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TechnoratiExperts: No Evidence of Iranian Nuclear Weapons Program
WASHINGTON -- Despite President Bush's claims that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons that could trigger "World War III," experts in and out of government say there's no conclusive evidence that Tehran has an active nuclear-weapons program.
Even his own administration appears divided about the immediacy of the threat. While Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney speak of an Iranian weapons program as a fact, Bush's point man on Iran, Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns, has attempted to ratchet down the rhetoric.
"Iran is seeking a nuclear capability ... that some people fear might lead to a nuclear-weapons capability," Burns said in an interview Oct. 25 on PBS.
"I don't think that anyone right today thinks they're working on a bomb," said another U.S. official, who requested anonymity because of the issue's sensitivity. Outside experts say the operative words are "right today." They say Iran may have been actively seeking to create a nuclear-weapons capacity in the past and still could break out of its current uranium-enrichment program and start a weapons program. They too lack definitive proof, but cite a great deal of circumstantial evidence. Bush's rhetoric seems hyperbolic compared with the measured statements by his senior aides and outside experts.
"I've told people that if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them (Iran) from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon," he said Oct. 17 at a news conference.
"Our country, and the entire international community, cannot stand by as a terror-supporting state fulfills its grandest ambitions," Cheney warned on Oct 23. "We will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon."
Bush and Cheney's allegations are under especially close scrutiny because their similar allegations about an Iraqi nuclear program proved to be wrong. Nevertheless, there are many reasons to be skeptical of Iran's claims that its nuclear program is intended exclusively for peaceful purposes, including the country's vast petroleum reserves, its dealings with a Pakistani dealer in black-market nuclear technology and the fact that it concealed its uranium-enrichment program from a U.N. watchdog agency for 18 years.
"Many aspects of Iran's past nuclear program and behavior make more sense if this program was set up for military rather than civilian purposes," Pierre Goldschmidt, a former U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency deputy director general, said in a speech Oct. 30 at Harvard University.
If conclusive proof exists, however, Bush hasn't revealed it. Nor have four years of IAEA inspections.
"I have not received any information that there is a concrete active nuclear-weapons program going on right now," IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei asserted in an interview Oct. 31 with CNN.
"There is no smoking-gun proof of work on a nuclear weapon, but there is enough evidence that points in that direction," said Mark Fitzpatrick of the London-based International Institute of Strategic Studies, a former deputy assistant secretary of state for nonproliferation controls.
New light may be shed when the IAEA reports this month on whether Iran is fulfilling an August accord to answer all outstanding questions about the nuclear-enrichment program it long concealed from the U.N. watchdog agency.
Its report is expected to focus on Iran's work with devices that spin uranium hexafluoride gas to produce low-enriched uranium for power plants or highly enriched uranium for weapons, depending on the duration of the process.
Iran asserts that it's working only with the P1, an older centrifuge that it admitted buying in 1987 from an international black-market network headed by A.Q. Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal.
But IAEA inspectors determined that Iran failed to reveal that it had obtained blueprints for the P2, a centrifuge twice as efficient as the P1, from the Khan network in 1995.
Iranian officials say they did nothing with the blueprints until 2002, when they were given to a private firm that produced and tested seven modified P2 parts, then abandoned the effort.
IAEA inspectors, however, discovered that Iran sought to buy thousands of specialized magnets for P2s from European suppliers, and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said last year that research on the centrifuges continued.
The IAEA has been stymied in trying to discover the project's scope, fueling suspicions that the Iranian military may be secretly running a P2 development program parallel to the civilian-run P1 program at Natanz.
Other issues driving concerns that Iran may be developing nuclear weapons:
PROJECT 111
The CIA turned over to the IAEA last year thousands of pages of computer simulations and documents - purportedly from a defector's laptop - that indicated that Iranian experts studied mounting a nuclear warhead on a ballistic missile.
The laptop also contained drawings and notes on sophisticated detonators and conventional high explosives arrayed in a ring - the shape used to trigger nuclear weapons - and implicated a firm linked to Iran's military in uranium-enrichment studies.
The documents included drawings of a 1,200-foot-deep underground shaft apparently designed to confine a nuclear test explosion. Iran denounced the materials as "politically motivated and baseless," but promised to cooperate with an IAEA investigation into so-called Project 111 once other questions are settled. U.S., French, German and British intelligence officials think the materials are genuine. "I wouldn't go to war over this, but it's reason for suspicion," Fitzpatrick said. "It hasn't been explained." Muhammad Sahimi, a professor of chemical and petroleum engineering at the University of Southern California who emigrated from Iran in 1978 and has analyzed Iran's nuclear program closely, dismissed the materials as "totally not believable." Noting how carefully Iranian intelligence agencies monitor the program and the borders, he said, "If the laptop did exist, I find it hard to believe that its absence wasn't noticed for so long that somebody could take it out of Iran."
THE 15-PAGE DOCUMENT
ElBaradei revealed in November 2005 that Iran had a document supplied by the Khan network on casting and milling uranium metal into hemispheres. Uranium hemispheres have no application in power plants, but form the explosive cores of nuclear weapons. Iran denied asking for the document or doing anything with it. It barred the IAEA from making copies but agreed to have it placed under seal. IAEA investigators have been interviewing Khan network members to verify Iran's version of how it got the document. They also have been looking into whether Iran received a Chinese warhead design from the Khan network. Libya, which bought the same materials Iran did, had the design.
POLONIUM-210
Iran has failed since 2003 to satisfy IAEA inquiries about experiments it conducted from 1989 to 1993 that produced Polonium-210.
Polonium-210 is a highly radioactive substance that has limited civilian applications but is used in warheads to initiate the fission chain reaction that results in a nuclear blast.
URANIUM MINE
IAEA inspectors want to know why and how the same military-linked company that's been implicated in the laptop materials was able to develop a uranium mine and a milling facility in a year when Iran has said the firm has limited experience in such work.
NUCLEAR POWER VS. OIL AND GAS
Many U.S. and European officials dispute Iran's claim that it needs to enrich uranium for nuclear power plants. They point out that the only Iranian nuclear power plant under construction is being built by Russia, which has an agreement to supply it with low-enriched uranium fuel for 10 years.
Moreover, they contend that Iran doesn't have enough uranium to provide fuel for the lifetimes of the seven to 10 civilian reactors it says it needs to meet the demands of its growing population. It would be far cheaper for Iran to expand domestic consumption of natural gas, of which it has the world's second-largest reserves, and oil, of which it has the world's third-largest reserves, according to a study by the Los Alamos National Laboratory. But Sahimi argued that given the skyrocketing price of oil and natural gas, it makes more sense for Iran to export as much petroleum and natural gas as possible and fill its power needs with nuclear-generated electricity. "The price of uranium since 2001 has increased by 800 percent. Iran's presently known resources can supply enriched uranium for seven reactors for 15 years," he said. "It would be foolish not to go after a domestic uranium facility ... given that, the price of enriched uranium, and the political obstacles and hindrance (Iran faces) if it decides to rely on outside suppliers."
McClatchy Newspapers Copyright 2007
49 Comments so far
Show All"Is that "point" salient enough for you?"
It's one point worth considering, but you have chosen to ignore those by Mr. Abram, instead raising questions around his associations. Ad Hominem.
The "point" is that the article states that there is no evidence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program. Some prefer to ignore this and follow the Rumsfeldian logic that what we "think" trumps proof. (Not to mention that it was all trumped up to begin with). This has proven, at a very high cost, to be flawed, irrational, genocidal thinking.
Is that "point" salient enough for you?
"So, I ask - what are you about, Mr. Abram?"
It's bound to be a losing tactic, to worry about who or what you think a person is. Just stick to the points made, always the better choice.
"I mean, I was out there opposing the invasion of Iraq back in mid-2002 (fyi), but I wasn't going around saying, Hey, Saddam Hussein is really a very nice man, just misunderstood is all. Do you think that would have been a more convincing line?"
This is so bogus.
The world is filled with "bad men" and that's the way it is. You know very well that many of those bad folks were, at one time or another, friends of ours (as was Saddam). Whether Saddam was bad or not had no bearing on why we invaded Iraq. The whole thing was trumped up BEFORE 9/11. We invaded for several reasons, none of them having to do with Saddam being a bad man. Do you really think our government gives a rat's ass about how someone else is treating their people? Rwanda? Darfur? Burma?
Iran is being trumped up just as Iraq was (both times), just as so many other conflicts we've interjected ourselves into.
Now for the pitch: Iran, even more than Iraq, has more to do with Israeli interests than our interests. That is why I wonder what people like you have for an agenda. I mean, you're here on Common Dreams making some salient (though, specious) points, so you're not stupid. So, I ask - what are you about, Mr. Abram? Who's interest are you defending?
MountainMike-
It's impossible to "pay back" Middle Eastern nations when they didn't attack you.
That attack was an act of Crime not War. It was organized and executed by Criminals not Countries. No nation to date has ever been implicated in the 9/11 attacks. Afghanistan was attacked to "get Bin Laden" (Apparantly he was the first Boogeyman before Hussein and Ahmadinejad)
A thorough investigation was warranted, Interpol should have been involved, and the matter should have reached it's inevitiable conclusion.
To date the 9/11 issue has not been properly investigated, nobody has been brought to justice, and it lays mired in controversy.
Once we have finished blighting the Middle East, it is my sincere hope that the 9/11 matter will be properly investigated and those responsible will be identified and brought to justice.
One of my first thoughts about this situation is that a Black Ops group attacks an American ship impersonating Iranians. In short, the old Gulf of Tonkin strategy that stimulated the Vietnam War. The only problem is Admiral Fallon is involved at the top of the Naval command in and around the Persian Gulf, and he has already said there will be no attack on Iran on his watch. It would have to be a land Black Ops attack on US troops.
Bush and Cheney love to talk about the Axis of Evil when in fact they are proving themselves to be the "Asses of Evil." Impeachment should definitely not be off the table for Bush.
Saddam didn't have WMD with plans for an imminent 9/11 type attack on America. That was the invention of our Asses of Evil. When the 9/11 commission and others came up empty handed after the invasion, they simply changed the rationale to "we are spreading democracy in the mideast."
Iran's lack of nuclear weapons development program is irrelevant to our Asses of Evil. Iran like Iraq has oil. And that is all that really counts. They want to sacrifice troop lives for corporate profits. The mission in Iraq and our future mission in Iran has absolutely nothing at all to do with our original, legitimate mission in the mideast for 9/11 payback.
My guess is that right after the 2008 elections there will be airstrikes on Iran. That will be Bush's gift to the next president. He will dump two quagmires in the lap of the next president.
I don't think we look foolish to demand proof like the UN and the rest of the world that we have no proof that Iran is building or intends the bomb. As far as having the knowledge? The secret to the atom bomb is no secret and can be found in libraries and the Internet like the ones we are banging on right now. They already have the knowledge and could probably build one but they are allowing the inspectors in and we don't allow inspectors in to check our nuclear programs.
No nation is goin to be suicidal and get a bomb and use it because MAD would eliminate that country and it probably would lead to the end of our discussion boards.
The world has had it with Bush acting out King of the Mountain. Russia and China have signaled that Mutually Assured Destruction is back for real now.... Bush is talking tough because he wants the world to think that he is forcing negotiations that his perceived Enemy has been calling for from the beginning.
Bush is a war Criminal and has no other option but to bluff... Bluffing is also a war crime!
Bush enjoys making you angry with his bluffs.
Our military knows this better then you think, and if I am bluffing, we are Dead.
It's annoying to see people attempting to cloud the issue by saying that just because there's no "evidence" it doesn't mean they aren't trying to build nukes.
These people are the mouthpiece of the bush administration and the neoconservative fascists pulling their strings. I found nothing in Mark Abrams comment to be remotely intelligent or insightful. It's neoconservative trash.
Iran is not building or planning to build nuclear weapons. The agency responsible for determining this is the IAEA and they've already made themselves clear. Inspections on Iranian facilities are ongoing and have been for some time. Iran has a RIGHT guaranteed by the United States to develop nuclear power. Mr. Ahmadinejad has addressed the UN General Assembly. He has made a goodwill visit to the United States. What else do you want from him? Would you like him to ship construction blueprints of every building in the country to you?
Since the United States has no honor anymore, treaties we signed and respect for the sovereignty of other nations are meaningless to us. We indiscriminately destroy other nations because they "might" be hiding something. The United States now expects all people in all countries to "act American". Any other religion than Christian is obviously wrong. If they don't have the same laws as we do then they need to be "freed from their oppression". We then rush in to 'help' these nations by wrecking their entire country.
No intelligent person could surmise that Iran is developing nuclear weapons. Anyone who would believe that also believes that Saddam's chemical weapons are still buried out in the sand or that Osama Bin laden is still hiding out in some Afghani or Pakistani cave.
This is about oil and corporate profits. It's a lust for money with no respect for the people it oppresses. An attack on Iran is just a continuance of the corrupt programs we already have in place.
Bottom line: The US wants to grab the Middle East oil, but Iran is in the way. All the rest is a bunch of hot air.
Some thoughts:
If President Cheney, um, I mean Bush, labeled my country as part of the "axis of evil" I would want to develope nukes. The US has never attacked a country that has nukes.
Another thought: Evidence, or lack thereof, does not matter to ideologues. If Chush/Beney decide that Iran should be attacked, then evidence will be either manufactured, or willfully interpreted to support their pre-determined conclusions.
It doesn't surprise me in the slightest they have no weapons! I had serious doubts they did. There is nothing that comes out of Bush or Cheney's mouths that can be believed anyway. They are both pathological liars. They have played that sick game of theirs one time to many. I don't think the American people will put up with them starting another war. They were absolutely positive Saddam Hussein had WMDs. I don't think this bunch of clowns has a clue. They believe what they feel like believing regardless of the evidence.
Cheney invaded Iraq because he thought it would be a cakewalk. He knows that's not the case in Iran and he will not order an invasion. He is a murderous bastard but he is not a fool.
Its really awful. The Iranians painting a target on themselves, the neocons figuring bombing fits with their plans to Americanize the middle east, the extreme Zionists seeing the opportunity for the Americans do for them what they figure Israel will have to do someday anyway. The US Navy and the Iranians are eyeball to eyeball, one misunderstanding away from an exchange.
God help us all.
No evidence? That's exactly why we need to attack them, whether its there or not!
Bush and Cheney cry wolf, again.
Mark Abrams raises valid points. This article lays out clearly the ambiguity of the status of nukes in Iran.
Let's just assume, for the sake of argument, that Iran is trying (clumsily) to make a nuclear weapon. Is threatening Iran with war or bombing the hell out of it the way to solve the problem? Will such an action help make the US safer and stronger, and help resolve the debacles in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Israel, and Palestine, Syria, and Lebanon (whew! We have lots of problems)?
Clearly a pre-emptive attack on Iran is not in the best interests of world peace. And, since the evil cabal is threatening war, and may go for it, it is clear that their interests are not world peace. An obvious point, I know. As is clear, their aim is destabilization, division, profit (and death to the little people who do not matter).
Please write your Congressperson and urge them to vote against tabling HR 333 (Kucinich's bill to impeach Cheney) on Tuesday, and to allow debate on the bill. My congresswoman, Nydia Velazquez, who represents uber-Liberal Brooklyn, does not co-sponsor the bill, and for some reason does not even respond to my emails, even with a form letter. Very disappointing.
lilulu - many nails hit on the head by your good analysis, above.
Congress damn well ought to revoke the 2001 AUMF and all other specific or implied delegations of its warmaking authority, which it has illicitly transferred to the Executive since then.
Altho Congress can do this right how, by a simple majority, and altho neocons would become utterly hysterical at the attempt, revocation proponents would only need to cite Bush's 2003 intelligence lies and misuse of such Executive powers vis-a-vis Iraq, as justification.
If afterward it became legitimately documented that Iran was in violation of IAEA and/or other int'l restrictions on nuke weapons prepping/building, the UN would be the proper venue for deciding what to do about it.
This or a similar scenario would be correct one, both for the US and the int'l community - and progressives should work toward it.
But don't expect any of it to happen. Leastways, not between here and the present horizon.
The USA is in violation of the NonProliferation Treaty. Oh yeah what about that flight of Nukes from Minot? How is that possible???????????
The "They've got pleanty of hydrocarbons, so why do they need nuclear power" argument is BS too. They will be exhausted by 2070, if not before, and what are they supposed to do afterwards? A good question that applies to the USA and the rest of the world too! What to do when the hydrocarbons start to run out, which is happening now, and what to do when only half the 84.5 Million barrels per day is the norm. Or even better, what to do when the exporters stop exporting because they have their own populace to provide for (a situation now being labeled Resource Nationalism).
The whole Iran--indeed the whole Game--crisis is about the geopolitics of oil. It's why we made enemies of the Iranians in 1953 with Regime Change #1, to prevent Resource Nationalism. Even more than Japan in 1940, hydrocarbon imports are the US Empire's greatest soft spot. Currently, all imports coming from Mexico are shutdown because of the massive flooding and tropical storm related damage. Many think when it comes back online, less will flow north than flowed before. Cantarell, the second largest oil field on the planet, has started its terminal decline phase at a 18% rate. Based on Mexico's per capita hydrpcarbon use, production will decline to a point where exports will cease in 6 years. It's quite ironic that Mexico, with its had picked/US backed president, not Venezuela, will be the first western hemisphere country to cease exports to El Norte permanently.
The UK's North Sea production peaked in 2000 and started an 8% decline rate and Blair invaded Iraq in 2003. Petrol in the UK is now one pound per litre, or about $8.50/gal. And there is so much more. If you haven't done tremendous due diligence into the topic of Peak Oil, then you're behind the curve on perhaps the most important event in human development. Do visit ASPO-USA's site, the energybulletin.net and theoildrum.com
This week will likely see oil break $100 and the dollar lose another percent to the Euro 1E=.675$. And the Fed Lowered in a very inflationary environment? That tells you how bad the "credit crunch" is for the Big Banks. Somewhere you may have read the Big Banks are way over-leveraged in Dirivatives to the tune of 30-40 Trillion, not to mention other bad bets. What will happen when the economy goes further south as gas and winter heating fuels continue to climb in price, along with climbing food prices, and folks decide to go delinquent on their credit cards, thus putting further pressure on the banks? And bombing Iran is going to solve the coming/already here financial crisis. Any hydrocarbons we lessen demand for because of our recession will be bought up by the booming economies of Asia and South America, which will keep pressure on for the slightly declining supply, meaning fuel prices will continue to rise even as demand lessens due to recession. Thus the inflation already seen rising as a result of higher fuel prices and other hydrocarbon-based materials will become stagflation.
I was reading an article, I think by Dave Lindorff, that said the same thing I've been saying for many months. A black op, sinking one of our ships would be instantly "retaliated" by the US military.
Lindorff pointed out that the USS Enterprise is our oldest nuclear carrier and is due to be scrapped or mothballed at the end of this tour. Apparently there is some speculation that if the E were to be sunk with four or five thousand sailors aboard, that would galvanize the people into a war with Iran. I can't imagine Cheney/Bush being upset by an obsolete carrier being sunk if they could start a war over it. That would be a "Gulf of Tonkin" with teeth! Several scenarios to bring this about were discussed, all pretty plausible.
I'd consider myself nuts to even think such a thing, if we weren't dealing with reptiles like Cheney and his PNAC Neocons. All they want is endless war, it is good for business, and, as I say, I can't see them worrying over 5,000 sailors and a worn out carrier if it would advance their program
This is simply all propaganda designed to dupe the public in accepting another illegal war for oil resources, and likud zionist expansion fantasies of the Israelite right wing extremists, the bully boys much like our right wing crazies the KKK, neocons, FoxNews, you get the picture. The right is wrong, the left will win the day with calm logic, facts, and wisdom as always. There will be no snowball effect by BushCo this time as the the country and the world won't fall for the same tricks leading to violence as it so foolishly did when the facts were "fixed around the policy."
Are there any evidence that the USA is about to attack Iran?
I see three articles in CD on this subject one after the other. Are they really going to do that?
That makes no sense. Why? and Why now?
support Pakistan not with more billions for weapons but really before they unravel and give the bomb that they already have to Osama Bin Laden--
WHY are we interested in Iran? because of OIL not WMD!!!!
Shameful
Impeach now before they attack Iran and then we will be sorry we did not have the guts too impeach!!!
Kernel - I thought it was clear enough that I was saying that if peace advocates make themselves look foolish by always insisting "There's no evidence Iran is trying to build nuclear weapons" then people will be less likely to listen to us and more likely to listen to the warhawks, since it is actually completely clear, based not on secret evidence but what Iran has openly declared and is doing in full view, that Iran is seeking a nuclear weapons capability, if not necessarily to actually make the bomb (but that seems pretty likely, too). This is very different, btw, from the situation with Iraq a few years ago, when all available evidence suggested Iraq had given up its nukes and other WMD, and that what the Bush gang was saying was BS.
One of Bush's most common (and unfortunately effective with the dupes in congress) tactics, and his whole gangs, is to accuse others of the thing they are doing. Right now the US is developing a whole new generation of nuclear weapons. Can you say red herring?
if we are really interested in keeping iran from obtaining nuclear weapons then threatening them with war isnt the best way to go about it for sure. threatening any country only makes them try to aquire the "nuclear deterrent" harder.
the policy of the usa since clinton has been regime change in iran. with all the threats of war comming from the usa its ironic that now according to usa neocon logic iran has the right to preventively defend itself.
MARK ABRAM___ you have noted that people that oppose the Bush gang`s runnup to war in Iran could end up looking like fools. Well, what difference would that make anyway? The Bush gang already have made fools of themselves with their Iraq war and our whole nation looks like fools to the rest of the world by throwing a trillion or so away wrecking Iraq and having to cut needed services to our own citizens as a result. With the added loss of life and limb in the hundreds of thousands , many of them our own, who worries about looking foolish?
youyourself -
I was just wondering if you want to say that, in your opinion, everything Iran is doing (uranium enrichment, plutonium production reactor) is strictly for non-weapons purposes and they really aren't thinking about building bombs at all.
Because, if you don't want to say that, then I really don't see your point. I take it that you think we should be on one side or another and only say things that sound favorable to the side we're on. But honestly, I don't think that's a good way to convince anybody to listen and consider your point of view. I mean, I was out there opposing the invasion of Iraq back in mid-2002 (fyi), but I wasn't going around saying, Hey, Saddam Hussein is really a very nice man, just misunderstood is all. Do you think that would have been a more convincing line?
And one more thing...
Before anyone is tempted to make a trite or smarmy post, think about this: This is EXACTLY how public consent is manufactured. The table is set and we then deal with the table. Well, the table doesn't exist! It is all manufactured by folks who lead us down the same fucking deadly path, time and time again.
Wake up or die.
"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." Donald Rumsfeld
Boy, he was really right, wasn't he?
"If your neighbor stockpiles guns and ammo, you can say there's no PROOF he intends to shoot anybody." Mark Abram
No proof, but you don't declare war on your neighbor...unless you believe in the neocon policy of preemption.
"Only a fool can look at this and say it doesn't look and smell like a bomb program. I'm not arguing for an attack on Iran, but people who oppose the Bush gang's drive to war can't afford to make fools of themselves."
What the hell kind of statement is this? Are you suggesting that by opposing the Bush gang's drive to war we are fools? You mean, like we were fools by opposing their drive to war in Iraq? Man, where are you from? Whom do you represent? I just have to wonder when someone makes such a loaded statement what their agenda is.
If he hasn't already flushed it, you can find the Constitution and Bill of Rights in Bush's Oval Office Shredder. With a lot of tape, it may be possible to piece it together. Don't bother to take it to Congress, though. My alleged representative has written me that impeachment should be reserved for important matters and he is not convinced that the president has broken any laws. This guy is an old entrenched Democrat from a Democratic State. To help explain what is not going on in Congress and why it is not, you might want to read this link.
http://www.populistamerica.com/whatever_happened_to_we_the_people
I think we may have had it, but we've got to keep trying or the bastards win by default and default will be us.
I'm more concerned with the Patriot Act being extended permanently (untill the next revolution) and H.R. 1955 (designed to premptively crush the next revolution).
That being said, there's actually a good handful of reasons for war with Iran, unfortunately none of them have to do with keeping Americans safe.
Get ready for a bit of a ride the next few years. Democrat or Republican, it doesn't matter who you vote for. It'll no doubt be they, the corperations, neocons, and the wealthiest 1% who cause our Nation to crumble into a state of suffering; but somehow, they will convince the masses to sacrifice and forfeit more and more freedom.
It's always us who have to bear the terrible brunt of their mistakes, failures, and miscalculations. Just like in the Great Depression. And we will.
That is what a wealthy neo-con subhuman make... no consequences for their actions, they take no responsiblity, they use violence, fear and intimidation to prevent justice and against anyone from holding them accountable... everyone else is made to suffer.
Funny thing is, if GW goes and kicks a puppy on public television tomorow, you'll still get 25% of the public making excuses for him... not even appologizing. Literally blind obedience. Doglike.
Circus dogs jump when the trainer cracks his whip, but the well-trained dog turns a somersault when there is no whip.
-George Orwell, 1984
I have to wonder if the recent destabilizing events in Pakistan won't cause the Bush/Cheney ratchet-up about Iran to slow down a bit.
No weapons you say! Well then, let's crank-up the Enola Gay!
Weapons? We don't need no stink'n weapons!
Israel and Pakistan. Plenty of evidence they have nukes. Let's give them a few more billion we don't have, and bomb a country that doesn't have them because they might be thinking about learning how to make one.
You couldn't get a novel published that read like this. Your publisher would return it stamped "unbelievable!"
It's too bad Peter Sellers isn't still around to do a movie about it.
Growing Fears of a U.S. Attack on Iran, and an Easy Way to Stop It --- Dave Lindorff
http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/lindorff/033
Even as one faction of the American government, the military and the corporatocracy grow collectively more alarmed about the possibility of a U.S. attack on Iran, the Bush/Cheney Administration and its allies seem increasingly moving towards just such a new war.
Okay, so Sen. James Webb (D-VA) and 29 other U.S. Senators who oppose such a mad plan have done what? They've written a letter to the president telling him that he cannot attack Iran without express approval in advance from the Congress.
A letter! Boy, that'll stop him. What's the matter with these people?
A few months back, the Senate overwhelmingly passed a resolution authored by war cheerleader Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), declaring the Iranian Revolutionary Guard to be a "global terrorist organization." In President Bush's pathologically twisted view of his power, that resolution gave him all the go-ahead he needed, because Bush and his legal apologists claim that back on Sept. 18, 2001, Congress, in passing an Authorization for Use of Military Force against the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan, were actually declaring a War on Terror -- a conflict without end and without borders. Under this crazy logic, any attack on a terrorist or terrorist organization is simply another battle in that "war."
If Sen. Webb and his colleagues really want to stop the president from further murderous madness, they need only revoke that 2001 AUMF. A simple resolution declaring it ended, and stating that the war on terror is not a war would do the trick.
Why hasn't the Congress done this? Are they afraid the president will call them "soft on terror"?
No doubt he would, but I think most Americans have grown weary of Bush's name calling. People are pretty aware now that the raised and lowered colored alert flags, the periodic dire warnings of impending doom, all conveniently timed to coincide with moments when the president or his allies are facing legal or political difficulties, are just cheap scare politics.
Any member of Congress with a scintilla of courage could easily make that case to constituents.
People know this president is a whack job and that the vice president is a liar.
So why doesn't someone propose revoking the 2001 AUMF?
The aircraft carriers, loaded with Tomahawk missiles and the largest bomber fleet ever assembled, are in place. Stealth bombers are being retrofitted to carry a new 15-ton bomb. The army has built a base right near the Iranian border in Iraq. There was the bizarre case of the six missing nuclear missiles. The verbal threats against Iran are increasing. U.S. special forces are reportedly already operating in Iran, encouraging and perhaps participating in acts of terror against the regime and its military forces there.
Oil prices are starting to rise to unseen levels as commodities traders bet on the impact of a closing of the Persian Gulf to oil traffic.
Time grows short to stop a catastrophe. If Congress doesn't act soon to pull the legal rug out from under the president, we could well see a catastrophe. If the U.S. does attack Iran, the global economy will go into a tailspin as oil soars past $200/barrel. The war in the Middle East would become a vast regional conflagration. U.S. troops in Iraq, already thinly stretched, would come under attack from all sides. A draft would certainly be required.
And if the Iranians respond to a U.S. attack with asymetrical warfare by attacking targets in the U.S., we could see military rule at home.
This is no time for members of Congress to write letters to the president. It's time for them to revoke the 2001 AUMF and to tell the president that an attack on Iran would be an impeachable offense.
In fact, why wait? It's time for them to impeach him now! This is just his latest crime in the making. And even threatening a war of aggression against a nation that doesn't pose an immediate threat is a violation of the UN Charter, a treaty the U.S. signed years ago and is bound by.
What a wonderful premise. We don't even need evidence anymore to indict someone. Any accusation our Government makes must be correct, no matter how ludacris it sounds; thus we can't just make war on anyone we want.
Here we go again. Bush and his demented crew will be in the wrong place at the wrong time once more. Just as he delivers "Shock & Awe" the sequel, this time into Iran, Pakistan goes into meltdown with a coup from the Taliban supported by radical elements in the Army. He took his eyes off Afganistan to smite Saddam, now he'll be so tied up in Iran, Iraq qnd Afganistan, America will be unable to defend itself against a real threat. Back Dennis with impeachment and send this idiot back to his village before its too late.
Of course Iran is not pursuing nuclear weapons. Besides, even if they were, isn't the purpose of our own massive nuclear arsenal to provide the deterrent of mutual assured destruction? That deterrent has somehow been sufficient to guard against all the other nuclear-armed nations heretofore.
Obviously, the cheney-bush criminals are using the "threat of a nuclear Iran" to strike fear into the hearts of the sheeple, so they can more easily advance their perverted agenda.
Yeah, Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons, just like Iraq was in on "911" and was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction, and something about yellow cake from Africa!
Lying criminals!
Impeach, convict, imprison! (While we still have a chance!)
I agree with Mark Abram. The real reason not to attack Iran is they're a sovereign nation with a right to build a bomb if they want to. If we insist on trying to enforce the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty at gunpoint (or Stealth-point), we may find a lot of other countries pulling out. The NPT depends on enlightened self-interest, not US bullying.
Mark Abram
I don't think the Iranians will give up their nuclear weapons "program" unless Israel gets rid of its nuclear weapons. That would change the entire equation. Other than the obvious but incomprehensible favor that Israel finds in US eyes, I don't understand why the US doesn't turn its sights on Israel's illegal nuclear weapons rather than on Iran that doesn't have any yet.
Time for the Bus/Cheney/Rice cabal to hire a spin doctor company to make something up, sell it to the likes of Tim Russert, FOX, Wolf and the gang at CNN, and the other corporate media and then blindly rage forward. Nancy. Nancy................. Where are you? Oh, oh, you're part of their team.......OOPS.
The great satan wants to install puppets and mcdonalds in Iran too.
If your neighbor stockpiles guns and ammo, you can say there's no PROOF he intends to shoot anybody.
If those of us who oppose a war with Iran base our case on the argument that there is no EVIDENCE Iran is seeking a nuclear weapons CAPABILITY, we will lose the argument, because it simply isn't true, and credible experts don't say it is.
Iran is building a large uranium centrifuge facility (Natanz) which would enable them to produce a dozen or so bombs per year if they decided to do so. They say it's for nuclear power, but they could buy uranium fuel from Russia much more cheaply.
Iran is also building a heavy-water moderated, natural uranium fueled reactor (Arak) which would enable them to produce enough plutonium for one or two bombs per year. They say it's for medical isotopes, but if that's true, building a plutonium production reactor is a really bad way to spend down their health-care budget (the isotopes can also be purchased abroad).
Only a fool can look at this and say it doesn't look and smell like a bomb program. I'm not arguing for an attack on Iran, but people who oppose the Bush gang's drive to war can't afford to make fools of themselves.
Iran has understandable, if not necessarily good reasons for wanting a nuclear deterrent. If we want them to forgo it, we will have to offer them the kind of "grand bargain" they offered back in 2002-2003, only to be ignored by the Bush gang. And we will probably have to accept that they will have uranium enrichment, which will mean they could still go for the bomb any time and have it within as little as months.
Hmmmm, Ronald White, maybe we should attack Canada instead. With global warmng upon us, it would be a decent place for a war. I heared a rumor that you guys also have some nukes stashed away for a rainy day. That's trouble for sure.
Somehow it was okay for the Soviet Union and the USA (United States of Atrocities) to base their military-political policies on Mutually assured destruction (MAD, not to be confused with the magazine), but it isn't for Iran and Israel. How racist.
No evidence? They must be hiding it. We must attack them with whatever is necessary, for one thing, Osama bin Laden is still in Afganastan, that alone is reason enough. Another reason is, Halliburton needs the income and the war in Iraq has been won and we need another war in order to maintain a viable economy.
I need help.
America presidents and pentagon and people have wanted to punish Iran since 1979 ( small case intentional ). Assured nuclear-warhead-capability ranks right up there with the "Sinking of the USS Maine " , " Gulf of Tonkin " and "Saddam's WMD" as cook-book rationales for invasion and occupation.
I predict that 25% of Americans who can't read and write and the balance who can read and write but don't or can't express vehemently the difference between right and wrong will permit and maybe even encourage the president and the pentagon to attack Iran by air if not invade on the ground and then predictably whine when the president declares martial law and price of gasoline douubles or triples.
As a Canadian presently working on a new tar-sands project in Northern Alberta , Canada , I know that the attack on Iran will probably guarantee 10 yeqrs of highly-paid work for me even though I could almost retire now . See , every cloud has a silver lining .
Now if the pres and pent,and I wouldn't put it past em'invaded Canada for our oil if its production and refining were to be nationalized ( read Iran ,Venezuela , Cuba ,...) then I would know how the average Iranian feels.
BTW , there is no difference between a US invasion and a US-instigated coup to the national victims.
It's all about Fred Rogers'sandbox diplomacy: putting yourself in someone else's shoes.
As long as the US continues to proliferate its stash of nuclear weapons, it has no standing WHATSOEVER to call Iran to task for developing nuclear power, or even nuclear weapons. Pakistan illegally proliferated nuclear weapons, as well as Israel, India, and North Korea.
So Bush should shut up and back off.