Is Alireza Jafarzadeh, an Iranian dissident and president of Strategic Policy Consulting Inc. the next Ahmed Chalabi? Does Jafarzadeh have Iranian defectors waiting to testify before Congress who have any more credibility than Curvball did?
Chalabi and Jafarzadeh seem to members of a growth industry - hucksters who can peddle propaganda to and for American warmongers. Those with more than immediate recall may remember the unsavorory cast of Iranian characters (Manucher Ghorbanifar was one) the U.S. dealt with during the Iran-contra "Enterprise". You can add the names of flakey Americans like Oliver North and John Bolton to that cast of dishonest characters who personally profit or shill for those who profit (such as defense contractors and private security firms) from peddling disinformation to the U.S. government and the American people.
TWO articles linked below:
Dissident: Iran is training Iraqis
quote:Bolton: Iran won't give up nuke ambition
By RICHARD PYLE, Associated Press WriterWed Mar 21, 12:01 AM ET
Iraqi insurgents, guerrilla fighters and death squads are being trained in secret camps in Iran with the blessing of top Tehran leaders and at least three senior Iraqi political figures, an Iranian opposition figure said Tuesday.
Would-be Iraqi fighters are smuggled into Iran, schooled in everything from sniper techniques to explosive devices and sent back to Iraq to wage war on U.S.-led coalition forces, Alireza Jafarzadeh said at a news conference.
"The Iranian regime is secretly engaged in the organization and training of large Iraqi terrorist networks in Iran to heighten insecurity and instability and force the coalition forces to leave Iraq, which would in turn pave the way for establishment of an Islamic republic in Iraq," Jafarzadeh said.
He has worked for the political wing of the Mujahedin Khalq, an Iranian opposition group that Washington and the European Union list as a terrorist organization.
Jafarzadeh, who heads the Washington-based Strategic Policy Consulting think tank, is credited with having aired Iranian military secrets in the past. The group claims to obtain its information from a network of resistance informants inside the country. But U.S. officials considered some of Jafarzadeh's past assertions inaccurate.
There was no independent confirmation of the latest information. The U.S. Mission to the United Nations had no immediate comment.
"His statement today is a public announcement that this group has been the source of allegations which U.S. officials are making about Iranian intervention in Iraq," said Mohammad Mir Ali Mohammadi, a spokesman for Iran's U.N. Mission.
Jafarzadeh said Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, are closely connected to the training. He said Abu Ahmad Al-Ramisi, governor of southern Iraq's Al-Muthanna province, and two members of Iraq's National Assembly are also involved.
He identified one as Hadi Al-Ameri, who he said is chairman of the legislature's security committee and head of the Badr Corps, the Iran-based military wing of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. The other is an assembly member known in Iraq as Abu Mehdi Mohandas, he said.
Jafarzadeh displayed maps and satellite photos showing some of the purported camps' locations, including two near the former shah's palace in Tehran, one south of that city in Jalil Abad and another at the Bahonar base in Karaj.
Other camps, he said, are in Qom, in Isfahan and in Iraq-Iran border areas near Kermanshah, Kurdistan, Ilam and Khuzestan.
The camps are run by several top commanders of the Qods Force, the most highly trained branch of Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps, with some Hezbollah members from Lebanon also taking part, he said.
quote:
By EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press Writer
3:36 am EDT Wednesday 21 March 2007
President Bush's former envoy to the United Nations says using military force against Iran would be preferable to allowing the country to acquire nuclear weapons.
John Bolton gained a reputation for speaking out during his 17 months as U.S. ambassador to the world body. But his remarks Tuesday night were some of his boldest yet, especially concerning Tehran.
"I believe that ultimately the only real prospect of getting Iran to give up nuclear weapons is to change the regime," Bolton told reporters after an off-the-record speech to the Hudson Institute, a nonpartisan policy research organization.
How should this be done?
"By the force of the Iranian people themselves," Bolton replied. "But if the alternative is a nuclear Iran, as unpleasant as the use of military force would be, I think the prospect of a nuclear Iran is worse."
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Faire l'amour, pas la guerre
Make love not war
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