- NEW YORK -- The U.S. Air
Force is playing a dangerous game of cat and mouse with Iran's ayatollahs,
flying American combat aircraft into Iranian airspace in an attempt to
lure Tehran into turning on air defense radars, thus allowing U.S. pilots
to grid the system for use in future targeting data, administration
officials
said.
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- "We have to know which targets to attack and how
to attack them," said one, speaking on condition of anonymity.
-
- The flights, which have been going on for weeks, are
being launched from sites in Afghanistan and Iraq and are part of Bush
administration attempts collect badly needed intelligence on Iran's
possible
nuclear weapons development sites, these sources said, speaking on
condition
of strict anonymity.
-
- "These Iranian air defense positions are not just
being observed, they're being 'templated,'" an administration official
said, explaining that the flights are part of a U.S. effort to develop
"an electronic order of battle for Iran" in case of actual
conflict.
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- In the event of an actual clash, Iran's air defense
radars
would be targeted for destruction by air-fired U.S. anti-radiation or ARM
missiles, he said.
-
- A serving U.S. intelligence official added: "You
need to know what proportion of your initial air strikes are going to have
to be devoted to air defense suppression."
-
- A CentCom official told United Press International that
in the event of a real military strikes, U.S. military forces would be
using jamming, deception, and physical attack of Iran's sensors and its
Command, Control and Intelligence (C3 systems).
-
- He also made clear that that this entails "advance,
detailed knowledge of the enemy's electronic order of battle and careful
preplanning."
-
- Ellen Laipson, president and CEO of the Henry L. Stimson
Center and former CIA Middle East expert, said of the flights, "They
are not necessarily an act of war in themselves, unless they are perceived
as being so by the country that is being overflown."
-
- Laipson explained: "It's not unusual for countries
to test each other's air defenses from time to time, to do a little probing
-- but it can be dangerous if the target country believes that such flights
could mean an imminent attack."
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- She said her concern was that Iran "will not only
turn on its air defense radars but use them to fire missiles at U.S.
aircraft,"
an act which would "greatly increase tensions" between the two
countries.
-
- The air reconnaissance is taking place in conjunction
with other intelligence collection efforts, U.S. government officials
said.
-
- To collect badly needed intelligence on the ground about
Iran's alleged nuclear program, the United States is depending heavily
on Israeli-trained teams of Kurds in northern Iraq and on U.S.-trained
teams of former Iranian exiles in the south to gather the intelligence
needed for possible strikes against Iran's 13 or more suspected nuclear
sites, according to serving and retired U.S. intelligence officials.
-
- Both groups are doing cross border incursions into Iran,
some in conjunction with U.S. Special Forces, these sources said.
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- They claimed the Kurds operating from Kurdistan, in areas
they control. The second group, working from the south, is the Mujahedeen-e
Khalq, listed by the State Department as a terrorist group, operating from
southern Iraq, these sources said.
-
- The use of the MEK for U.S.-intelligence-gathering
missions
strikes some former U.S. intelligence officials as bizarre. The State
Department's
annual publication, "Patterns of Global Terrorism," lists them
as a terrorist organization.
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- According to the State Department report, the MEK were
allies with Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in fighting Iran and, in
addition,
"assisted Saddam in "suppressing opposition within Iraq, and
performed internal security for the Iraqi regime."
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- After the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003, U.S.
forces
seized and destroyed MEK munitions and weapons, and about 4,000 MEK
operatives
were "consolidated, detained, disarmed, and screened for any past
terrorist acts, the report said.
-
- Shortly afterwards, the Bush administration began to
use them in its covert operations against Iran, former senior U.S.
intelligence
officials said.
-
- "They've been active in the south for some
time,"
said former CIA counterterrorism chief, Vince Cannistraro.
-
- The MEK are said to be currently launching raids from
Camp Habib in Basra, but recently Pakistan President Pervez Musharaff
granted
permission for the MEK to operate from Pakistan's Baluchi area, U.S.
officials
said.
-
- Asked about the Musharaff decision, Laipson said:
"Not
a smart move. The last thing he (Musharaff) needs is another batch of
hotheads
on Pakistani soil."
-
- A former senior Iranian diplomat told United Press
International
that the Kurds in the Baluchi areas of Pakistan can operate in freedom
because the Baluchis "have no love for the mullahs of
Iran."
-
- In fact, in the early 1980s, there were massacres of
Iranian Revolutionary Guards in the area by Baluchi militants who wish
to be independent, he said.
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- Both covert groups are tasked by the Bush administration
with planting sensors or "sniffers" close to suspected Iran
nuclear
weapons development sites that will enable the Bush administration to
monitor
the progress on the program and develop targeting data, these sources
said.
-
- "There is an urgent need to obtain this information,
at least in the minds of administration hawks," an administration
official said.
-
- "This looks to be turning into a pretty large-scale
covert operation," a former long-time CIA operator in the region told
UPI. In addition to the air strikes on allegedly Iranian nuclear weapons
sites, the second aim of the operation is to secure the support in Iran
of those "who view U.S. policy of hostility towards Iran's clerics
with favor," he said.
-
- The United States is also attempting to erect a covert
infrastructure in Iran able to support U.S. efforts, this source said.
It consists of Israelis and other U.S. assets, using third country
passports,
who have created a network of front companies that they own and staff.
"It's a covert infrastructure for material support," a U.S.
administration
official said.
-
- The network would be able to move money, weapons and
personnel around inside Iran, he said. The covert infrastructure could
also provide safe houses and the like, he said.
-
- Cannistraro, who knew of the program, said: "I doubt
the quality of these kinds or programs," explaining the United States
had set up a similar network just before the hostage-rescue attempt in
1980. "People forget that the Iranians quickly rolled up that entire
network after the rescue attempt failed," Cannistraro said.
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- The administration's fear is that by possessing a nuclear
weapon, Iran will gain a new stature and status in the region strengthening
its determination to remove the U.S presence from the region and making
its hostility seem more credible, U.S. officials said.
-
- There is also the administration's fear that Iran, with
Syria's help, will accelerate Palestinian terrorism as Israel withdraws
from the Gaza Strip, these sources said.
-
- So the United States, backed by Israel, is deadly earnest
about neutralizing Iran's nuclear weapons site. "The administration
has determined that there is no diplomatic solution," said John Pike,
president of the online think-tank globalsecurity.org.
-
- "Like the Israelis, the Bush administration has
decided that forces of sweetness and light won't be running Iran any time
soon, and that having atomic ayatollahs is simply not
acceptable."
-
- Said Cannistraro of the administration's policy:
"Its
very, very, very dangerous."
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