The Secret Service And Ahmadinejad

"Ahmadinejad to Speak on Campus" (Columbia Spec)

By the way: I wonder whether the U.S. government considers Ahmadinejad a "head of state" or a "head of government." If it's the latter, the fine folks at the Diplomatic Security Service (DS) will be charged with putting together a protective detail. If he's a head-of-state, then the U.S. Secret Service will, by statute, protect him.

Even when the CIA was figuring out ways to, uh, destabilize the Nicaraguan dictator Tachito Somoza in the 1970s, the Secret Service had the unenviable job of protecting the leader whenever he visited New York.

An an Ahmadinejad protection detail would be larger than your average detail because the potential for threats and dispruptions would be significant.

If precedent holds, the Service or the DS would assign at least several dozen agents, armored cars, counter-sniper details (although the NYPD would help with this), probably a counter-assault team, and probably even an SUV equipped with IED-jamming technology.

Here's a weird scenario: presumably, the American security agents have to liaise with their Iranian counterparts, most of whom are probably connected in some way or another with the Iranian central intelligence and security agency.

So how does the Service protect the Iranians from gaining detailed knowledge of protective methods and coded radio frequencies?

(Whoops! SAVAK no longer exists.)

Comments

Call me crazy - but wasn't SAVAK the Shah's outfit?

Posted by Nanonymous | September 20, 2007 12:08 PM

You appear to be quite ignorant of Iranian history. SAVAK was the much-hated security service under the Shah of Iran's regime. This U.S. supported security office was responsible for torture on an industrial scale. It was disbanded (and many of its officers executed) after the Iranian revolution.

Posted by George | September 20, 2007 1:00 PM

It may seem like a small thing, but your comment is a pretty stunning blunder for a journalist. The hatred for SAVAK was the primary driver behind the Iranian revolution. (A whole bunch of people didn't just wake up one day and decide to become fanatical Muslims, as some in the press would have you believe.) The revolution started directly after SAVAK fired on a group of protesters at QOM.

I fail to see why you are getting hysterical about the President of Iran getting Secret Service protection. Presumably he had it when he visited the country in 2005.

Posted by George | September 20, 2007 1:16 PM

George: He stayed within the UN boundaries in 2005. I'm CERTAIN the author realizes that SAVAK is gone. Intelligence has come a long way since the 1970s and yes, a concern WOULD be the Iranian capability to grab codes, messages, whatever. Read some history, TROLL.

Posted by Pam | September 20, 2007 9:02 PM

Possibly because he is the head of a terrorist state and has the blood of US soldiers in Iraq on his hands. Plus the possiblity that he was involved of the taking over of the US Embassy in'79.
Just a guess.

Posted by buzz | September 20, 2007 9:04 PM

Having heard some old war stories from a DSS agent, I am very sure that the important stuff is one off, that even the same protected person on two visits will have different tactics and radio frequencies et al used. In other words, I wouldn't worry about spilling secrets. These guys go through similar courses across the world and there are schools who train protective agents from anywhere. There's nothing secret in protecting a personage that the Iranians don't at least know in theory (though they may not have the budget to buy all the toys we use). Btw: the replacement for SAVAK is called VEVAK (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministry_of_Intelligence_(Iran) ).

Posted by TMLutas | September 20, 2007 10:13 PM