot."

anichols@nydailynews.com

What are they going to do?! Kill their leader and have him replaced by someone far worse...

It seems somewhat ironic to me that if this article is true, wouldn't printing an article about it, defeat the purpose of 'covert' operations?

Operations outside the knowledge and control of commanders have eroded “the coherence of military strategy,” one general says.

L ate last year, Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran, according to current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources. These operations, for which the President sought up to four hundred million dollars, were described in a Presidential Finding signed by Bush, and are designed to destabilize the country’s religious leadership. The covert activities involve support of the minority Ahwazi Arab and Baluchi groups and other dissident organizations. They also include gathering intelligence about Iran’s suspected nuclear-weapons program.

Clandestine operations against Iran are not new. United States Special Operations Forces have been conducting cross-border operations from southern Iraq, with Presidential authorization, since last year. These have included seizing members of Al Quds, the commando arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and taking them to Iraq for interrogation, and the pursuit of “high-value targets” in the President’s war on terror, who may be captured or killed. But the scale and the scope of the operations in Iran, which involve the Central Intelligence Agency and the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), have now been significantly expanded, according to the current and former officials. Many of these activities are not specified in the new Finding, and some congressional leaders have had serious questions about their nature.

Under federal law, a Presidential Finding, which is highly classified, must be issued when a covert intelligence operation gets under way and, at a minimum, must be made known to Democratic and Republican leaders in the House and the Senate and to the ranking members of their respective intelligence committees—the so-called Gang of Eight. Money for the operation can then be reprogrammed from previous appropriations, as needed, by the relevant congressional committees, which also can be briefed.

“The Finding was focussed on undermining Iran’s nuclear ambitions and trying to undermine the government through regime change,” a person familiar with its contents said, and involved “working with opposition groups and passing money.” The Finding provided for a whole new range of activities in southern Iran and in the areas, in the east, where Baluchi political opposition is strong, he said.

Although some legislators were troubled by aspects of the Finding, and “there was a significant amount of high-level discussion” about it, according to the source familiar with it, the funding for the escalation was approved. In other words, some members of the Democratic leadership—Congress has been under Democratic control since the 2006 elections—were willing, in secret, to go along with the Administration in expanding covert activities directed at Iran, while the Party’s presumptive candidate for President, Barack Obama, has said that he favors direct talks and diplomacy.

The request for funding came in the same period in which the Administration was coming to terms with a National Intelligence Estimate, released in December, that concluded that Iran had halted its work on nuclear weapons in 2003. The Administration downplayed the significance of the N.I.E., and, while saying that it was committed to diplomacy, continued to emphasize that urgent action was essential to counter the Iranian nuclear threat. President Bush questioned the N.I.E.’s conclusions, and senior national-security officials, including Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, made similar statements. (So did Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican Presidential nominee.) Meanwhile, the Administration also revived charges that the Iranian leadership has been involved in the killing of American soldiers in Iraq: both directly, by dispatching commando units into Iraq, and indirectly, by supplying materials used for roadside bombs and other lethal goods. (There have been questions about the accuracy of the claims; the Times, among others, has reported that “significant uncertainties remain about the extent of that involvement.”)

Military and civilian leaders in the Pentagon share the White House’s concern about Iran’s nuclear ambitions, but there is disagreement about whether a military strike is the right solution. Some Pentagon officials believe, as they have let Congress and the media know, that bombing Iran is not a viable response to the nuclear-proliferation issue, and that more diplomacy is necessary.

A Democratic senator told me that, late last year, in an off-the-record lunch meeting, Secretary of Defense Gates met with the Democratic caucus in the Senate. (Such meetings are held regularly.) Gates warned of the consequences if the Bush Administration staged a preëmptive strike on Iran, saying, as the senator recalled, “We’ll create generations of jihadists, and our grandchildren will be battling our enemies here in America.” Gates’s comments stunned the Democrats at the lunch, and another senator asked whether Gates was speaking for Bush and Vice-President****Cheney. Gates’s answer, the senator told me, was “Let’s just say that I’m here speaking for myself.” (A spokesman for Gates confirmed that he discussed the consequences of a strike at the meeting, but would not address what he said, other than to dispute the senator’s characterization.)

The Joint Chiefs of Staff, whose chairman is Admiral Mike Mullen, were “pushing back very hard” against White House pressure to undertake a military strike against Iran, the person familiar with the Finding told me. Similarly, a Pentagon consultant who is involved in the war on terror said that “at least ten senior flag and general officers, including combatant commanders”—the four-star officers who direct military operations around the world—“have weighed in on that issue.”

The most outspoken of those officers is Admiral William Fallon, who until recently was the head of U.S. Central Command, and thus in charge of American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. In March, Fallon resigned under pressure, after giving a series of interviews stating his reservations about an armed attack on Iran. For example, late last year he told the Financial Times that the “real objective” of U.S. policy was to change the Iranians’ behavior, and that “attacking them as a means to get to that spot strikes me as being not the first choice.”

The United States and its allies have accused Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons under the cover of a civilian nuclear program. Iran has denied the U.S. charges, insisting that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only.

Clandestine operations against Iran are not new. United States Special Operations Forces have been conducting cross-border operations from southern Iraq, with Presidential authorization, since last year. These have included seizing members of Al Quds, the commando arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and taking them to Iraq for interrogation, and the pursuit of “high-value targets” in the President’s war on terror, who may be captured or killed. But the scale and the scope of the operations in Iran, which involve the Central Intelligence Agency and the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), have now been significantly expanded, according to the current and former officials. Many of these activities are not specified in the new Finding, and some congressional leaders have had serious questions about their nature.

The White House and U.S. military leaders have accused Iran of supplying training and weapons to terrorists who are attacking and killing U.S. troops in Iraq.

they are working with dissident groups there, etc. and the idea is to create enough chaos and provoke Iran enough to make a case for an invasion

The only reason there is any traction on this is because the average person doesn't know a single fact:

Pentagon officials believe the massive Israeli air force exercise in early June, first reported by the New York Times, was done to prepare for a possible attack. A senior official called it "not a rehearsal, but basic, fundamental training" required to launch an operation against Iran.

hero of the left, Lieberman,

I really don't think this information about Covert Ops should be out in the public.