Washington Institute for Near East Policy, The

Washington, DC 20036

Seymour Hersh
The New Yorker
April 7, 2006

THE IRAN PLANS

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060417fa_fact

Would President Bush go to war to stop Tehran from getting the bomb?

The Bush Administration...has increased clandestine activities inside Iran and intensified planning for a possible major air attack. Current and former American military and intelligence officials said that Air Force planning groups are drawing up lists of targets, and teams of American combat troops have been ordered into Iran, under cover, to collect targeting data and to establish contact with anti-government ethnic-minority groups...

...The rationale for regime change was articulated in early March by Patrick Clawson, an Iran expert who is the deputy director for research at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and who has been a supporter of President Bush.