NBC's Gregory claimed there's no evidence of “active planning ... to confront Iran militarily”


On the February 14 edition of MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews, NBC chief White House correspondent David Gregory asserted, “I don't think there is any evidence” that “there is active planning going on to confront Iran militarily.” In fact, in the previous two years there have been numerous reports of evidence that the Bush administration is doing exactly that, including recently the naval buildup in the Persian Gulf, as well as a new military campaign targeting Iranian officials in Iraq.

In early 2005, The Washington Post reported: “The U.S. military is updating its war plan for Iran” but claimed that such planning was “routine.” According to investigative reporter Seymour Hersh, by April 2006, the Bush administration was engaged in planning and internal deliberations relating to a possible nuclear strike in Iran. In an April 17, 2006, New Yorker article, Hersh reported that the administration “has increased clandestine activities inside Iran and intensified planning for a possible major air attack.” According to Hersh, “Current and former American military and intelligence officials said that Air Force planning groups” were in the process of “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.” Hersh followed up in a July 10, 2006, New Yorker report, in which he wrote that “the U.S. Strategic Command, supported by the Air Force, has been drawing up plans, at the President's direction, for a major bombing campaign in Iran.” According to Hersh, anonymous “active-duty and retired officers and officials” reported that “senior commanders have increasingly challenged the President's plans” and warned “the Administration that the bombing campaign will probably not succeed in destroying Iran's nuclear program.”

Time magazine assistant managing editor Michael Duffy reported in a September 17, 2006, Time article that the military had issued “a 'Prepare to Deploy' order sent through naval communications channels to a submarine, an Aegis-class cruiser, two minesweepers and two mine hunters,” in which the units were told “to be ready to move by Oct. 1, [2006].” Additionally, “the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) asked for fresh eyes on long-standing U.S. plans to blockade two Iranian oil ports on the Persian Gulf.” These two moves combined, according to Duffy, “would seem to suggest ... that the U.S. may be preparing for war with Iran.” By December 2006, as The New York Times reported, “Pentagon and military officials” announced that "[t]he United States and Britain will begin moving additional warships and strike aircraft into the Persian Gulf region in a display of military resolve toward Iran." According to the Times, “Senior American officers said the increase in naval power should not be viewed as preparations for any offensive strike against Iran,” but “acknowledged that the ability to hit Iran would be increased” and Iran may view the move as “provocative.”

Indeed, on December 11, 2006, the first of the two Naval aircraft carriers, the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, arrived in the Persian Gulf, and approximately one month later, a second aircraft carrier, the USS John C. Stennis, was also deployed to the region. According to the Defense Department, “The John C. Stennis Strike Group will operate in the Persian Gulf region with the Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group, already in the Central Command Area of Operations. The presence of two aircraft carriers, while not unprecedented, demonstrates U.S. resolve to bring security and stability to the region.” A January 4 Associated Press article characterized the naval buildup as being “aimed partly as a warning to Iran.” As The Washington Post reported January 29, “Vice President [Dick] Cheney said the deployment this month of a second aircraft-carrier task force to the Persian Gulf delivered a 'strong signal' of the United States' commitment to confront Iran's growing influence in the region.” The Post also noted that the Stennis' “deployment is one of several recent steps by the United States to oppose Iran. ... Other actions included a program to kill or capture Iranian agents operating inside Iraq as well as moves to squeeze the country financially.” The Stennis' deployment to the Persian Gulf marks the first time two U.S. aircraft carriers have been stationed in the Gulf since the United States first invaded Iraq in 2003.

As part of the administration's plan to increase pressure on Iran, U.S. troops in Iraq raided two Iranian government offices in Iraq, according to The Washington Post on January 12. The Post further reported that, according to unnamed U.S. officials, "[w]hile the public focus is on Iraq, the administration is now spending as much time on plans to contain Iran as on a strategy to end Iraq's violence." The January 11 raids were at least the second round of raids targeting Iranian officials in Iraq. More recently, on January 19, Reuters reported that, according to Wayne White, a former Middle East analyst for the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, “U.S. contingency planning for military action against Iran's nuclear program goes beyond limited strikes and would effectively unleash a war against the country.” White stated that the U.S. plans involved “taking out much of the Iranian Air Force, Kilo submarines, anti-ship missiles that could target commerce or U.S. warships in the Gulf, and maybe even Iran's ballistic missile capability.”

From the February 14 edition of MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews:

GREGORY: You'll notice when I and others posed the question, “Are you trying to make a case against Iran?” He doesn't actually answer that question. The president chooses to say it's preposterous to suggest we're trying to provoke Iran. “Iran is up to no good in Iraq” is the argument and is the evidence. But at the same time, that confrontation, that stance is something that I think the White House thinks may actually do some good diplomatically.

Having said all of that, I think that is something different than saying that there is active planning going on to confront Iran militarily. I don't think there is any evidence to support that, even though war critics like Hillary Clinton today, running for president, said, “If that's what the president is up to, he's got to come to Congress for authorization.”

CHRIS MATTHEWS (host): What about a middle case that he is willing to risk a war with Iran?

GREGORY: Well, I just -- I don't think we know how to answer that at this point. I don't know how to answer that.