September 30, 2007 (LPAC)--Seymour Hersh has written an article for the Oct. 8, 2007 edition of The New Yorker magazine, detailing war plans against Iran, over the Islamic Republic's alleged interference inside Iraq in support of both Shi'ite and Sunni insurgents. The Hersh piece, titled "Shifting Targets--The Administration's Plan for Iran," further confirms and elaborates what EIR has been reporting for months: The Bush Administration is now focusing its war plans against Iran on the Iranian actions inside Iraq, rather than the alleged Iranian secret nuclear weapons program. According to Hersh, U.S. intelligence community specialists believe that Iran will need five more years before they have the capability to build a nuclear bomb, and the vast majority of Americans, along with most world leaders, will not go along with a U.S. military campaign against Iran, triggered by its alleged pursuit of a nuclear weapon.

So Vice President Dick Cheney, the leading proponent of military strikes against Iran inside the Bush Administration, is pressing for more limited strikes against a smaller number of targets inside Iran, linked to the Revolutionary Guard's alleged training sites and smuggling bases for the Iraqi insurgency.

Hersh was careful to note that President Bush has not yet signed off on a military campaign against Iran, but emphasized that fine-tuned planning for military action is moving at an accelerated pace, and the CIA has vastly expanded its Iran operations team, in moves that closely parallel the autumn 2002 preparations for the invasion of Iraq. According to Hersh, the new battle plan involves naval sea-launch missile strikes against a smaller target set of Revolutionary Guard facilities inside Iran, and U.S. Special Forces strikes against Iranian insurgent training bases, also inside Iran.

Hersh claims that both the French and British governments are backing the more limited military plan, although the Gordon Brown government is demanding a level of evidence of Iranian involvement in the Iraqi insurgency, well beyond what Blair demanded of Bush before the Iraq invasion.

The Hersh article, which is already posted on the New Yorker magazine website, and which was the subject of several Hersh interviews on Sunday's talking heads shows, is sure to stir up further fury at Cheney, who clearly emerges as the architect of the neocon war drive against Iran.