Iran’s ministries of Intelligence and Interior last week announced the taking into custody of “terrorists” responsible for the bombing act that took place some week earlier in the city of Shiraz, while earlier intelligence officials had been stressing that the explosion was not the result of a bombing.
It is of course understandable why security officials of a country would withhold critical information, or postpone its announcement, in an effort to continue their work to capture those they seek. But is it also natural for senior security officials to present intelligence through official statements which it believes are fake? One must bear in mind that the dissemination of fake news about the causes of the explosion in Shiraz was not carried out merely by security officials, but mostly through official statements of the National Security Council of Iran.
Yes, security agencies at different times across the globe do tell lies and so Iranian security officials have not done anything wildly out of the ordinary when they lied about the Shiraz bombing. But the difference between their behavior and the customary norms of intelligence-security agencies is that in other countries those agencies at least strive to pretend that what they publish are true facts or that they do not intend to be misleading or present untruthful facts. In other words they have accepted the principle that they should not be seen as organizations that intentionally present lies. This is why after they publish false information, they attribute this either to not having sufficient information at the time, making a mistake or simply resort to public silence. But to knowingly present false facts and then justify it on grounds of expediency is a major faux pas that even the most arrogant security agencies do not easy resort to.
What makes this issue even more serious in Iran’s security apparatus is the fact it is done over and over again. This practice is so notorious that it would not be an exaggeration to say that all instances of “intelligence dissemination” exercised by Mr. Ahmadinejad’s administration have been followed by such justifications rather than expressions of error or ignorance of full facts.
We still remember that following the February 2006 bombing that took place in the city of Ahvaz in oil-rich Khuzestan province bordering Iraq, Mr. Ahmadinejad’s minister of interior immediately held a press conference in which he declared that the perpetrators of the bombing were associated with the UK. But when London asked for evidence, nothing was presented and even Iran’s minister of intelligence would not confirm this claim made by the minister of interior when confronted by reporters. All he could say was, “Detailed information will be made available when the case goes to court.” With the passage of time, however, nothing has been presented till today in support of the minister’s claim of British involvement.
An even more startling instance was when 15 British navies were detained by the IRGC because they had strayed into Iran’s territorial waters and the Iranian military-security apparatus expressly labeled the navies as “military spies”. Fast forward a few days and these very “spies” were given an official departure by no senior Iranian official than the President himself and his foreign minister and, after receiving gifts from their “host” country, were sent to their home country. So once again the public mind did not receive a definitive conclusion as to whether the accusation by Iranian authorities that the 15 detained navies were in fact spies or not was true or not. After all, where else in the world do they release foreign “spies” after a few days of detention and free them as if they were national heroes?
Another sensational event was when senior security officials of the Ahmadinejad Administration publicly attacked Hossein Mousavian, former Iranian nuclear negotiator, who was accused of engaging in “nuclear espionage” for the British government by the minister of intelligence and the president himself. In that instance, it was the Iranian judiciary that officially acquitted defendant Mousavian. When the President and his powerful public prosecutor Saeed Mortezavi protested to the acquittal, the accused was tried for a second time, and once again he was acquitted of his charges. Following these events, the minister of intelligence simply explained that the acquittal demonstrated that there was a difference of view between the court and the minister of intelligence… Similar instances abound during Mr. Ahmadinejad’s term.
So while presenting false information is not a rare phenomena for security agencies around the world, evidence indicates that organized presentation of false facts by senior intelligence officials of Iran has reached new heights where even the country’s Security Council disseminates fake information after which the ministers of intelligence and the interior proudly declare that expediency necessitated the presentation of disinformation. This is a concerning development.
Do our intelligence and security agencies realize that what a damaging message they are sending to the world when they deem it expedient to disseminate lies at the highest levels (the country’s Security Council) and through the highest official channels (official statements)?
How is a regime that is going through a sensitive period of self-created and perpetual conflict with world powers going to cope with questionable and critical security issues? Let me be more clear: How is the current regime going to defend itself from the constant accusations of supporting terrorism, of security-military interference in the affairs of regional countries, and, of pursing a non-transparent nuclear project when it itself announces to the world that it would lie through its most formal and official mouthpieces whenever it deems it expedient?
