Seymour Hersh's Interview Today On Fresh Air (MUST-LISTEN)

HERSH: Well, the one part the newspapers in previous interviews I've done have gotten wrong - not wrong, it's just the emphasis, they keep on saying that the article says that "Bush is planning to use tactical weapons in Iraq." ... What has happened, of course is that there has been, there's always contingency planning... In the last six months, I"m not good on time, four months, something in the last recent period, the planning's become operational. It's gone to the next phase, which is far more than just some vague contigency planning on a shelf. They're specifically drawing up target lists. As I wrote in the article, we've sent teams of Americans undercover to begin to acquire what kind of information we need on the ground about the targets we may be bombing from the air. And so it's really escalating. That doesn't mean that the President's decided to go to war, but it's put everything up a notch. As part of that planning, the military when they're asked by the President to destroy something gives him a panoply of options... In order to successfully bomb that, the president was told "We can guarantee 100% destruction with a tac nuke." That was in a paper. A few weeks or so afterwards, Joint chiefs realizing that this is, perhaps even all along knowing, that was just an option and WHACKO. You don't want to start using nuclear weapons in the Middle East against a Muslim country, went back to the White House and said "Let's get this out of our plan," They tried to walk it back out. The White House then said "No, you profit... let's keep it in there." At this point there was a lot of tension among some generals and admirals, I can't say everybody, but among some, simply because they do not want the nuclear option in the package.

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GROCE: You write that there is a growing conviction among members of the U.S. military and ininternational community that President Bush's ultimate goal in the nuclear confrontation with Iran is regime change, and one former defense official said the military planning was based on the belief that a sustained bombing campaign in Iran will humiliate the religious leadership and will lead the public to rise up and overthrow the government. And I'm wondering how the problems we have in Iraq now, and the loss of confidence that the American public has in the war, and the fact that Iraq seems to be either in or on the verge of civil war, seems to be affecting the Bush administration thinking on the use of force in Iran. Did anybody, did any of your sources talk to you about that, about how what is happening in Iraq is figuring in planning for Iran?

HERSH: Well, one obvious very indirect response or reaction to the complete debacle is that people are talking to me so straightforwardly about the planning on Iran. In other words, nobody wants to get us into, the senior military guys who are perfectly aware of how bad things are, if you remember John Murtha, the congressman from Pennslyvania last, I think, November who went public with a very stunning statement because he is such a conservative, and known to be so military, he's a ranking member of the House appropriations defense subcommittee, which he handles the money for the budget for the Pentagon - when he said what he said "The war is over. We've got to get out," he was reflecting - because he is known, to me and to some of my people I know, my friends, as THE insider - he's the one man, the generals, the four-stars, the joint chiefs and others talk to privately, in other words, they come and let down their hair - when HE said what he said, he was reflecting really the view, of course - the next rush you heard was the rush of the Democrats running away from him, his own party, nobody wanted to be associated with that, which is stunning... they know it's basically a lose-lose in Iraq and they don't want to see it replicated in Iran and that's one result.

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HERSH: The planning is totally serious. And it's operational planning and people across the board, across the board, not only inside the American military, inside the political establishment - I quote a senior member of the House appropriations committee as saying that the President has begun briefing various, mostly conservative, members of Congress about his plans, and getting his support. This is going on, but, let me say, Terri, that the purpose in people talking to me about this and this whole issue came up a few months ago among people I've known for many years, if my story works, the precise things you're hearing now will be the result. The people talk to me in the hopes that if it was taken public - I literally told one of the people who started telling me what was going on, and the fear that he had that this messianic president was going to do something. I said to this one gentlemen I've known for many years, in a sense, I said "What the hell do you want me to do about it?" I can't write a speculative story. He said: "Go to Vienna. Talk to the IAEA. Find out how far away they are. This is an issue that doesn't need to be raised today. Go to work and do it." And so I did. Because there was no question, there IS no question today that this president, not in the back of the mind, but in the front, right there, wants to do something about Iran. I quoted people as saying he views Ahmedimijad, the Iranian president as Hitler. He sees Iran as Germany, Nazi Germany in 1935... This is the attitude I was told existed. And I was also told, as I said, that if my article works, we'll have the kind of response we had from the Pentagon yesterday.

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HERSH: One thought that I have, which is this: In all the conversations I've had about this in the last three months, more than that, hundreds, and all of the talking, the one thing that nobody's ever suggested is that there was any official reckoning or accounting or estimate of how many civilians casualties would be result if we did an all-out bombing or even a partial bombing of Iran, a country with 80 million people, most of whom are instinctively pro-American and anti-cleric. That seems to be just a dreadful, dreadful fact.