Wolf Blitzer interviewed both retired Gen. Anthony Zinni and Sy Hersh on Sunday's Late Edition. He asked Zinni about the reported plans to use tactical nukes ("bunker-busters") on Iran. Zinni said:
Well, I think the considerations that have to be taken into account is not just a matter of whether technically and tactically it accomplishes something like that. What are the broader ramifications? Will this incite some sort of reaction as not only -- or be perceived as an unprovoked attack, another one, even though obviously it's against a threat we perceive very strongly? Will there be a reaction to it? Will it generate regional issues and problems that make it more difficult?
I think those sort of strategic calculations have to come into all this. I'm not saying that there isn't a military action that will become necessary at some point. I do believe we're far away from that, as the president has said. But I believe, and this I feel strongly about, when you take that military action, you have to ask the question, and then what? Because you're going to have a series of those "and then whats" down the road.
Hersh talked about his report in the New Yorker about preparations for an Iran War.
BLITZER: Here's, among other things, what you write in the article: "A government consultant with close ties to the civilian leadership in the Pentagon said that Bush was 'absolutely convinced that Iran is going to get the bomb' if it is not stopped. He said that the president believes that he must do 'what no Democrat or Republican, if elected in the future, would have the courage to do,' and that 'saving Iran is going to be his legacy.' " So what's your bottom line? Do you believe, based on the reporting you did for this article, that the president of the United States is now aggressively plotting military action, a preemptive strike against Iran?
HERSH: The word I hear is messianic. He thinks, as I wrote, that he's the only one now who will have the courage to do it. He's politically free. I don't think he's overwhelmingly concerned about the '06 elections, congressional elections. I think he really thinks he has a chance, and this is going to be his mission.
Recklessness, yes. Courage? I don't think so.
Blitzer asked about the nuke report:
HERSH: What you just read says this. If you're giving the White House a series of options, and the option is to get rid of an underground facility -- the facility I'm talking about is Natanz, 75 feet under hard rock -- if you want to tell the White House one sure way of getting it in a range of options is nuclear, what happened in this case is they gave that option, the JCS, the joint chiefs.
And then, of course, nobody in their right mind would want to use a nuclear weapon in the Middle East, because it would be, my God, totally chaotic. When the JCS, the joint chiefs, and the planners wanted to walk back that option, what happened is about three or four weeks ago, the White House, people in the White House, in the Oval Office, the vice president's office, said, no, let's keep it in the plan.
That doesn't mean it's going to happen. They refuse to take it out. And what I'm writing here is that if this isn't removed -- and I say this very seriously. I've been around this town for 40 years -- some senior officers are prepared to resign. They're that upset about the fact that this plan is kept in. Again, let me make the point, you're giving a range of options early in the planning. To be sure of getting rid of it, you give that option.
This following comment is very interesting, and disturbing in more ways than one.
BLITZER: And you're saying that some senior military officers are prepared to resign?
HERSH: I'm saying that, if this isn't walked back and if the president isn't told that you cannot do it - and once the chairman of the joint chiefs or some senior members of the military say to the president, let's get this nuclear option off the table, it will be taken off. He will not defy the military in a formal report. Unless something specific is told to the White House that you've got to drop this dream of a nuclear option - and that's exactly the issue I'm talking about - people have said to me that they would resign.
I'm not sure what bothers me most: that Bush has kept the nuclear option on the table; that the Joint Chiefs may not be willing to demand that it be taken off; or, that Bush sounds in Hersh's words like he's willing to let the Chiefs make the final decision about whether to use nukes or no. For Iran, they don't want to, because Iran doesn't fit their definition of how to a conventional war: bull-blown shock-and-awe, totally defeat the enemy army, oust the enemy government and hope to God somebody else is prepared to deal with the insurgency afterwards.
But in the past, it has been the military who pushed harder than the civilians for using or leaving open a nuclear option. If Bush defers to them on *not* using nukes, will he defer to them on using them, too? If the Shi'a go all-out against the US Army in Iraq and everything went about as badly as it could go from there, the US Army could be looking at serious losses and a humiliating retreat. What if the Chiefs then decide that nuking Fallujah is the way to go?
As for senior military officials resigning in protest, I'll believe it when I see it happen.
This is also an important clarification of an item in Hersh's article:
BLITZER: Here's the other explosive item in your piece, and I'll read it: "The Bush administration, while publicly advocating diplomacy in order to stop Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon, has increased clandestine activities inside Iraq and intensified planning for a possible major air attack. Current and former American military and intelligence officials said that Air Force planning groups are drawing up lists of targets, and teams of American combat troops have been ordered into Iran, under cover, to collect targeting data and to establish contact with anti- government ethnic-minority groups."
Bottom line, what you're saying here is that there are American forces, clandestinely, already inside of Iran.
HERSH: That's what I'm saying.
BLITZER: You want to elaborate on that?
HERSH: Well, I'll tell you one thing that very interesting to me about it. They're not special force; they're regular military. And that's part of the Rumsfeld notion that all military guys are potentially special forces. And I think it's fraught with danger. But they're there.
And we're not saying any more specifically about where they are or what they're doing. Nobody wants to see anybody get hurt. But they are there and the American public should know it because, I assure you, the Iranian government knows it. (my emphasis)
Asked whether he thought Iran was close to having a nuclear weapons, Hersh says:
You know, the point is, we don't know. It's not tomorrow. I've heard up to as long as ten years. And as you know, the official estimate, intelligence estimate of the government that was published -- leaked last year or obtained by The Washington Post said eight to ten years. And that's the best guess.
Here's the real, critical point. The critical point, it seems to me, is that we're not talking. This president is not talking to the Iranians. They are trying very hard to make contact, I can assure you of that, in many different forms.
And he's not talking. And there's no public pressure on the White House to start bilateral talks. And that's what amazes everybody.
When I was in Vienna, seeing officials of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the one thing they all said is everybody knows Iran is trying to do something. They're cheating. They're not near. There's plenty of time. And instead of talking about bombing, let's talk about talking.
Let's see if we can do something to begin a bilateral conversation. And it's amazing to me, not only that the president doesn't but there's no pressure on him from Congress or anybody else.
