Depressingly Frightening or Frighteningly Depressing

Seymour Hersh on the Bush administration's plans to go after Iran by empowering the Pentagon to launch covert operations that cannot be accountable to congress.

"“Rummy’s plan was to get a compromise in the bill in which the Pentagon keeps its marbles and the C.I.A. loses theirs,” the former high-level intelligence official told me. “Then all the pieces of the puzzle fall in place. He gets authority for covert action that is not attributable, the ability to directly task national-intelligence assets”—including the many intelligence satellites that constantly orbit the world.

“Rumsfeld will no longer have to refer anything through the government’s intelligence wringer,” the former official went on. “The intelligence system was designed to put competing agencies in competition. What’s missing will be the dynamic tension that insures everyone’s priorities—in the C.I.A., the D.O.D., the F.B.I., and even the Department of Homeland Security—are discussed. The most insidious implication of the new system is that Rumsfeld no longer has to tell people what he’s doing so they can ask, ‘Why are you doing this?’ or ‘What are your priorities?’"

This is the Bush administration in a nutshell-- avoid accountability at all costs. Lie, obfuscate, do whatever it takes-- just avoid accountability from sane and rational people.

And yes-- according to the article, the US has forces on the ground in Iran.