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Should a journalist report something like that? Was this a purposeful leak designed to send a message, or is he actually putting US troops at risk by writing it? Aside from that, is it more important to let people know what's being done in spite of that risk to the troops - if the story is true, that is - or should a journalist sit on the story because it's wartime? Is this like our Cambodian adventures? And what was the role of the press in all that?

*edit* The story is here, btw

One additional question should be is the story even accurate?

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I might not even be worth a thread. I heard em talkin about it on CNN just now and typed out the topic, and then looked it up on Google news and realized that it's just more of the same and probably nothin at all.

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Registration required, damn you. Can you paste it?

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I found the basic story on google news. Seems to me that reporting it has to be legal and ought to be. As to whether Hersh should have reported it, I'd say 'yes'. The implications of it could affect all of you, after all, and why on earth would you always trust any government, let alone your current one, to exercise the best judgement on these matters? I would say that it is all part of the game; if it gets out, it gets out.

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If what Hersh said in his interview with CNN is true (American administration officials thinking that a US attack on Iran would cause an uprising against the Iranian government, this from the same people who expected to be treated as liberators in Iraq) then Hersh absolutely should be telling us all about what they're up to.

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I would think that there are far better ways for Iran to be pacified and far better people to accomplish it.

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I am having seriously difficulty believing this guy, not so much on the commandos part but on the 'what the administration thinks' part.

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I imagine that he is quoting his sources in that, as well. Although I don't find it unbelievable, personally.

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Hersch has probably the best network of insider sources of any journalist working today. Woodward might be close, but Hersch is not often entirely wrong, despite the fact that much of what he reports is pretty far-out stuff (and has been for nearly 35 years, most of it by now vindicated). Hersch is pretty much single-handedly responsible for breaking My Lai in Vietnam, Abu Gharib recently, and a whole bunch of stuff in between (including Gulf War Syndrome). And although he is rabidly partisan to a degree that would make Michael Moore blush, it's impossible to not take him seriously. His track record pretty much demands it.

I read the piece yesterday. Like Eatme, I think some of the "what the administration thinks" stuff can be taken with a grain of salt, though I don't think any of that is Hersch's invention, it's just one side of the argument. That's not really the salient bit though.

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Hersch himself is a twat, but the government has used the media for misinformation purposes knowing that the media doesnt really wait for too much substance before they run with a good story. The government has leaked information, false information to watch reaction and movement of the enemy. You cant really punish them sometimes then use them others or it will be clear when it is or isnt misinformation. I am certainly as suspicious of the government as I am of the media but the government has the disadvantage of not being sympathized with as much as the media when imo they are equally as powerful governing bodies, actually Id give the media the edge as far as the power to steer the masses goes and the government uses that to it's advantage sometimes.

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I don't see that this is something that the government would want out, if it is true. Additionally, he says that these people have been reliable sources of information before (presumably on stuff like Abu Ghraib).

The media colelctively ought to be more powerful than the government, as they are the supply of information. I don't think that they are, though.

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Here is the latest story from AOHELL news.
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Updated: 04:55 PM EST
Pentagon Faults Iran Covert Ops Report
Spokesman Attacks Article Without Commenting on Its Major Assertion

WASHINGTON (Jan. 17) - The Pentagon on Monday criticized a published report that said it was mounting reconnaissance missions inside Iran to identify potential nuclear and other targets.

"The Iranian regime's apparent nuclear ambitions and its demonstrated support for terrorist organizations is a global challenge that deserves much more serious treatment than Seymour Hersh provides in the New Yorker article titled "The Coming Wars," the Pentagon's chief spokesman, Lawrence DiRita, said in a statement.

Hersh's article, published on Sunday, was "so riddled with errors of fundamental fact that the credibility of his entire piece is destroyed," DiRita said.

Hersh reported that President Bush had signed a series of top-secret findings and executive orders authorizing secret commando groups and other Special Forces military units to conduct covert operations against suspected terrorist targets in as many as 10 nations in the Middle East and South Asia.

DiRita did not comment on that assertion.

Instead, he said, Hersh's sources fed him "rumor, innuendo, and assertions about meetings that never happened, programs that do not exist and statements by officials that were never made."

Asked whether U.S. military forces had been conducting reconnaissance missions in Iran, Defense Department spokesman Lt. Col. Barry Venable said, "We don't discuss missions, capabilities or activities of Special Operations forces."

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Now let's look at the meat:

Hersh reported that President Bush had signed a series of top-secret findings and executive orders authorizing secret commando groups and other Special Forces military units to conduct covert operations against suspected terrorist targets in as many as 10 nations in the Middle East and South Asia.

DiRita did not comment on that assertion.

Asked whether U.S. military forces had been conducting reconnaissance missions in Iran, Defense Department spokesman Lt. Col. Barry Venable said, "We don't discuss missions, capabilities or activities of Special Operations forces."

Typically, when government spokesmen do not "comment" or "discuss" that means they are not denying that things are happening. Therefore we can conclude that US forces are indeed running ID missions in Iran consistent with the executive order mentioned above.

Also from past experience, with the Pentagon asserting that Hersh's article is "so riddled with errors of fundamental fact that the credibility of his entire piece is destroyed" that it can be concluded that the article was dead on with its facts. They have made this type of damage control statement before when confronted with the truth.

The real question is with knowledge of Iranian nuclear site locations, should the US try to take them out? A few months back, it was reported that the US sold Israel a shitload of cluster munitions, and it was theorized that they would use this on Iranian nuclear sites ala Osirik (an operation I totally agreed with). With info from us, they might try it. But if we took out the sites by whatever means, what kind of blowback would we get from it? Undoubtedly it would set back Tehran's weapons program by years, yet making them move them underground where we would not have a clue to what they were up to. Any attack on an operational reactor where they are refining fuel would cause lingering casualties from radiation releases, and that would definitely piss off the Islamic world against us. The greatest damage that they could do to us is not military, but economic. If the arab OPEC members decide to turn off the oil spigot to the US permanently in retaliation, it would cause a world of hurt. Of course, this would dent their revenues greatly, but probably not enough that they couldn't adjust to it.

I'd guess though that if we did, Iran certainly would have a giant conniption fit, and the rest of the Mideast would howl, but secretly would be relieved that it was done in the realization that Iran could not force their fundamental Islamification upon them with nuclear blackmail. Most likely Iran would not sell their oil to us and would redouble their efforts to train and harbor terrorists to attack us, but the rest of the countries would just pay lip service to Iran and continue to do buisness with us.

Any other scenarios y'all care to put forth?

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There isn't much the administration can say, I don't think. They can hardly get into piecemeal denials every time an accusation is made, else either no one would believe them, or they'd be damned by the silence when they didn't refute accusations.

And people feel that Hersh is normally right, so I guess they're better off staying schtumn.

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I think the U.S. has reached the limits of what conventional warfare can accomplish. We ought to resort to guerilla tactics and infiltration--e.g. it would be better for the Iranians to drop an atom bomb on New York and it not work than for us to destroy most of their development sites with airstrikes.

Of course, this sort of thing is difficult when Hersch puts them on the front page. There is a definite difference between exposing atrocities and blowing the cover of covert ops teams.

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I think that Americans might be interested if their government is effectively committing an act of war against Iran. If he was an embed, or something, he'd have an agreement with the government as to what he could write and that is fair enough, but more power to him, I say. Otherwise, electing a president means 'you can do what you want, so long as you keep it secret'.

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quote:

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Originally posted by squee

Of course, this sort of thing is difficult when Hersch puts them on the front page. There is a definite difference between exposing atrocities and blowing the cover of covert ops teams.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Paint CHiPs
I'm a little amazed that there are still people in this day and age that think our country is better served by the press remaining silent than they are by an exhaustive airing of dirty laundry.[quote]Clarify something for me, please? Are you drawing a moral equivalence of some sort among abu ghraib AND my lai and ANY AND ALL covert ops we have going on around the world?
[quote]You're essentially asking that journalists specifically and Americans generally be satisfied with the answer "just trust us", coming from the United States government. For me personally (and all the way up), trust has to be earned. It's a function of a working, trustworthy relationship, I don't just give it because somebody asks me to. I feel that the United States government by and large has done much to NOT earn that trust (the Bush administration in particular). As it relates to Hersch, if he would have just sat on the various information he's come across over the years in the hopes that the United States knew what it was doing and was better served by silence, we'd have never heard about My Lai, Abu Gharib, Gulf War Syndrome, etc. Note, that stuff would have still HAPPENED, indeed in all probability would have grown far far beyond what it was allowed to after the subsequent PR hits that exposure created. That our "image" has been harmed by the exposure of all that stuff is undeniable. That "the good of the country" is better served through covering that stuff up is an argument I have a very difficult time even remotely relating to. If it were up to me, people like Hersch would be getting goddamn medals for their service to "the good of the country".

As far as The Press vs The Government: The press only has as much power over me as I let it. Such cannot be said for the government.

As far as this being a government planted story, I think that's a bit of wishful thinking there. For one, there's really no upside here, for the government. Secondly, it's hard to believe that the same network of people that leaked Abu Gharib to Hersch (which is certainly something the government did NOT want out) would then turn around and purposefully mislead Hersch for the same people they fucked over the first time. I suppose this could be just an elaborate plot, where misinformation was leaked internally with the thought that it would thus leak externally and thus our enemies would be confused, but all that seems even more tangled and delusional than simply accepting it all at face value (Occam's Razor, or what have you).

I actually don't have much of an objection to covert ops going on in regards to Iran's nuclear infrastructure (nor the need to know about them even), I largely agree with Squee's first paragraph on that. Why it's important to have this information, however, is if it is indeed a sign that the United States is premeditatively sowing the seeds for future and broader actions against Iran, as many of the actions within the government prior to the buildup of the war in Iraq ended up being. That's certainly the implication as Hersch understands it. I find that so ghastly moronic that I'm still having a hard time swallowing it, but there is much that the United States has done over the last five years that I have had similar reactions to. [/B]

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I believe that only people who learn about secret government/military stuff through their employment in the government or military or some other job where they sign a commitment to secrecy, and reveal it, can be acted against legally. Isn't that right?

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Uh, Israel doesnt have the ability to bomb Irans nuclear program out. Few reasons and this is a short list...I could probably come up with more but this should suffice. First, they did the Iraq job on a refuel. Their best planes are some US F-16 I's that would maybe get there on fumes...I doubt they could even transport sufficient ordinance given the sort of range were talking about. Second(and maybe this should be first), they have the same intel we do about Iranian nuclear sites...which is probably not complete(actually, I know its not). Our bombing of Iraqi sites during the first gulf war hit all known sites. When the inpsection regime went in we found out we had not even known about something like 60% of Iraqs facilities. Our intelligence on Iran is in somewhat similar shape. Last, the negative ramifications of such a move by the US or Israel are numerous and some possibly irreparable...for a payoff that is a big, big maybe in terms of actually ending the Iranian endeavor. I am quite convinced this whole thing can end peacefully and in our favor...I would bet that some sort of program is hammered out of all of this that involves Iran partnering with the Russians on a verifiable, Russian based enrichment deal.

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I didnt say this was a planted story, what I said was they have planted stories before and there have been questions on whether stories like this should be legal, my point was that the government cant use the media to spread misinformation then turn around and punish them when they leak real stuff or it will become clear when stories are government plants and when they are not.

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Ah, fair enough.

I think that they have used the media simply because they can't often shut t