WaPo Reports on Operation "Blue Matrix" the Ramp up for Potential War with Iran.

[KoKo]

Troops Authorized to Kill Iranian Operatives in Iraq
Administration Strategy Stirs Concern Among Some Officials

By Dafna Linzer
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, January 26, 2007; A01

The White House has authorized a widening of what is known inside the intelligence community as the "Blue Game Matrix" -- a list of approved operations that can be carried out against the Iranian-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon. And U.S. officials are preparing international sanctions against Tehran for holding several dozen al-Qaeda fighters who fled across the Afghan border in late 2001. They plan more aggressive moves to disrupt Tehran's funding of the radical Palestinian group Hamas and to undermine Iranian interests among Shiites in western Afghanistan.

In Iraq, U.S. troops now have the authority to target any member of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, as well as officers of its intelligence services believed to be working with Iraqi militias. The policy does not extend to Iranian civilians or diplomats. Though U.S. forces are not known to have used lethal force against any Iranian to date, Bush administration officials have been urging top military commanders to exercise the authority.

The wide-ranging plan has several influential skeptics in the intelligence community, at the State Department and at the Defense Department who said that they worry it could push the growing conflict between Tehran and Washington into the center of a chaotic Iraq war.

Senior administration officials said the policy is based on the theory that Tehran will back down from its nuclear ambitions if the United States hits it hard in Iraq and elsewhere, creating a sense of vulnerability among Iranian leaders. But if Iran responds with escalation, it has the means to put U.S. citizens and national interests at greater risk in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

Officials said Hayden counseled the president and his advisers to consider a list of potential consequences, including the possibility that the Iranians might seek to retaliate by kidnapping or killing U.S. personnel in Iraq.

Two officials said that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, though a supporter of the strategy, is concerned about the potential for errors, as well as the ramifications of a military confrontation between U.S. and Iranian troops on the Iraqi battlefield.

In meetings with Bush's other senior advisers, officials said, Rice insisted that the defense secretary appoint a senior official to personally oversee the program to prevent it from expanding into a full-scale conflict. Rice got the oversight guarantees she sought, though it remains unclear whether senior Pentagon officials must approve targets on a case-by-case basis or whether the oversight is more general.

More of this...and seems to show much "infighting" between Neo-Cons, Intelligence and Senior Administration Officials...at

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/25/AR2007012502199_pf.html

[Homer12]

1. It's not going to work, Iran will not back Down, nor..

..will they take the bate abd attack the US first.

Buscho will have to start it themselves.

[RaleighNCDUer]

2. "...sanctions against Tehran for holding several dozen al-Qaeda fighters..."

Yeah. Shame on them. Only we are allowed to hold terrorists who illegally cross borders.

They are holding the AQ fighters, not protecting them. They don't like the Sunni Wahabbists of AQ - they are Shiite fundamentalists, who are themselves threatened by AQ.

But never mind that...

[KoKo]

3. kick