Day After Gordon's Latest 'NYT' Front-Pager -- Bush and Cheney Threaten Iran

By: E&P Staff One day after The New York Times placed Michael R. Gordon's latest story about Iranian weapons allegedly blowing up large numbers of Americans in Iraq, President Bush warned that action might be taken against that country. McClatchy Newspapers meanwhile warned in a Web headline, "Cheney Urging Strikes on Iran."

It was reminiscent of the day in September 2002 when Cheney and other officials went on Sunday talk shows and touted the now-infamous Gordon-Judith Miller front-pager in the Times on the "aluminum tubes" in Iraq and the possible "mushroom cloud" on the horizon. The Times, and Gordon specifically, have been giving the unproven Iranian IED charges far more prominent play than any other major news outlet.

Meanwhile, a senior U.S. military officer told the Los Angeles Times that Saudi nationals compose 45 percent of foreign fighters in Iraq who actively target U.S. forces. Yet there has been relatively little media coverage, and few statements by U.S. military and officials, about this.

The McClatchy article by Warren P. Strobel, John Walcott and Nancy A. Youssef, reveals, "Cheney, who's long been skeptical of diplomacy with Iran, argued for military action if hard new evidence emerges of Iran's complicity in supporting anti-American forces in Iraq; for example, catching a truckload of fighters or weapons crossing into Iraq from Iran, one official said....

"Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice opposes this idea, the officials said. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has stated publicly that 'we think we can handle this inside the borders of Iraq.'"

The McClatchy article provides this background: "President Dick Cheney several weeks ago proposed launching airstrikes at suspected training camps in Iraq run by the Quds force, a special unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, according to two U.S. officials who are involved in Iran policy.

"The debate has been accompanied by a growing drumbeat of allegations about Iranian meddling in Iraq from U.S. military officers, administration officials and administration allies outside government and in the news media. It isn't clear whether the media campaign is intended to build support for limited military action against Iran, to pressure the Iranians to curb their support for Shiite groups in Iraq or both.

"Nor is it clear from the evidence the administration has presented whether Iran, which has long-standing ties to several Iraqi Shiite groups, including the Mahdi Army of radical cleric Muqtada al Sadr and the Badr Organization, which is allied with the U.S.-backed government of Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki, is a major cause of the anti-American and sectarian violence in Iraq or merely one of many. At other times, administration officials have blamed the Sunni Muslim group al Qaida in Iraq for much of the violence."