We weren’t authorized to kill “Iranian operatives” in Iraq before? Scary if true.
WaPo: Troops Authorized to Kill Iranian Operatives in Iraq
The Bush administration has authorized the U.S. military to kill or capture Iranian operatives inside Iraq as part of an aggressive new strategy to weaken Tehran’s influence across the Middle East and compel it to give up its nuclear program, according to government and counterterrorism officials with direct knowledge of the effort.
For more than a year, U.S. forces in Iraq have secretly detained dozens of suspected Iranian agents, holding them for three to four days at a time. The “catch and release” policy was designed to avoid escalating tensions with Iran and yet intimidate its emissaries. U.S. forces collected DNA samples from some of the Iranians without their knowledge, subjected others to retina scans, and fingerprinted and photographed all of them before letting them go.
Last summer, however, senior administration officials decided that a more confrontational approach was necessary, as Iran’s regional influence grew and U.S. efforts to isolate Tehran appeared to be failing. The country’s nuclear work was advancing, U.S. allies were resisting robust sanctions against the Tehran government, and Iran was aggravating sectarian violence in Iraq.
“There were no costs for the Iranians,” said one senior administration official. “They are hurting our mission in Iraq, and we were bending over backwards not to fight back.”
Three officials said that about 150 Iranian intelligence officers, plus members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Command, are believed to be active inside Iraq at any given time. There is no evidence the Iranians have directly attacked U.S. troops in Iraq, intelligence officials said.
But, for three years, the Iranians have operated an embedding program there, offering operational training, intelligence and weaponry to several Shiite militias connected to the Iraqi government, to the insurgency and to the violence against Sunni factions. Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the director of the CIA, told the Senate recently that the amount of Iranian-supplied materiel used against U.S. troops in Iraq “has been quite striking.”
When did terrorists become “operatives” anyway? Oh I get it, when they are on the payroll of a “nation of concern.” I guess Mumia Abu-Jamal was a “pedestrian” in Philadelphia. We know that the “insurgents” in Iraq Iraq are the “Minutemen,” right?
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Posted by G. Fortunato on January 26, 2007 7:20 am
» Filed Under News, War On Terror
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2 Responses to “We weren’t authorized to kill “Iranian operatives” in Iraq before? Scary if true.”
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Syndicate Me
It’s a general term. All terrorists are operatives. Not all operatives are terrorists. I’m sure there are at least some of these individuals that have focused their efforts on military targets, so it would be hyperbole to call them all terrorists.
“It’s a general term.”
No, it’s a euphemism like the others I mentioned and that the Left always employs…except when dealing with “Rightwing Christian Extremists Who Want to Impose Christo-Sharia Law.”