Iranian Alert -- DAY 41 -- LIVE THREAD PING LIST

The regime is working hard to keep the news about the protest movment in Iran from being reported.

From jamming satellite broadcasts, to prohibiting news reporters from covering any demonstrations to shutting down all cell phones and even hiring foreign security to control the population, the regime is doing everything in its power to keep the popular movement from expressing its demand for an end of the regime.

These efforts by the regime, while successful in the short term, do not resolve the fundamental reasons why this regime is crumbling from within.

Iran is a country ready for a regime change. If you follow this thread you will witness, I believe, the transformation of a nation. This daily thread provides a central place where those interested in the events in Iran can find the best news and commentary.

Please continue to join us here, post your news stories and comments to this thread.

Will CNN Never Learn?

Repeating their Iraqi mistakes in Iran.

7.20.2003

It appears CNN is once again in the business of burying news stories when their reports might embarrass their host country. If it were not for a student from Iran I might not have heard of this report. Fortunately the world of the Internet makes it increasingly difficult for stories to remain hidden from the public. The story I am referring to was published on gooya.com and while written in Farsi is available on the net. I contacted CNN for a response but they chose not to.

http://news.gooya.com/2003/07/18/1807-ff-01.php

Gooya.com is reporting that an Iranian student, Hamid, provided CNN with video of the attack on the student dormitories by the regime. The student was arrested by the regime and taken to the same prison, Evin where the Canadian/Iranian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi was tortured. Kazemi eventually died allegedly under the hands of the regime official Saeed Mortezavi, Tehran's Chief Prosecutor. The story of her murder has been international news for the past week.

But unlike Kazemi whose photos of the Evin prison remain in the hands of the regime, Hamid was successful in getting his footage to CNN. According to this report CNN is refusing to air the student’s footage, claiming it would endanger his life. But since they refused to air the footage the story has not received international attention and his life is now in grave danger.

It was reported that as the regime’s enforcers arrived to arrest him Hamid, he ate additional footage to keep it from the regime. They report that this young man was then taken to Evin prison where the same official responsible for the death of Kazemi ordered immediate surgery in the prison to retrieve the footage in his stomach. Since that time, due to infections caused by the surgery they were forced to move him to a hospital where it is reported he has four different infections.

Apparently CNN has not yet learned it lesson about protecting tortuous regimes. Just a few months ago CNN admitted that it sat on a variety of news stories in Iraq that would have exposed the nature of the Iraqi regime (New York Times, Editorial | April 11, 2003, Friday The News We Kept To Ourselves, by CNN producer Eason Jordan).

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FA0C16FD3C5F0C728DDDAD0894DB404482

In both cases they use the same excuse that they are protecting the lives of their sources of information.

In reality, the only thing keeping the regime from killing this brave Iranian is international awareness of his situation. The regime needs to maintain the illusion of respect for human rights to provide the Europeans and Japan with an excuse for further economic ties. If CNN were to broadcast this report and attribute it to him it would provide him with the notoriety needed to keep him from being one more unnamed student executed by the regime. It is time for CNN to stop protecting this regime in order to maintain its office in Tehran. When journalists sell out their ethics for rating it destroys the value of a free press to protect the innocent from corrupt governments.

I hope CNN will reconsider its position on this story. It may save a life and perhaps redeem the soul of that network.

DoctorZIn

Yes, please contact the media and alert them of this story.

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When you talk about going to Iran people have images of hanging out in leafy gardens and traditional tea houses or encountering crowds of angry men shouting "Death to America".

But I spent many of my evenings with my three-year-old child in burger joints like Mac Mashallas - an Iranian imitation of McDonald's - the fast-food icon of the "Great Satan".

American-style restaurants have rapidly spread throughout Tehran in the past year or two.

They are popular haunts for young people who now have access to western culture in a way that is unprecedented since the Islamic Revolution.

The ketchup may not be Heinz and the Coca-Cola is certainly not the real thing but these are places where you can feel you might be anywhere in the world - almost.

That is if it was not for the neon sign saying respect Islamic moral values, the head-scarved waitresses and the portraits of Iran's spiritual leaders that seem strangely out of place in the world of Happy Meals and Ronald McDonald.

Cutting edge

The differences are shrinking in a country that once talked about building a Chinese-style wall around itself to protect its values from outside corruption.

Disney has penetrated this market like every other - at amusement arcades they sell Mr Potato Head and Buzz Lightyear from the Toy Story films.
While children play on flight simulator video games which say US State Department, I wonder who they think the enemy is being bombed out of existence on the screen.

It is only the mothers who look a bit like something from another planet - some in diaphanous headscarves and chic coats - others shrouded in seemingly endless layers of black clothing despite the searing summer heat.

But the teenage girls in outdoor cafes and fast food restaurants are pushing the boundaries like never before.

Short white trousers to mid-calf with no socks, pointy, fashion-victim, high-heeled shoes and skin-tight overcoats that only reach to the knees.

That is with long dyed blonde hair that is only nominally covered with a half see-through white or pink headscarf.

The effect is fairly electric - especially when combined with huge quantities of make-up. It certainly has nothing to do with being modest and demure and everything to do with being a rebel.

These girls are among 45 million people who are today under the age of 30 - the massive force responsible for the winds of change currently blowing over Iran - a country of 65 million.

And it is these young Iranians who have been taking to the streets recently to protest against what they see as the lack of freedom.

Open to outside influences, they now have a taste of what they are missing and they are hungry for more.

Pushing for change

The frustration is huge - one young mother told me she was thinking of taking her two children out to anti-government protests and just leaving a note for her husband to find when he came back from work.

He had warned her not to go - asking who would look after the kids if something happened to her. She was propelled not by recklessness but by a desire for a better future for her daughters.

For the slightly older generation in their 30s who remember the pre-reform years, there is an attitude of awe and envy.

They talk about having had to go to weddings in ankle-length black cloaks with no make-up or nail polish in case they were stopped at a checkpoint and scrutinised.

One woman who grew up during the first years of the revolution described going to England and not knowing who the Hollywood star Richard Gere was - to the shock and horror of her new friends.

Those were the days of isolation - now satellite television, smuggled videos and the internet mean that young Iranians can watch the latest films and keep up with western fashions.

In a country where - if you are a woman - you have to cover even your ankles to enter a government office, you can still watch Fashion TV or sex channels among many hundreds of stations you can receive if you have an illegal satellite dish - something that is now common.

Explaining the paradox

There are so many contradictions that make life in Iran difficult to explain - especially to a three-year-old whose favourite word is why.

"Mummy, you look ugilee," said my son when I wore the obligatory headscarf and overcoat.

But being at a phase where he mimics everything I do he of course wanted to wear a headscarf too and be equally "ugilee".

There were tears if he did not have a cloth tied on his head too when we went out.

He attracted such extraordinary looks of either amusement or horror being a boy wearing a scarf that I finally coaxed him into removing it on the grounds that he would seriously offend people.

"Why?" was a question I found hard to answer in simple terms - not wishing to introduce ideas about men lusting after women's ankles to my toddler.
I just said it was the rule and then my child complained Iran had too many rules.

I could not help but wonder if he had accidentally strayed into the realm of political comment.

Young Iranians are now trying to change the rules, and the question is whether the system will bend to accommodate them.

----
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/3077935.stm

--
Pentagon Team on Iran Comes Under Fire
By MARC PERELMAN
FORWARD STAFF

A small Pentagon planning office under fire for its alleged manipulation of intelligence on Iraq is also dealing with other countries in the Persian Gulf, including Iran, raising concerns among critics about the shaping of Bush administration policy in this sensitive region.

Defense Department spokesmen acknowledge that a small, four-member team is working on Iran policy within the Pentagon's so-called Office of Special Plans. Critics contend that the office has been distorting intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and links to Al Qaeda in order to strengthen the case for war.

A senior Pentagon official told the Forward that the office is "a pure policy-planning shop" and was not engaged in reviewing — much less distorting — intelligence.

The furor over the office and its role has emerged as a flashpoint in the larger administration debate over Iran policy, which pits moderates in the State Department against hawks in the Pentagon.

The administration is currently reviewing its policy toward Iran amid a flurry of accusations that Tehran is aggressively pursuing a military nuclear program, meddling in neighboring Iraq and harboring Al Qaeda operatives.

Neoconservatives inside and outside the administration have been urging an active effort to promote regime change in Tehran. Reports of possible covert operations have surfaced in recent weeks.

Several intelligence sources and Iran policy watchers told the Forward that the Office of Special Plans was a key factor in the push for a policy of Iranian regime change.

"They are running their own intelligence operation, including covert action, and are using contractors outside the government to do some of the leg work," said a former top CIA official. "Their area of work has been concentrated on Iraq, which is why the intelligence on WMD was so bad, but they have a much broader portfolio. The office is undergoing some scrutiny from inside the government given its poor track record and the lack of 'sanity checking' their products with the intelligence community. A lot of material they produce is not shared with CIA, not coordinated, and finds its way into public policy statements by the likes of Rumsfeld and Cheney."

A senior Pentagon official strongly denied the allegations, however.

"The Office of Special Plans is a pure policy planning shop and it is not dealing with intelligence," the official told the Forward, stressing that the office was not pushing a hard line on Iran, nor was it conducting any covert operations.

In a news briefing on Wednesday, Douglas Feith, the undersecretary of defense for policy and a prominent neoconservative, rejected allegations that the Pentagon had in any way distorted intelligence information about Iraq.

The Office of Special Plans was first described by journalist Seymour Hersh in a recent New Yorker article. Hersh claimed that it had emerged as a rival to both the CIA and the Pentagon's own Defense Intelligence Agency as a main source providing intelligence on Iraq to President Bush.

The senior Pentagon official said such press reports were "utterly false and a complete fabrication."

The Defense Department has three distinct policy-planning divisions, the official said: one on South Asia, one on the Middle East and one dealing with the Northern Gulf. The latter was renamed "special plans" in October 2002 and had its personnel expanded because it had to deal with an upcoming war against Iraq as well as other issues like terrorism, the official said.

The three policy planning divisions are supervised by the deputy undersecretary of defense for special plans and Near Eastern and South Asian affairs, William Luti.

The senior official argued that the press was confusing the office with a now-disbanded two-person team set up 18 months ago by Feith to review intelligence on terrorist networks and Iraq.

One member of the Iran team, several sources said, is Michael Rubin, an expert who is on the record as favoring regime change in Iran. The other three members are veteran Pentagon Iran hands, some of whom do not share Rubin's views, said a source with close ties to the administration's Iran policymakers.

The source said the office was very active in seeking out advice on Iran and was much more up-to-date on issues than the State Department's Iran desk officers.

"They are interviewing a lot of people, they are gathering intelligence and willing to support pro-democracy people," the source said. "They want simple stuff like funding satellite TV and radio into Iran and want the U.S. government to send a signal to Iranians that if there is an uprising the U.S. will support them. That is all at the moment."

Several sources said the State Department was seeking to improve contacts with Tehran and was skeptical of the neoconservative assessment that the regime was on the verge of collapse.

Gregg Sullivan, a spokesman for the State Department's Near East bureau, declined to comment on the issue.

A clear illustration of the debate is the shifting attitude of the government toward the Mujaheddin el Khalk, or MEK, an opposition group based in Iraq and supported for years by Saddam Hussein that is listed as a terrorist organization by the State Department. After initially bombing MEK bases in Iraq, the American military proceeded to negotiate a cease-fire, before eventually deciding to disarm the group.

Even now, however, some hawks are pressing the administration to engage the group and possibly use it as a proxy against the Tehran regime.

"The Office of Special Plans has been willing to reach out to the MEK and use them as a surrogate to pressure Iran," said Larry Johnson, a former CIA and State Department official who has been among those alleging pressure on analysts by Pentagon hawks to skew intelligence on Iraq.

The senior Defense Department official strongly denied the allegations, contending that the Office of Special Plans had in fact advocated cracking down on the MEK. He said the ensuing policy confusion was due to other government agencies.

State officials also question the clout and democratic credentials of exiled opposition figures like Reza Pahlavi, the son of the late shah who has emerged as an advocate of Iranian secular democracy and a darling of neoconservatives.

The source close to Iran policymakers added that the Pentagon was very much in favor of regime change in Iran and enjoyed the support of the vice president's office. He said advocates were hoping to convince the president over the objections of the State Department.

Perhaps reflecting the fierceness of the debate, a major White House policy meeting on Iran was postponed last week and will only be held after the president returns from his trip to Europe and the Middle East.

---
http://www.forward.com/issues/2003/03.06.06/news6.html

Iran's Khamenei inaugurates new ballistic missile capable of striking Israel
Al Bawaba, the Middle East Gateway July 20 2003

Posted on 07/20/2003 9:52 AM CDT by knighthawk

Iran's supreme leader on Sunday inaugurated a new ballistic missile that brings Israel within range of the Islamic republic, praising the event as a key moment in the defense of the Palestinian cause.

"Today our people and our armed forces are ready to defend their goals anywhere," Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told a ceremony for the elite Revolutionary Guards carried on state television.

"This divine force has answered all threats, and we are witnessing today that this divine force is now doing the same for the Lebanese and the Palestinian people," he added in the ceremony to bring the Shihab-3 missile into service.

Television pictures showed Khamenei flanked by officers and other clerics, at least 1,000 troops in ceremonial dress, and three of the Shihab-3 rockets on what seemed to be mobile launchers.

The report said the Revolutionary Guards, who have their own air force, were also given some new but unidentified attack and transport helicopters as well as an undisclosed number of Russian-built Sukhoi-25 jets, according to AFP.

Yahya Rahim-Safavi, the head of the Revolutionary Guards, said in his speech during the ceremony in Tehran that his force was now "ready to defend Iran against any threat".

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/949379/posts

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