This morning on CNN Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer, New Yorker Journalist, Seymour Hersh, whose reporting on the Iraq war has included ground breaking revelations about ABU GHRAIB as well as prisoner abuses in Iraq said in an interview this morning that former Director of National Intelligence, John Negroponte, who resigned his position several months ago to become Undersecretary of State, left the intel position because of objections over U.S. taxpayer money being funnelled into the hands of Sunni militant groups in lebeanon with ties to Al Qaeda.
Hersh said he obtained this information from well placed sources he spoke with while investigating the U.S. military's war planning for a strike on Iran, featured in this weeks edition of The New Yorker in a piece titled, The Redirection.
Hersh told CNN's Blitzer that President Bush appears to have begun implementing a previously undisclosed policy aimed at halting the spread of Iran's power by providing financial assistance to militant Sunni groups in Lebanon, where the Shiite Hezbollah has launched an effort to overtake the government, conducting massive sit-ins and street protests in the wake of last summers war with Israel.
Hersh said that the U.S. has joined Saudi Arabia in providing funds to Sunni militant groups in Lebanon with ties to Al Qaeda, that would be called upon to supposedly strike against Hezbolah's forces.
When asked how the money was being delivered to the Al Qaeda linked groups, Hersh said it was unclear because congress hadn't authorized the spending, but that more than likely had simply been siphoned from funding that congress had approved for fighting in Iraq.
Hersh speculated that this illegal funneling of taxpayer's money to terrorist organizations affiliated with Al Qaeda, which has been responsible for numerous strikes against U.S. troops in Bagdad appeared to be further evidence that President Bush seemed determined not to leave office without having acted against Iran.
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