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Hersh: US Considered Ways to Provoke War with Iran

HeadlineAug 01, 2008

Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh has revealed the Bush administration recently held a meeting in Vice President Cheney’s office to discuss ways to provoke a war with Iran. Hersh said it was considered during the meeting to stage an incident where it would appear that Iranian boats had attacked US forces in the Straits of Hormuz.

Seymour Hersh: “There was a dozen ideas proffered how to trigger a war. The one that interested me the most was, why don’t we build — we, in our shipyard — build four or five boats that look like Iranian PT boats, put Navy Seals on them with a lot of arms, and, the next time one of our boats goes through the Straits of Hormuz, start a shoot-up. Might cost some lives. And it was rejected, because you can’t have Americans killing Americans. But that’s the kind of — that’s the level of stuff we are talking about: provocation. But that was rejected.”

Seymour Hersh discussed the report during a recent interview at the Campus Progress journalism conference.

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