CIA activities in Iran

There are many claims that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has repeatedly intervened in the internal affairs of Iran, from the Mossadegh coup of 1953 to the present time. The CIA is said to have collaborated with the last Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Its personnel may have been involved in the Iran-Contra affair of the 1980s. More recently in 2007-8 the CIA were claimed to be supporting guerilla groups inside Iran opposed to the regime, including the People's Mujahedin of Iran and various ethnic minority separatist groups.

Mossadegh coup

Britain, resentful of the nationalization of Iran's oil industry, came up with the idea for a coup in 1952 and pressed the U.S. to mount a joint operation to remove the democratically elected government of Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh[1] and install the Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi to rule Iran autocratically. Partially due to fear of a Communist overthrow due to increasing influence of the Communist Tudeh party, and partly to gain control of a larger share of Iranian oil supplies, the US agreed. Brigadier General Norman Schwarzkopf, Sr. and CIA guru Kermit Roosevelt, Jr. were ordered to begin a covert operation to overthrow Mossadegh. A complex plot, codenamed Operation Ajax, was conceived and executed from the US Embassy in Tehran. Full details of the operation were released fifty years later, in 2003. Britain, who previously had controlled all of the Iranian oil industry, lost its monopoly and allowed U.S. oil companies to compete in Iran.

Operation Ajax was implemented the following year, when the United States and the West helped to overthrow Mossadegh. Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi gained in political power. Over the next decades the Shah increased the economic strength of Iran but he also repressed political dissent. This eventually led to the rise of political Islam in Iran. In a speech on March 17, 2000 before the American Iranian Council on the relaxation of U.S. sanctions against Iran, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said: "In 1953, the United States played a significant role in orchestrating the overthrow of Iran's popular prime minister, Mohammed Mossadegh. The Eisenhower administration believed its actions were justified for strategic reasons, but the coup was clearly a setback for Iran's political development and it is easy to see now why many Iranians continue to resent this intervention by America in their internal affairs."[2]

Reconnaissance of USSR

Through the 1960s and 1970s the CIA used their alliance with the government of Iran to gain staging grounds and Iranian Air Force assets for aggressive, airborne reconnaissance missions into Soviet territory in Project Dark Gene.

Identification of leftists

In 1983, the CIA passed an extensive list of Iranian communists and other leftists secretly working in the Iranian government to Khomeini's administration.[3] A Tower Commission report later observed that the list was utilized to take "measures, including mass executions, that virtually eliminated the pro-Soviet infrastructure in Iran."[3]

Iran-Contra affair

Beginning in August 1984, a small group within the US government, in the Iran-Contra affair, arranged for the indirect transfer of arms to Iran, as a means of circumventing the Boland Amendments that were intended, in part, to prevent the expenditure of US funds to support the Nicaraguan Contras. Since the arms-for-hostages deal struck by the Reagan Administration channeled money for to the Contras, the legal interpretation of the time was that the CIA, as an organization, could not participate in Iran-Contra.

The relationships, first to avoid the Boland Amendment restriction, but also for operational security, did not directly give or sell U.S. weapons to Iran. Instead, the Reagan Administration authorized Israel to sell munitions to Iran, using contracted Iranian arms broker Manucher Ghorbanifar.[4] The proceeds from the sales, less the 41% markup charged by Ghorbanifar and originally at a price not acceptable to Iran, went directly to the Contras. Those proceeds were not interpreted as U.S. funds. The Administration resupplied Israel, which was not illegal, with munitions that replaced those transferred to Iran.

While Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) William Casey was deeply involved in Iran-Contra, Casey, a World War II Office of Strategic Services (OSS) clandestine operations officer, ran the Iran operation with people outside the CIA, such as White House/National Security Council employees such as John Poindexter and Oliver North, as well as retired special operations personnel such as John K. Singlaub and Richard Secord.[5]

Intelligence analysis

Iran was described as a problem area in the February 2005 report by Porter Goss, then CIA Director, to the Senate Intelligence Committee.[6] "In early February, the spokesman of Iran's Supreme Council for National Security publicly announced that Iran would never scrap its nuclear program. This came in the midst of negotiations with EU-3 members (Britain, Germany and France) seeking objective guarantees from Tehran that it will not use nuclear technology for nuclear weapons.

"Previous comments by Iranian officials, including Iran's Supreme Leader and its Foreign Minister, indicated that Iran would not give up its ability to enrich uranium. Certainly they can use it to produce fuel for power reactors. We are more concerned about the dual-use nature of the technology that could also be used to achieve a nuclear weapon.

"In parallel, Iran continues its pursuit of long-range ballistic missiles, such as an improved version of its 1,300 km range Shahab-3 medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM), to add to the hundreds of short-range SCUD missiles it already has.

"Even since 9/11, Tehran continues to support terrorist groups in the region, such as Hizballah, and could encourage increased attacks in Israel and the Palestinian Territories to derail progress toward peace. Iran reportedly is supporting some anti-Coalition activities in Iraq and seeking to influence the future character of the Iraqi state. Iran continues to retain in secret important members of Al-Qai'ida-the Management Council—causing further uncertainty about Iran's commitment to bring them to justice.

"Conservatives are likely to consolidate their power in Iran's June 2005 presidential elections, further marginalizing the reform movement last year."

Statement of the Iranian parliament

In a nonbinding resolution of the Iranian parliament, the United States Army and the CIA was labeled a terrorist organization by the Iranian parliament, for provoking war, supporting terrorism around the world and partly for its activities in the "War on Terror such as its treatment of suspected Muslim militants in prisons. The resolution appeared to be in response to the U.S. designation of the Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps and Ministry of Defense as terrorist organizations.[7]

Support for terrorist groups

In 2006, Seymour Hersh reported that Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan (PEJAK) was a US proxy. Hersh said he was told, in November 2006, by a government consultant with close ties to the Pentagon civilian leadership of secret US support for PEJAK for operations inside Iran, stating that the group had been given "a list of targets inside Iran of interest to the U.S".[8]

A report in 2007 claimed that the CIA was supporting Kurdish, Azeri, Baluchi, and Ahwazi Arab separatist groups in Iran that were using terror tactics. The CIA denied involvement. [9] [10] [11]

The PBS documentary series "Frontline", reported, in October 2007, that the CIA were supporting anti-Iranian organizations such as the People's Mujahedin of Iran (also known as the MEK or MKO) which has been involved in terrorist activities within Iran, and that Iran was demanding that the US stop supporting the MEK in exchange for stopping its support of Shiites in Iraq.[12] The show quoted Vali Nasr, author of The Shia Revival as saying the Iranians had hoped that the fall of Saddam would destroy the MEK, which is generally unpopular in Iraq...the MEK operated in Iraq as an arm of Iraqi intelligence against Iranian operatives in Iraq, against Shi'ites and against the Kurds. And, in fact, one of the major pressures on the United States to round up the MEK and put them in a camp did not come from Iran; it came from [Iraqi President] Jalal Talabani.... And I think at a third level the Iranians look at the MEK issue as a test of U.S. goodwill...." Richard Armitage disagreed that MEK was being supported.

New evidence was cited in a 2012 New Yorker article by Seymour Hersh regarding U.S. government assistance to MEK: "It was here [the Department of Energy's Nevada National Security Site] the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) conducted training, beginning in 2005, for members of the Mujahideen-e-Khalq…. Funds were covertly passed to a number of dissident organizations, for intelligence collection and, ultimately, for anti-government terrorist activities. Directly, or indirectly, the M.E.K. ended up with resources like arms and intelligence. Some American-supported covert operations continue in Iran today, according to past and present intelligence officials and military consultants."[13] In the same article, Robert Baer, a retired C.I.A. agent, is also on record as stating: "They [the U.S. government] wanted me to help the M.E.K. collect intelligence on Iran's nuclear program[.]"[13]

In 2008, in response to an inquiry from the Washington Post regarding a story by Seymour Hersh appearing in the July 7, 2008 issue of The New Yorker, which claims that the Bush administration undertook a greatly expanded program of covert actions inside Iran beginning the previous year,[14] agency spokesman George Little said, "The CIA does not, as a rule, comment on allegations regarding covert operations."[15] Hersh detailed US covert action plans against Iran involving CIA, DIA and Special Forces. According to Hersh, the United States was materially supporting Jundallah, a Sunni and Baluchi group, which was performing acts of violence inside Iran.

The leader of Jundallah was executed at Evin prison in Iran in 2010 after being taken off a flight from Dubai to Kyrgyzstan, where he claimed in an interview on Iranian TV he had a meeting with a "high ranking US official" at the Manas Air base (the US Military base in Kyrgyzstan).

Journalist David Ignatius of the Washington Post asserted that U.S. covert action "appears to focus on political action and the collection of intelligence rather than on lethal operations".[16]

Iranian commentator Ali Eftagh wrote in the Washington Post that the covert actions that Hersh was reporting were being made public by the Bush administration as a form of psychological warfare.[17]

References

  1. ↑ Wilber, Donald N.; Emmanuel Andrew Maldonado (April 16, 2000). Overthrow of Premier Mossadeq of Iran (PDF). The New York Times.
  2. ↑ Alexander's Gas and Oil Connection: Speeches
  3. 1 2 Beinin, Joel & Joe Stork (1997). "On the Modernity, Historical Specificity, and International Context of Political Islam". In Joel Beinin & Joe Stork (Eds.), Political Islam: Essays from the Middle East Report. Berkeley: University of California Press. p. 11. ISBN 978-0-520-20448-5.
  4. ↑ Walsh, Lawrence (1993-08-04). "Vol. I: Investigations and prosecutions". Final report of the independent counsel for Iran/Contra matters. Independent Counsel appointed by the United States Department of Justice.
  5. ↑ Woodward, Bob (1987). VEIL: The Secret Wars of the CIA 1981-1987. New York: Simon and Schuster.
  6. ↑ Goss, Porter (16 February 2005). "Global Intelligence Challenges 2005".
  7. ↑ Associated Press (29 September 2007). "Iran: CIA, U.S. Army 'terrorist organizations': Lawmakers in Tehran take a diplomatic offensive against Washington". MSNBC.
  8. ↑ Hersh, Seymour M. (November 20, 2006). "The Next Act". The New Yorker.
  9. ↑ Lowther, William; Freeman, Colin (25 February 2007). "US funds terror groups to sow chaos in Iran". The Daily Telegraph (London). Retrieved April 30, 2010.
  10. ↑ "ABC News Exclusive: The Secret War Against Iran". April 3, 2007.
  11. ↑ O'Carroll, (April 5, 2007). "US backing 'secret war' against Iran? The CIA disputes a report linking Washington and a Pakistani guerrilla campaign against Tehran". Christian Science Monitor.
  12. ↑ "Showdown with Iran: the Mujahideen e-Khalq (MEK)". PBS Frontline. October 23, 2007.
  13. 1 2 Hersh, Seymour M. "Our Men in Iran?". The New Yorker. Retrieved 2013-09-23.
  14. ↑ Hersh, Seymour (2008-07-07). "Preparing the Battlefield: The Bush Administration steps up its secret moves against Iran". The New Yorker.
  15. ↑ Warrick, Joby (2008-06-30). "U.S. Is Said to Expand Covert Operations in Iran". The Washington Post.
  16. ↑ "Spy Games in Iran: U.S. Half Steps Mask Indecisive Policy", by David Ignatius, Washington Post, July 2, 2008
  17. ↑ "Memo to Uncle Sam: Iran Is Not Your Enemy", Ali Eftagh, Washington Post, July 1, 2008

Further reading

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