Scottie Non-Denies Using Terror Groups

Late yesterday Raw Story picked up a snippet from a White House press conference and headlined it White House denies reports that U.S. employs terror groups for special ops in Iran.

Over the last couple of months Raw Story's Larisa Alexandrovna has been doing some great work tracking down and reporting the Bush administration's use of the truly-whackjob MeK. There have also been reports of Bush administration backing for Kurdish PKK attacks in Iran as well as attacks by rebel elements from across the border in Pakistan.

Here's the question and Scottie's answer from that press conference:

Q There are numerous reports about low-intensity operations ongoing in Iran from three different places -- PKK going over the border into Iraq, the MEK southern border of Iraq into Iran, and also certain operations from Balochistan involving also the Pakistanis. Does the U.S. have a policy, given also reports which I know you won't comment on, on possible special forces operations in Iran? Does U.S. policy, based on the notion that an enemy of our enemy is our friend, consider changing its policy towards the PKK or --

MR. McCLELLAN: Our policies haven't changed on those organizations. They remain the same. And you're bringing up organizations that we view as terrorist organizations.

Q We would never cooperate with them, in terms of --

MR. McCLELLAN: Our policy hasn't changed.

Scottie may be a shill but he's no fool. That isn't any kind of denial. He simply said the policy hadn't changed. Which is true. For the Bush administration, using terror groups to foment discord in advance of regime change operations has always BEEN policy.

Update This seems to be the apposite place to link to the BBC report that:

The US is funding a coalition of Somali warlords who earlier this year battled Islamic groups in Mogadishu, Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf has said.

Mr Yusuf's spokesman said the funding was fuelling Somalia's civil war.

..."The warlords, through US support, have caused so many deaths of innocent civilians in the recent fighting in Mogadishu," he said.

The warlords - Mohammed Deere, Mohammed Qanyare and Bashir Rageh - and their business allies control large parts of Mogadishu and, crucially, the airstrips around the capital.