Pentagon Faults Raid Report

Reuters reports the Pentagon criticized Seymour Hersh's New Yorker article titled "The Coming Wars," that said the U.S. was mounting reconnaissance missions inside to identify potential nuclear and other targets.

The Pentagon's chief spokesman, Lawrence DiRita said that the ian regime's apparent nuclear ambitions and its demonstrated support for terrorist organizations is a global challenge that deserves much more serious treatment than Hersh's article provides:

Hersh's article, published on Sunday, was "so riddled with errors of fundamental fact that the credibility of his entire piece is destroyed," DiRita said.

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

DiRita did not comment on that assertion.

Instead, he said, Hersh's sources fed him "rumor, innuendo, and assertions about meetings that never happened, programs that do not exist and statements by officials that were never made."

Asked whether U.S. military forces had been conducting reconnaissance missions in , Defense Department spokesman Lt. Col. Barry Venable said, "We don't discuss missions, capabilities or activities of Special Operations forces."

Saying the Hersh report is "riddled with errors" is not a denial. As California Yankee posted yesterday, The reports of U.S. warplanes buzzing and recent estimates that could have nuclear weapons in two years supports Hersh's report.

Comments

[Eaglespeak]

I sure hope we're looking at Iran. They are at the center of a lot of the problems we face and it shouldn't be a surprise, even to them, that we might be taking a few peeks at them.