Seymour Hersh on the latest planning for war in IRan. The President's position, and its corollary-that, if many of America's problems in IRaq are the responsibility of Tehran, then the solution to them is to confront the Iranians-have taken firm hold in the Administration. This summer, the White House, pushed by the office of Vice-President Dick Cheney, requested that the Joint Chiefs of Staff redraw long-standing plans for a possible attack on Iran, according to former officials and government consultants. The focus of the plans had been a broad bombing attack, with targets including Iran's known and suspected nuclear facilities and other military and infrastructure sites. Now the emphasis is on "surgical" strikes on Revolutionary Guard Corps facilities in Tehran and elsewhere, which, the Administration claims, have been the source of attacks on Americans in IRaq. What had been presented primarily as a counter-proliferation mission has been reconceived as counterterrorism... During a secure videoconference that took place early this summer, the President told [Ryan Crocker], the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, that he was thinking of hitting Iranian targets across the border and that the British "were on board." At that point, Secretary of State [Condoleezza Rice] interjected that there was a need to proceed carefully, because of the ongoing diplomatic track. Bush ended by instructing Crocker to tell Iran to stop interfering in Iraq or it would face American retribution.

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