New Yorker: Washington Concentrated Covert Operations to Overthrow Iran

American "New Yorker" magazine has revealed that the United States has for several months been concentrating its covert operations in Iran, aiming to overthrow the regime which has stirred up U.S. fears with its nuclear aspirations. The magazine's expose was authored by renowned journalist Seymour Hersh, who exposed that "this large concentration" of covert operations in Iran was undertaken after the U.S. Congress decided last year to pass a budget amounting to $400 million at the request of President George Bush for this purpose.

Hersh observed, quoting former military officials and intelligence and Congressional employees, that in recent times the United States increased its activities to assist minority dissenters and gather more precise information regarding Iranian nuclear activities. The expose clarifies that, although these activities are nothing new, "the volume and area of the operations in Iran which the CIA and special command are running concurrently" "has expanded."

Sources close to the file say that, at the end of 2007, Congress acquiesced to Bush's request to finance covert operations in Iran with the essential aim of "dispelling Iran's nuclear aspirations and attempting to overthrow the government and heart of the regime."

Commenting on the subject to TV station CNN, American Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker denied the New Yorker's accusation that U.S. operations included raids across the Iran-Iraq border.