Every politician has a skeleton in the closet . . . but this gives "PR disaster" a whole new meaning.
"As soon as I saw the face, it rang a lot of bells to me," Don Sharer, of Bedford, Indiana, told CNN. He had served as the embassy's naval attache when the hostage-taking occurred.
"...Take 20 years off of him. He was there. He was there in the background, more like an adviser . . ."
Another hostage had more specific details about his memory of Ahmadinejad:
"I saw his picture in the Washington Post on Saturday morning, recognized it immediately and then sent an e-mail out to some of my former colleagues ... telling them what I thought and seeing what kind of responses they might have to it," said William Daugherty, a former CIA officer who now lives in Savannah, Georgia . . .
Daugherty said he remembers "seeing him acting in a supervisory or leadership capacity during the first ... 2 1/2 weeks (but) on the 19th day, I was moved into solitary confinement and had limited contact with even my Iranian guards after that."
The allegations come after months of international debate about Iran's rapid development of nuclear power, including a facility capable of producing enriched uranium, which could be used to build advanced nuclear weapons. In January, journalist Seymour Hersh reported that the Department of Defense was preparing for military operations in Iran.
Article comments
1 - RJ
The US should fund the opposition in Iran. Like, to the tune of billions of dollars, if need be.
With a hard-core fundy in power, the secular opposition should be pretty well outraged. We need to harness that rage...
2 - Victor Plenty
The US already tried funding Iran's opposition. That was how we ended up backing the Shah, returning him to power after helping to bring about the overthrow of an elected government in 1954.
After that, Iran seemed fast friends with the United States, until 1979, when suddenly things didn't go so well in the relationship between Iran and the country its new revolutionary government started calling "the Great Satan."
If we forget that history, we may end up doomed to repeat it.