WASHINGTON, Jan. 12 — A recent series of American raids against Iranians in Iraq was authorized under an order that President Bush decided to issue several months ago to undertake a broad military offensive against Iranian operatives in the country, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Friday.
“There has been a decision to go after these networks,” Ms. Rice said in an interview with The New York Times in her office on Friday afternoon, before leaving on a trip to the Middle East.
Ms. Rice said Mr. Bush had acted “after a period of time in which we saw increasing activity” among Iranians in Iraq, “and increasing lethality in what they were producing.” She was referring to what American military officials say is evidence that many of the most sophisticated improvised explosive devices, or I.E.D.’s, being used against American troops were made in Iran.
Ms. Rice was vague on the question of when Mr. Bush issued the order, but said his decision grew out of questions that the president and members of his National Security Council raised in the fall.
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The White House decision to authorize the aggressive steps against Iranians in Iraq appears to formalize the American effort to contain Iran’s ambitions as a new front in the Iraq war. Administration officials now describe Iran as the single greatest threat the United States faces in the Middle East, though some administration critics regard the talk about Iran as a diversion, one intended to shift attention away from the spiraling chaos in Iraq.
In adopting a more confrontational approach toward Iran, Mr. Bush has decisively rejected recommendations of the Iraq Study Group that he explore negotiations with Tehran as part of a new strategy to help quell the sectarian violence in Iraq.
In the interview on Friday, Ms. Rice described the military effort against Iranians in Iraq as a defensive “force protection mission,” but said it was also motivated by concerns that Iran was trying to further destabilize the country.
President Bush is completely out of control here. He will say anything he wants, do anything he wants, break any domestic or international law, and lead this country into war and ruin.
You know what is really scary here? The Bush administration refuses to specifically say when President Bush issued the order to go to war with Iran--instead saying some vague reference of the order was issued "several months ago." What I would like to know is if this order to go to war with Iran was issued before the Iraq Study Group's final report was published on December 6, 2006. Because if the decision was made before the ISG report was published, then the Bush administration not only rejected the ISG recommendations for negotiation with Iran, but they never had any intention of seriously reviewing or adopting the ISG recommendations--the Iraq Study Group was dead even before the commission's first meeting started.
The second thing that scares me is this little line--Ms. Rice described the military effort against Iranians in Iraq as a defensive “force protection mission....” What is a "defensive force protection mission?" Listening to Rice spin this gobblygook, while looking at the events of the past four days--President Bush's warning to Iran in the surge speech, Bush's authorizing the U.S. to go to war with Iran, the U.S. raid on the Iranian consulate, the sending of another aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf--makes me question whether the Bush White House decided to go to war with Iran in order to stop a war with Iran. Look at the latest Bush White House marketing spin here--Administration officials now describe Iran as the single greatest threat the United States faces in the Middle East. Sound familiar? Let's change the country from Iran to Iraq, and you'll get this nostalgic marketing theme of four years ago: Administration officials now describe Iraq as the single greatest threat the United States faces in the Middle East. We've certainly heard that theme before--Iraq is developing nuclear weapons, Iraq is a haven for terrorism, Iraq was responsible for September 11th, Saddam is an evil dictator, Iraq is now a serious threat to the United States, and we don't want a smoking gun to turn into a mushroom cloud. We had to go to war with Iraq in order to stop a war with Iraq, to neutralize this single greatest threat to the United States that never existed. And now President Bush is forcing us to be be spoon-fed this same, stale marketing crap on Iran? Now we have to go to war with Iran?
The Bush White House is filled with war mongers.
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