Israel Matzav

State Department decides Iran in Latin America not a threat

“The final classified report you received reflects the view of the entire Administration,” State Department Assistant Secretary Thomas Gibbons wrote in a Sept. 5 letter to Rep. Jeff Duncan (R., S.C.), who released the letter publicly late Friday.

The administration claims this view is held throughout the U.S. government.

“Our characterization of the Iranian threat in the Western Hemisphere is shared by all relevant agencies within the executive branch, including the Department of Defense and intelligence agencies,” Gibbons wrote.

...“Iran’s involvement in the Western Hemisphere is a matter for concern,” the letter stated.

Duncan called this response troubling and criticized the State Department for stonewalling congressional investigators.

“The State Department has chosen to obstruct congressional oversight of Iran’s deepening relations with countries in Latin America by sending a letter that did not answer even a single question,” Duncan said in a statement.

“The State Department owes the American people answers to these questions on whether they still believe Iran’s influence is ‘waning’ in the Western Hemisphere,” he said.

“Recent congressional hearings on this issue uncovered disturbing evidence of Iran’s ability to recruit over a thousand students from Latin America to travel to Iran for training, obtain fraudulent passport documentation, exploit free trade zones and loose border security measures, and cooperate with drug cartels and criminal networks,” he said.

...

The State Department’s minority view of Iran is reflective of a bureaucratic culture that downplays serious threats, said Roger Noriega, a former State Department official and U.S. ambassador to the Organization for American States.

“I have not read the classified report, but the unclassified document is a joke,” said Noriega, a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. “Even after Benghazi, the culture of the State Department is one of willful neglect.”

Iran’s proxy group Hezbollah has a foothold in the region and plans attack nearly “every day,” Noriega said.

“Based on documents and information that my team has obtained from sources in the region, which we have shared with numerous U.S. Agencies, I am convinced that Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorist are plotting every day to launch an attack against U.S. Interests in Latin America, aided and abetted by Venezuela and other hostile regimes in the region,” he said.

Labels: Argentina, Hezbullah, Iran, Islamic terrorism, Latin America, Mexico, United States, Venezuela

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:30 AM