CIA 'preparing public for Iran war'

[MikeWB]

(Press TV) -- The CIA accuses Iran of 'facilitating the killing' of US troops in Iraq in what is seen as another attempt to prepare the public for war.

In a Wednesday lecture at the Kansas State University, CIA Director Michael Hayden claimed that slaying US military forces has become the political strategy of Iran's highest governmental officials.

"It is my opinion, it is the policy of the Iranian government, approved to highest level of that government, to facilitate the killing of Americans in Iraq," maintained Hayden, just a day after the US steamed a second American aircraft carrier into the Persian Gulf.

His comments come at a time when a recent CBS report indicates that the US Defense Department had ordered military commanders to develop new war plans against Tehran, a claim echoed by top American analysts.

"I believe George Bush and Dick Cheney plan to take care of Iran before they leave office," former CIA analyst Ray McGovern said in an interview published in the Charleston Gazette on Wednesday.

"There's no doubt in my mind that the United States is planning right now, as we speak, a military strike against Iran. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and almost every senior US military official has pretty much acknowledged the same," former UN weapons inspector and now anti-war commentator Scott Ritter had told Democracy Now on Monday.

The US steamed its second aircraft carrier into the Persian Gulf on Tuesday in what Washington has termed a 'reminder' of US power.
Senior US officials have been accusing the Iranian government of helping the spread of violence in Iraq without providing any concrete proof.

Pundits, however, say recent 'Washington hype' is a reminder of US preparations made prior to the Iraq war and signal efforts to prepare the public for a war on Tehran while shifting the blame of US failures in Iraq onto others.