Cheney secret team involved saboteurs as well as assassins
By Wayne Madsen
Online Journal Contributing Writer
Jul 24, 2009, 00:14
(WMR) — WMR has learned from U.S. and foreign intelligence sources
that Dick Cheney’s super-secret clandestine operations team, primarily
made up of Department of Defense Joint Special Operations Command
(JSOC) personnel, in some cases worked closely with their Israeli
commando counterparts to carry out sabotage against Iranian and
Pakistani nuclear facilities, as well as assassinate Iranian nuclear
scientists, other individuals who were knowledgeable about the role of
Israelis in supplying nuclear materials to Pakistan and Iran,and
commit terrorist attacks on civilian aircraft.
Although the CIA decided against working closely with the
Cheney-directed JSOC team, agency officials were well-aware of its
operations and special relationship with Mossad `Kidon’ department,
which is responsible for conducting assassinations and
kidnappings. `Kidon’ is the Hebrew word for bayonet.
During the time Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was in charge of
the Pentagon, his neoconservative subordinates, including Paul
Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith, authorized the entrance into the Pentagon
of top Israeli Defense Force and Mossad officers, including Kidon
personnel, according to information obtained by WMR. There were no
records maintained of the Israelivisits or the identities of the
visitorsin what was described by Pentagon officials as a
completeviolation of Pentagon security procedures.
The operations of the JSOC-Mossad team were coordinated by the Office
of Special Plans, a unit that operated as a CIA rival under the
direction of Feith and other pro-Israeli elements within the Office of
the Secretary of Defense, including Feith’s deputy, William Luti, a
close adviser to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Gingrich recently
called for stepped up U.S.-led sabotage against Iranian targets. The
JSOC-Mossad team also utilized the services of the Iranian terrorist
organization, troup by the U.S. State Department, to coordinate
sabotage and assassinations inside Iran.
Because of the rift between the CIA under George Tenetand the
Department of Defense under Rumsfeld and his neocon deputies, the CIA
backed off the operation fortwo major reasons: the CIA did not trust
the Mossad and Langley saw Cheney as a major threat to more legitimate
CIA operations.
In February 2007, Radio Farda, a neocon contrivance operated under the
aegis of the State Department, broadcast a news item that
Dr. Ardeshire Hassanpour, 44, a nuclear scientist at Iran’s uranium
enrichment facility in Isfahan, died from `mysterious causes.’
Hassanpour died on January 18, 2007,and it is believed by many that
the scientist was one of many `enemies’ assassinated by the joint
U.S.-Israeli assassination and sabotage team operating under the aegis
of Cheney’s office in the White House.
Cheney’s team reportedly struck earlier, on December 23, 2002, when a
Russian-built Antonov An-140 crashed into the side of a mountain in
central Iran while on its final approach to Isfahan airport. Between
44 and 48 people aboard the aircraft were killed, including 6 Russians
and a number of Ukrainian engineers. A woman and child were also on
board. The plane was en route to Isfahan fromKharkiv after making a
refueling stop in Turkey. Although press reports stated that on board
the aircraft were Ukrainian and Russian engineers, the fact that the
plane was heading to Isfahan, a major Iranian nuclear research and
engineering site raised eyebrows at the time.
The Iranian newspaper, Jam-e-Jam, reported that Mossad agents
operating in Turkeyhad sabotaged the aircraft while it was being
refueled in Turkey.
In February 2002, IranAirTour flight 956 a Tupolev Tu-154,crashed into
the side of a mountain near Khorramabad, 270 miles southwest of
Tehran, killing all 119 passengers and crew on board. Residents of a
village near Khorramabad said they heard a `big explosion.’
On January 9, 2006, a Falcon jet carrying 11 members of I
ary Guards Corps (IRGC) crashed near Orumiyeh, capital of Iran’s West
Azerbaijan province. The ground commander for IRGC’s forces, General
Ahmed Kazemi, was one of the victims. The joint JSOC-Mossad team,
operating from neighboring Azerbaijan, where the Mossad and CIA have
major stations, is suspected of being behind the crash. WMR is aware
that JSOC personnel, some ex-Delta Force contractorsoperating under
journalistic cover, had already been in Iran to identify `soft
targets’ for assassinations and sabotage. These personnel allegedly
reported directly to Colonel Steven Bucci, the personal military
assistant to Rumsfeld at the Pentagon.
On February 19, 2003, another plane, a Russian-built
Ilyushin-76,carrying eliteIRGCsoldiers crashed into a mountain in
central Iran. The plane was transporting 302 members of the IRGC from
Zahedan in southeastern Iran to Kerman, 500 miles southeast of Tehran.
On November 27, 2006, an Antonov-24 of the IRGC crashed at Meharabad
International Airport in Tehran after its engines caught fire on
take-off. 36 IRGC members and the crew died. The plane was en route to
Shiraz on a `military mission.’
On December 8, 2005, an Iranian C-130 military aircraft transporting a
number of journalists from Meherabad Airport to Bandar Abbas crashed
into a 10-story building after take-off from the airport. One hundred
eight passengers and crew were killed as well as 34 on the ground.The
plane was attempting to make an emergency landing when it crashed. The
Iranian journalists and photographers, 68 in total, were en route to
Chabahar to cover a military exercise. The JSOC-Israeli team is also
suspected of being behind the crash of the journalists’ plane.
On May 30, 2009, a bomb was found onboard Kish Air flight
Y9-7030MD-82with 131 passengers. The bomb on the plane, which was en
route from Ahvaz, Khuzestan to Tehran, was successfully defused after
the plane made an emergency landing. The bomb incident took place just
prior to the Iranian presidential election.
And in what m eli assassination and sabotage unit not to probe too
deeply into its past clandestine work, a Caspian Airlines Tupolev-154
crashed on July 15 75 miles northwest of Tehran after take-off from
Imam Khomeini International Airport in Tehran en route to Yerevan, the
capital of Armenia. Iran and Armenia maintain close relations. All 168
people on board the plane were killed. Caspian Airlines is an
Iranian-Russian joint venture airline. An eyewitness is reported by
the AP as saying the tail section of the plane burst into flames as it
circled for a place to make an emergency landing prior to crashing
near the city of Qazvin.
There are also suspicions that the JSOC-Israeli team, with the
then-involvement of the CIA,was operational under Cheney’s aegis prior
to 9/11. On July 11, 2001, Ali Mahmudi Mimand, the `father of Iran’s
missiles,’ including the Shihab III medium range missile, was
reportedly killed in a mysteriousexplosion at the Shahid Hemat
Industrial Group, south of Tehran. Mimand was chief of Iran’s
secretive `Zelzal’ missile development group. The JSOC-CIA-Mossad team
is believed to have been behind the assassination of Mimand.
The JSOC-Mossad team is also strongly believed by some
U.S. intelligence sources to have been behind the February 12, 2008,
car bombing assassination of Hezbollah military commander Imad
Mugniyeh in Damascus and the poisoning deaths of a number of targets,
including Palestinian President Yasir Arafat who was reportedly blood
poisoned at his headquarters in Ramallah on the West Bank.
Poisoning with a later conclusion of `death by natural causes’ was a
favorite method employed by the JSOC-Mossad team. Their fingerprints
are suspected in the May 11, 2007, poisoning of Kyrgyzstan Prime
Minister Almaz Atambayevwhen he declared, inthe same month,that the
U.S. airbase at Manas could not be used in any attacks on Iran. The
poison team may have also been behind the sudden death in December
2006 of Turkmenistan’s dictator Saparmurat Niyazov or `Turkmenbashi.’
Niya f strict neutrality and forbid the U.S. from using Turkmenistan
territory for military operations in Afghanistan or the use of Turkmen
airspace in operations against Iran.
Fast cancer agents, courtesy of the JSOC-Mossadteam, also reportedly
took the life of Tajikistan’s Islamic opposition leader Said Abdullo
Nuri who died from cancer on August 7, 2006, at age 59. Nuri favored
establishing an Islamic state in Tajikistan and was seen as close
to Iran.
WMR previously reported that the JSOC team carried out the
assassination of former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in
Rawalapindi on December 27, 2007.
The Cheney joint Pentagon-Israeli team goes to the heart of covert
activities conducted by the Bush-Cheney administration. The Obama
administration has shown every indication of protecting Cheney and
other top Bush administration officials from scrutiny. Obama recently
extended Cheney’s Secret Service protection by six months, an
indication that the White House is concerned that international arrest
warrants for homicide may soon be issued against the former Vice
President.
Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and
nationally-distributed columnist. He is the editor and publisher of
the Wayne Madsen Report (subscription required).