The Pentagon has just released a statement condemning Seymour Hersh’s recent New Yorker article. The article itself, “The Coming Wars,” is all about the administration’s “plans” to expand the war on terror, most specifically to Iran.

DiRita does a great job of debunking Hersh, but I want to help (being something of a DoD insider myself). There are, after all, things that DiRita is not at liberty to say. So…

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Statement From Adam Felber on Latest Seymour Hersh Article

Seymour Hersh’s latest article is so full of inaccuracies and spurious allegations that responsible citizens ought to destroy their copy of the magazine before its toxic assertions can seep into the public consciousness. Here is just a tiny sample of the wild fantasizing that renders the piece worthless:

- Hersh claims he was told that “The civilians in the Pentagon want to go into Iran and destroy as much of the military infrastructure as possible.” Is he implying that civilians would go on a military operation? No? Then why is he saying that “civilians” “want to go in?” Doesn’t make any sense.

- According to Hersh, “covert” “operations” inside “Iran” are already “underway…” But in making this wild accusation, Hersh says that the US operatives have been “penetrating eastern Iran from Afghanistan in a hunt for underground installations.” Hersh seems unaware that Afghanistan is locally known as “Afghanestan.”

- Hersh says that the US is working with Israel to identify targets in Iran. Somehow, Hersh fails to mention that Israel’s natural resources include timber, potash, copper ore, natural gas, phosphate rock, and magnesium bromide. With such a glaring omission, how are we to believe anything he says about the matter?

- Hersh continually asserts that with the increased covert activities and revised battle plans, action against Iran and/or its nuclear activities is a large part of the Bush administration’s second term plans. Yet the overwhelming majority of people with similar last names spell it “Hirsch.” A simple Google search produces 3,370,000 results for “Hirsch” and only 784,000 for “Hersh.” Are we going to put our faith in a man who seems unclear on the spelling of his own name?

Clearly, Hersh and his article do not merit further consideration. The US government has always been upfront about its relations with and plans for other nations, including Iran, which is a nation ruled by a cruel, repressive dictatorship that hates freedom and seeks to develop weapons of mass destruction that may at some point fall into the hands of terrorists and used to kill innocent Americans. Unlike Hersh, our view is that such an outcome would be “bad.” Still, to assert that we have “plans” and “ongoing operations” in such a manner is the height of absurdity.

-Adam Felber
Defense Department spokeman (unofficial)