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The February 28 issue of Newsweek (on newsstands Monday, February 21) focuses on the early diagnosis and treatment of autism, and how scientists are hoping to identify early markers of the disease in babies as young as six months. Plus, the CIA's secret transport of terror suspects to clandestine interrogation facilities, the implications of the Pope's poor health, an interview with Laura Bush, and how Wall Street feels about privatizing social security accounts. (PRNewsFoto)
NEW YORK, NY USA
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NEW YORK, Feb. 20 /PRNewswire/ -- NEWSWEEK PERISCOPE item:
(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20050220/NYSU006 )
Fresh intel suggests that Tehran is trying to expand its influence over
whatever government emerges in postelection Iraq. According to U.S. officials
familiar with the latest intelligence, the Iranian government has been
secretly directing its agents inside Iraq to plant themselves in influential
positions throughout the Iraqi government-into agencies that handle economic
affairs, like the ministries of Oil, Public Works and Finance, as well as
departments like the Interior Ministry that handle national security. The
Iranians also are directing their agents to infiltrate Iraqi security agencies
on the "working level" by taking jobs in regional or local government offices
and particularly local police forces. According to the most pessimistic U.S.
analysts, the ayatollahs' ultimate goal: "Taking over the government of Iraq."
A less pessimistic view is that the latest intel merely shows an ongoing
campaign of "classical espionage" by Tehran against Iraq.
U.S. government sources say a significant number of intel reports have
recently documented the Iranian covert-action campaign and that the reports
include internal Iranian government discussions about how Tehran's agents in
Iraq are being deployed. Many of the Iranian agents in question, the intel
reports say, are members of the Badr Corps, a paramilitary affiliate of the
Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), a political party with
longtime Iranian ties that is one of the principal partners in the coalition
of Shiite parties that won the largest number of seats in the new Iraqi
constitutional assembly. U.S. analysts now believe the corps is riddled with
agents controlled by Iranian intelligence. U.S. officials note that most of
the parties and politicians who won biggest in last month's Iraqi elections
have historical ties to Tehran. Both SCIRI and the Dawa Party, the other major
partner in the winning Shiite coalition, were based in Tehran for years during
Saddam's rule, and maintained close relations with Iran's theocracy. So did at
least one leader of the Kurdish coalition that will be kingmakers in Baghdad.
Dawa chief Ibrahim Jaafari, a favorite to become Iraq's new prime minister, is
known to favor an Islamic influence on any new Iraqi constitution. Some Bush
administration officials are horrified that Jaafari's principal rival for the
prime minister's office appears to be Ahmad Chalabi, the secular-minded but
controversial Shiite who during the Saddam era maintained a Tehran office that
was financed with U.S. tax money. Once the Pentagon's prime candidate to
succeed Saddam, Chalabi fell out of favor in Washington last year when intel
agencies alleged he gave Iran information compromising U.S. code-breaking
operations. (Chalabi denied any wrongdoing.) Despite the ominous new
intelligence, nongovernment experts say it's possible nationalist-minded
Iraqis can thwart Tehran's effort to take control in Iraq.
--Mark Hosenball
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6999382/site/newsweek/
(Periscope item in the February 28 issue of Newsweek, on newsstands
Monday, Feb. 21.)
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