Here we come, Iran

Or maybe I should say, Armageddon, here we come.

As UN inspectors are preparing to go into Iran, Seymour Hersh reports that the U.S. has already been conducting secret reconnaissance missions inside its borders.

[T]he secret missions have been going on at least since last summer with the goal of identifying target information for three dozen or more suspected sites.
Hersh quotes one government consultant with close ties to the Pentagon as saying, "The civilians in the Pentagon want to go into Iran and destroy as much of the military infrastructure as possible."

One former high-level intelligence official told The New Yorker, "This is a war against terrorism, and Iraq is just one campaign. The Bush administration is looking at this as a huge war zone. Next, we're going to have the Iranian campaign."
  Yahoo News article

They just cannot get enough. And I suggest we quit calling the civilians in the Pentagon civilians. It connotes something they certainly are not - civilized.

The White House said Iran is a concern and a threat that needs to be taken seriously. But it disputed the report by Hersh, who last year exposed the extent of prisoner abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

Hersh has proven to be a very reliable source of information for many years. Unlike the White House.

Bush has warned Iran in recent weeks against meddling in Iraqi elections.

Which provides background for reason #2 for invading. Might as well get them lined up now so they don't have to add them post-invasion like they've been forced to do regarding Iraq.

And, if that isn't enough to suck away your breath...

The former intelligence official told Hersh that an American commando task force in South Asia is working closely with a group of Pakistani scientists who had dealt with their Iranian counterparts.

The New Yorker reports that this task force, aided by information from Pakistan, has been penetrating into eastern Iran in a hunt for underground nuclear-weapons installations.

In exchange for this cooperation, the official told Hersh, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has received assurances that his government will not have to turn over Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan's atomic bomb, to face questioning about his role in selling nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea.

Khan has arguably been the point man for providing all those "rogue" countries with the nuclear capabilities we constantly accuse them of having. Was that part of the deal? Is there a conspiracy here? Even if not, the fact that he has been the source of a market for nuclear information to countries that might have reason to launch a nuclear attack on the United States, but we have been and are still making deals with Musharraf to leave him be, is absolutely mind-boggling. That is, if you have a mind to boggle. Not even question him?

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

Jeezus. If you have any plans for a vacation or some nice trip in the future, I'd quit putting it off.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.