The Twilight War: The Secret History of America's Thirty-Year Conflict with Iran (119 page)

2.
Michael Coyne, “Iran under the Ayatollah,”
National Geographic
, July 1985, p. 120. One person interviewed remains convinced to this day that the photo had been planted in the magazine as a way to tell the Americans that one of their agents was dead, and the Iranians knew it. But a retired CIA agent who worked Iran believed that the Iranians would never have buried a known spy in with the martyrs at Behesht. Coyne was adamant that he was not deliberately guided to the grave and came upon it by happenstance.

3.
Author’s notes, April 4, 2003.

4.
One of the best overviews of Iranian objectives in Iraq is Michael Eisenstadt, Michael Knights, and Ahmed Ali, “Iran’s Influence in Iraq,” Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Policy Focus 111, April 2011.

5.
Interview with Iranian officials.

6.
Michael Knights, interview with author, November 28, 2011.

7.
Crocker interview.

8.
Michael Ware, “Inside Iran’s Secret War for Iraq,”
Time
, August 15, 2005.

9.
This eventually led to a raid on Chalabi’s house in Baghdad, with the assistance of the U.S. military, in the spring of 2004. This infuriated his supporters in the Pentagon, who chastised Chairman Myers and the military commanders in Iraq and prohibited future actions against Chalabi without the defense secretary’s concurrence. Tenet,
At the Center of the Storm
, p. 446; Matthew Aid,
The Secret Sentry: The Untold History of the National Security Agency
(New York: Bloomsbury, 2009), p. 270.

10.
Author’s notes in Baghdad, April 14, 2003.

11.
Department of State message, “Kuwait Concerned about Iran’s Power Play in Iraq,” April 13, 2003.

12.
CENTCOM Forward message to COMCJTF-7, “CFC Guidance Concerning the Badr Corps” (030218Z), June 2003. This was based upon guidance approved in late March 2003 that authorized use of force against the Badr Corps.

13.
Paul Bremer e-mail to Jaymie Durnan, “Message for SecDef,” June 30, 2003.

14.
L. Paul Bremer memorandum to Donald Rumsfeld, “Iran II,” May 25, 2003.

15.
Memorandum for the record, “Lieutenant Mahnken Meeting with 1st UK Division,” G-2, April 23, 2003.

16.
Mark Mazzetti, “U.S. Report Says Iran Halted Nuclear Weapons Program in 2003,”
New York Times
, December 3, 2007.

17.
Tim Guldimann, memorandum and “Roadmap,” May 4, 2003.

18.
Tim Guldimann, interview with author, 2011.

19.
Elliott Abrams, interview with author, January 5, 2011; Bolton interview.

20.
Ambassador Zarif draft of “Roadmap,” May 1, 2003; Hooshang Amirahmadi, confidential memorandum, “The Chronology of the Grand Bargain,” June 2004; Hooshang Amirahmadi e-mail to author, April 26, 2007.

21.
Several years later, a clerical adviser to the supreme leader told Flynt Leverett and his wife, Hillary Mann, that the “road map proposal had been sanctioned by Ayatollah Khamenei,” adding, “Today we would not be as generous.” Leverett and Mann interviews.

22.
Armitage interview.

23.
Wilkerson interview. Crocker did not recall passing such a point to the Iranians.

24.
Bolton interview.

25.
Ibid.

26.
Ibid.

27.
L. Paul Bremer,
My Year in Iraq: The Struggle to Build a Future of Hope
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 2006), pp. 59, 274.

28.
“Iran Denies It Has Moved Border Posts into Iraq,” Reuters, July 10, 2003.

29.
Michael Knights, “The Role of Broadcast Media in Influence Operations in Iraq,” Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Policy Watch 758, May 19, 2003.

30.
“Assistance for Iranian Earthquake Victims,” U.S. Agency for International Development, January 15, 2004,
www.usaid.gov/iran
, accessed August 12, 2011.

31.
Crocker interview.

C
HAPTER 25
T
HE
F
REEDOM
A
GENDA

1.
President George W. Bush Inaugural Address, “There Is No Justice Without Freedom,” Federal News Service,
Washington Post
, January 21, 2005, p. A24.

2.
Text of President Bush’s 2005 State of the Union address, February 2, 2005.

3.
George Bush,
Decision Points
(New York: Crown, 2010), p. 397.

4.
John Dickerson, “What the President Reads,”
Time
, January 10, 2005.

5.
Bolton interview.

6.
Department of State, “Remarks of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at the American University of Cairo,” June 20, 2005.

7.
Nicholas Burns, interview with author, September 1, 2011.

8.
Steven Weisman, “Rice Gets Pledge from Schröder to Do More to Help Iraq,”
New York Times
, February 5, 2005.

9.
Statement by Senator Tom Coburn,
Iran: Tehran’s Nuclear Recklessness and the U.S. Response—The Experts’ Perspective
, hearings, U.S. Senate, Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Federal Financial Management, Government Information, and International Security Subcommittee, 109th Congress, 1st Session, November 15, 2005, p. 3.

10.
Comments made at Brookings–U.S. Central Command Symposium, October 17–18, 2011, Doha, Qatar.

11.
William Broad and David Sanger, “Relying on Computer, U.S. Seeks to Prove Iran’s Nuclear Aims,”
New York Times
, November 13, 2005.

12.
“Iran Strategy,” September 17, 2004.

13.
Testimony of Carl Gershman,
The Role of Non-Governmental Organizations in the Development of Democracy
, hearings, U.S. Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, 109th Congress, 2nd Session, June 8, 2006, p. 61; Sean Kenny, “The Revolution Will Be Blogged,
Salon
, March 6, 2006,
http://www.salon.com/2006/03/06/iranian_bloggers/
.

14.
Department of State, “Iranians Widely Favor Economic Reform and Better Ties with the West,” December 2000.

15.
Michael Doran, interview with author, September 22, 2010.

16.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, “Prepared Remarks,” testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, February 15, 2006.

17.
“Responses of Barry Lowenkron to Questions Submitted by Senator Biden,”
The Role of Non-Governmental Organizations in the Development of Democracy
, p. 85.

18.
David Denehy interview, November 10, 2011.

19.
Negar Azimi, “Hard Realities of Soft Power,”
New York Times
, June 24, 2007.

20.
Department of State, “Department Efforts to Promote Democracy in Iran,” February 10, 2006.

21.
Ibid.

22.
Warren P. Strobel and William Douglas, “Pentagon Study Claims U.S. Broadcasts to Iran Aren’t Tough Enough,” McClatchy Newspapers, September 26, 2006,
www.mcclatchydc.com/2006/09/26/v-print/14705/pentagon-study-claims-us-broadcasts.html
.

23.
The others were Kian Tajbakhsh, Ali Shakeri, and Nazi Azima.

24.
Stuart Holliday memorandum to Colin Powell, “Persian Language Website,” September 25, 2003.

25.
Peter Rodman memorandum for the Secretary of Defense, “Iranian Election Questions,” June 30, 2005.

26.
James Woolsey testimony,
Iran: Tehran’s Nuclear Recklessness and the U.S. Response
, p. 10.

27.
Newt Gingrich testimony,
Iran: Tehran’s Nuclear Recklessness and the U.S. Response
, pp. 17, 21.

28.
This was the Iranian president’s response in reply to a question that the author had passed during his September 2010 visit to the United Nations.

29.
Burns interview.

30.
A number of reports circulated in 2007 that the United States provided aid to Jundallah. See Brian Ross and Christopher Isham, “The Secret War Against Iran,” ABC News, April 3, 2007; Seymour Hersh, “Preparing the Battlefield,”
New Yorker
, July 7, 2007.

31.
Robert Windrem, “U.S. Provides Millions in Lebanese Military Aid,” NBC News, May 22, 2007,
www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18809618/ns/nightly_news/t/us-provides-millions-lebanese-military-aid
, accessed July 23, 2011.

32.
Interview with former Bush administration State Deparment appointee, November 7, 2011.

33.
John Limbert, interview with author, 2011.

34.
Richard Cheney,
In My Time: A Personal and Political Memoir
(New York: Threshold, 2011), p. 474.

35.
Bolton interview; John Bolton,
Surrender Is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations and Abroad
(New York: Threshold, 2007), pp. 130–64. In a March 24, 2003, memorandum to Stephen Hadley, Doug Feith wrote, “Iran is unlikely to abandon its nuclear weapons program and ambitions. Our long-term goal must be to press Russia to cancel all cooperation with Iran’s nuclear program.” Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security J. D. Crouch summed up the U.S. government’s view in a March 17, 2003, memorandum: “A Near-Term Strategy on Iran’s Nuclear Program.”

36.
Helene Cooper and David E. Sanger, “A Talk at Lunch That Shifted the Stance on Iran,”
New York Times
, June 3, 2006.

37.
Condoleezza Rice,
No Higher Honor: A Memoir of My Years in Washington
(New York: Crown, 2011), p. 461.

38.
Burns interview.

39.
Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability and Divestment Act of 2008: A Report to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs
, Report 110-443, U.S. Senate, 110th Congress, 2nd Session, August 1, 2008, p. 3.

40.
Nazila Fathi and Elaine Sciolino, “Iran Open to Incentives on Nuclear Talks, with a Hedge,”
New York Times
, June 7, 2006.

41.
Bush,
Decision Points
, p. 419.

42.
Elaine Sciolino, “Nuclear Talks with Iran End in a Deadlock,”
New York Times
July 20, 2008.

C
HAPTER 26
A Q
UASI
-W
AR

1.
Notes taken during the December 13, 2006, meeting and provided to the author. Another account of this meeting is in Bob Woodward,
The War Within: A Secret White House History, 2006–2008
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 2008), pp. 286–89.

2.
Vice Admiral Kevin Cosgriff, interview with author, June 18, 2010.

3.
General John Abizaid, interview with author, November 22, 2010. Major General Vern Findley memorandum, “USCENTCOM Recommendation on Low-Level Coordination with Armed Forces of Iran,” 2006.

4.
Abizaid interview; Abrams interview.

5.
Mounir Elkhamri, “Iran’s Contribution to the Civil War in Iraq,” Jamestown Foundation, January 2007.

6.
Michael Gordon and Andrew Lehren, “Leaked Reports Detail Iran’s Aid for Iraqi Militias,”
New York Times
, October 2010.

7.
For an accurate and comprehensive overview of Iranians’ activities in Iraq, see Joseph Felter and Brian Fishman, “Iranian Strategy in Iraq: Politics and ‘Other Means,’” Combating Terrorism Center, West Point, October 13, 2008.

8.
S. Azad, “The Qods Force—Godfather of Al Qaida?”
News Blaze
, September 7, 2007,
http://newsblaze.com/story/20070907025952summ.nb/topstory.html
, accessed November 27, 2009.

9.
Michael Knights, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, interview with author, September 12, 2010.

10.
Michael Ware, “Inside Iran’s Secret War for Iraq,”
Time
, August 15, 2005.

11.
“Iranian Strategy in Iraq: Politics and ‘Other Means,’” pp. 55–65; U.S. Army, “Intel Report: Investigation into Dbe Find on 10 Nov 05 Near Iranian Border,” Serial No. HQ MND(SE) 202.1.2, November 2005, accessed at “Secret Dispatches from the War in Iraq,”
New York Times
,
www.nytimes.com/interactive/world/iraq-war-logs.html#report/D9E9E0BA-0273-46EE-A998-F2FBDA35951A
.