Brown Accused Of Backing U.S. Plans For Bombing Raids On Iran
Brown accused of backing U.S. plans for bombing raids on Iran
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/liv...icle_id=485018
By MICHAEL THEODOULOU
Last updated at 01:50am on 2nd October 2007
Gordon Brown is backing U.S. plans for "surgical" bombing raids on Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards, it has been claimed.
A leading American journalist said U.S. commanders had been drawing up plans to target Iran's nuclear facilities but were told this summer to focus instead on the guards, who have been blamed for attacks on U.S. and British forces in Iraq.
Seymour Hersh, known to have high-level contacts in the Pentagon, said: "During a secure videoconference that took place early this summer, the President told Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, he was thinking of hitting Iranian targets across the border and that the British 'were on board'."
Writing in the magazine New Yorker, Hersh continued: "The bombing plan has had its most positive reception from the newly elected government of Britain's Prime Minister, Gordon Brown."
He claimed a retired American general told him Britain "may want to do it to get even" due to the embarrassment of the Revolutionary Guards' capture of Royal Navy sailors and Marines in March.
But the general added that the "burden of proof" would have to be high to win Mr Brown's final support due to a "widespread belief in London that Tony Blair's government was sold a bill of goods by the White House in the build-up to the war against Iraq".
Hersh said Mr Brown shared the White House view that Iran is five years from building a nuclear bomb and the more pressing threat is its support for terrorist groups.
The White House believes it could fend off criticism of limited strikes against Iran by arguing that they were a defensive action to save soldiers in Iraq.
Hersh, a Pulitzer Prizewinner, wrote the first stories about the abuse of Iraqis by U.S. forces at Abu Ghraib prison.
Downing Street dismissed his claims last night.
Mr Brown's official spokesman said: "The Prime Minister has made clear in the past that there are no such proposals."
