Fact-Based Intelligence Prevails on Nukes and Iran
For those who have doubts about miracles, a double one occurred today. An honest National Intelligence Estimate (NIE)(.pdf file) on Iran’s nuclear program has been issued and its Key Judgments were made public. With redraft after redraft, it was what the Germans call “eine schwere Geburt” — a difficult birth, ten months in gestation.I do not know how often Vice President Dick Cheney visited CIA Headquarters during the gestation period, but I am told he voiced his displeasure as soon as he saw the first sonogram/draft very early this year, and is so displeased with what issued that he has refused to be the godfather.
This time Cheney and his neo-con colleagues were unable to abort the process. And after delivery to the press, this child is going to be very hard to explain-the more so since it is legitimate.
The main points of the NIE:
“We judge that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program…”
“We assess with moderate confidence Tehran has not restarted its nuclear weapons program as of mid-2007.”
“We do not have sufficient intelligence to judge confidently whether Tehran is willing to maintain the halt of its nuclear weapons program indefinitely…”
“We judge with moderate confidence Iran probably would be technically capable of producing enough highly enriched uranium sometime during the 2010-2015 time frame.”
“We judge with high confidence that Iran will not be technically capable of producing and reprocessing enough plutonium for a weapon before about 2015.”
Having reached these conclusions, it is not surprising that the NIE’s authors make a point of saying up front (in bold type) “This NIE does not (italics in original) assume that Iran intends to acquire nuclear weapons.”
This, of course, pulls out the rug from under Cheney’s claim of a “fairly robust new nuclear program” in Iran, and President Bush’s inaccurate assertion that Iranian leaders have even admitted they are developing nuclear weapons.
Apparently, intelligence community analysts are no longer required to produce the faith-based intelligence that brought us the Oct. 1, 2002 NIE “Iraq’s Continuing Program for Weapons of Mass Destruction” — the worst in the history of U.S. intelligence.
Truth be told, one of the Iran NIE’s findings was written into its first draft, from which Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell drew in telling the Senate Armed Services Committee on Feb. 27 that Iran could possibly develop a nuclear weapon by early-to-mid-next decade.
McConnell said not a word, though, about Iran’s having halted its nuclear weapons program in fall 2003. And in February, he was still adhering to the faith-based approach, saying, “We assess that Iran seeks to develop a nuclear weapon.” At which point, Sen. Lindsay Graham (R, SC) tried to sum up the proceedings with the disingenuous comment, “We all agree, then, that the Iranians are trying to get nuclear weapons.”
Curiously, McConnell indicated recently that the key findings of NIEs would no longer be made public. My guess is that the Pentagon, and especially Adm. William Fallon, commander of our forces in the Middle East, succeeded in persuading McConnell to go public. Several months ago, Fallon was reliably reported to have said, “We are not going to do Iran on my watch.” And it is an open secret that he and other senior military officers, except those of the Air Force, are strongly opposed to getting into a war with Iran for which the U.S. is so ill prepared.
Will President George W. Bush and our domesticated media succeed in dismissing this latest NIE as “guesswork,” as he has in the past? It is going to be highly interesting to see how the White House will try to spin this one.
Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour. During his 27-year career as a CIA analyst, he chaired National Intelligence Estimates and produced/briefed the President’s Daily Brief. He is now on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).
Our pliant and complicit media will ensure that this somehow gets spun into another pre-emptive strike, because you see they will have nukkular weapons in 2015 !!
At least the intelligence community has their act together. They seem to be the only ones standing up to the administration these days….perhaps they weren’t infiltrated by the necons? Valerie Plame also comes to mind. At least there are some true patriots still left around.
This report reflecting the consensus of US intelligence is clearly a set-back for the Cheney/Bush Administration. The set-back is made even worse by the fact that the NIE was made public, and thus cannot be suppressed or spun out of all proportion. It might be fair to say that US bombing of Iran is now off the table for the Cheney/Bush term.
Together with the very public statements of Adm. William Fallon, commander of US forced in the Middle East, a couple of weeks ago, there appears to be palace rebelion by the top career leaders of the US military/intel apparatus against the saber-rattling and threats against Iran by the neo-cons based on a faith-based approach to threat assessment.
Ray, I read the key assessments and it is a very good, honest, exactly worded document. However, your selection of what you say are it’s “main points” is rather one-sided. Here is a selection from the other side:
* the earliest possible date Iran would be technically capable of producing enough HEU for a weapon is late 2009
* Iran probably would be technically capable of producing enough HEU for a weapon sometime during the 2010-2015 time frame.
* Iranian entities are continuing to develop a range of technical capabilities that could be applied to producing nuclear weapons…. For example, Iran’s civilian uranium enrichment program
* convincing the Iranian leadership to forgo the eventual development of nuclear weapons will be difficult given the linkage many within the leadership probably see between nuclear weapons development and Iran’s key national security and foreign policy objectives, and given Iran’s considerable effort from at least the late 1980s to 2003 to develop such weapons. In our judgment, only an Iranian political decision to abandon a nuclear weapons objective would plausibly keep Iran from eventually producing nuclear weapons—and such a decision
is inherently reversible.
Basically, the bombshell news is that the IC confirms Iran halted its program of specific nuclear weapons development work in 2003, which represents a significant political decision, for whatever reasons. Acknowledging this is perhaps also a significant decision on the part of the administration. Let’s hope they will work now towards a deal.
But Iran openly continues the largest and most critical part of any nuclear weapons program, developing the technology and building the facilities needed to produce weapons-usable uranium and plutonium.
I would like you to tell us, if you would, whether you think it makes economic sense for Iran to try to develop its own uranium fuel production facilities instead of buying uranium fuel from Russia or another supplier, and whether Iran’s determination to have not only an indigenous uranium enrichment capability, but also a heavy water moderated, natural uranium fueled reactor suitable for plutonium production, has another plausible explanation besides keeping open the option to make nuclear weapons if Iran decides to do so.
We’d better nuke Iran before they nuke us. Jesus will tell George what to do.
It’s time to talk about Israel’s nukes, and ours, too
Lew Butler
Friday, November 30, 2007
Many months ago Israel’s Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, let slip a reference to Israel’s nuclear weapons. While it embarrassed him, it was no surprise to the rest of the world. It has been known for decades that Israel has nukes. Estimates are that there are probably as many as 200 in the Israeli arsenal, including thermonuclear (hydrogen) ones.
What is surprising is that there is almost never any public discussion in the United States, and certainly none in the White House or the Congress, about these weapons. Is there any understanding between Israel and the United States, its principal source of military aid, about their use? If so, does the understanding cover “no first use,” similar to the policy advocated in the United States at the height of the Cold War? What would the United States do if Israel were ever under an attack that might lead it to a nuclear response? Has the United States ever talked with Israel about its refusal to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty? For Israel, are the weapons more of a danger to its security than a defense?
These have always been critical issues but are doubly important now that the United Nations, with strong U.S. support, is putting intense pressure on Iran not to develop the capacity to produce nuclear weapons. Iran is responding that under the nonproliferation treaty, to which it is a party, it has the right to develop nuclear power, and that is all that it is doing. But, as was the case with India and Pakistan, eventually Iran will probably justify having nuclear weapons on the grounds that its sworn enemy, Israel, has them. Now an already tense situation has become worse with Israel’s unacknowledged Sept. 6 air attack on a supposed Syria nuclear installation, and the call by some hawks in this country for U.S. raids on Iranian nuclear facilities.
There is, of course, a long history of nuclear tensions in the Middle East. In 1981, Israel bombed Iraq’s nuclear reactors to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons. After the Persian Gulf War, in the 1990s, U.N. inspectors spent nearly seven years in Iraq inspecting its nuclear facilities. Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s decision to expel those inspectors began the series of events that led to the United States invading Iraq on the premise that it had weapons of mass destruction. Now, if Iran continues to develop its nuclear capacity, a whole new crisis would develop if Israel tried to destroy Iran’s reactors as it did the Iraqi ones and, presumably, the Syrian installation.
The unspoken basis for U.S. policy about Israel’s nukes seems to be that we don’t want our enemies to have such weapons but we don’t worry as much if our friends, like Israel, Pakistan and India, have them. As for our enemies, the negotiations in North Korea and Libya show that even a “hard line” U.S. administration is willing to offer significant financial and other benefits to persuade them to give up their nuclear ambitions. When, as in the case of Iran, such bribes are not apt to work, then we are willing, more so than our European allies, to exert pressure and even contemplate military action.
Moreover, the U.S. stance toward the nuclear ambitions of others is inconsistent with and discredited by our own refusal to live up to our obligations under the nonproliferation treaty. Under that treaty, signatory nations with nuclear weapons agreed to reduce their arsenals to a minimum, and ultimately eliminate them entirely, in exchange for other signatory nations not acquiring such weapons. Even that strangest of nations, North Korea, had enough respect for the nuclear nonproliferation treaty to announce publicly it was withdrawing from the treaty in order to develop its nuclear capacity. But the United States has never come close to getting down to the minimum level contemplated when we signed the treaty. The U.S. arsenal is estimated at some 5,700 active nuclear weapons with nearly 4,000 in “reserve.”
Clearly, the Bush administration is not going to talk publicly about our understanding, if any, with Israel about its nuclear weapons. And no member of Congress is rushing to get into a subject as politically delicate as this one. That leaves it to those of us in private life to begin the debate, for the sake of the United States and Israel.
We can start with the danger posed by nuclear weapons in an increasingly destabilized Middle East. We can acknowledge that any nuclear arsenal might be the target of terrorists. We can look back to how close we came to a catastrophic nuclear exchange at the time of the Cuban missile crisis. And we can remind ourselves that no subject is too sensitive for public debate when the risk is the horror that use of even one nuclear weapon would trigger.
Lew Butler is chairman emeritus of the Ploughshares Fund.
This article appeared on page B - 11 of the San Francisco Chronicle
“And it is an open secret that he (Adm William Fallon) and other senior military officers, except those of the Air Force, are strongly opposed to getting into a war with Iran for which the U.S. is so ill prepared.”
Does this mean that if the U.S. was “prepared”, we would still invade Iran, irrespective of the fact that ALL of our intelligence agencies have determined that Iran is not an “immediate” threat to anyone?
I’m tired of the U.S. disregarding the NPT’s with utter contempt and impunity for decades, while acting as judge, jury and potentially executioner for another sovereign nation that is currently complying with those same NPT’s.
Mark Abram, who are you to demand that Iran justify their legal program to you? Try cleaning your own house before judging how unclear everyone else’s house is.
One merely has to look at the egregious United States use of its United Nations veto in regards to WMD initiatives since 1972 to see the hypocrisy and convenience of our case against the WMD “threats” formerly of Saddam Hussein and presently in Iran:
• 1979 - The USA, UK and France veto a United Nations resolution calling for an end to all military and nuclear collaboration with the apartheid regime in South Africa (The vote is 114 to 3); The USA, UK and France veto a United Nations resolution concerning negotiations on disarmament and cessation of the nuclear arms race (120 to 3)
• 1980 - declaration of non-use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states. The vote is 110 to 2; The USA and UK also veto a United Nations resolution calling for the cessation of all nuclear test explosions
• 1981 - To establish a nuclear weapon free zone in the Middle East (107 to 2 with UK); for the cessation of all test explosions of nuclear weapons (118 to 2 with UK); Calls for action in support of measures to prevent nuclear war, curb the arms race and promote disarmament (78 to 3 including Canada). Urges negotiations on prohibition of chemical and biological weapons (109 to 1)
• 1982 -For a comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty (111 to 1); Request to USA and USSR to make public their nuclear arms negotiations (114 to 1, the USSR abstained); Prevention of arms race in outer space (138 to 1); Prohibition of chemical and bacteriological weapons (95 to 1)
• 1983 - Prevention of an arms race in outer space (147 to 1); Prohibition of manufacture of new weapons of mass destruction (116 to 1); Reversing the arms race (133 to 1), Prohibition of chemical and bacteriological weapons (98 to 1); Requests a study on the naval arms race (113 to 1); Disarmament and security (132 to 1)
• 1984 - Prohibition of new types of weapons of mass destruction (125 to 1)
• 1987 - The USA vetoes 2 United Nations resolutions supported only by France and / or the UK: Calling for a comprehensive test ban (143 to 2); Calling for a halt to all nuclear explosions (137 to 3)
• 2004 - Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency proposes that all production and processing of weapon-usable material should be under international control, with “assurance that legitimate would-be users could get their supplies”. The Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty (or Fissban) was debated by the United Nations Committee on Disarmament in November. The vote was 147 to 1, with two abstentions: Israel and UK.
• 2005 - A year later the United Nations General Assembly would offer the same resolution (179 to 2 USA and Palau) with Israel and UK abstaining.
In any case, one needs to just look at the facts to see that WE are the threat to Iran, and not the other way around. If Iran’s greatest resource were pistachios and coffee beans, would they be our enemy? Of course not.
But getting back to the nuclear issue for a moment, one has to ask, why would Iran want a nuclear arsenal, if indeed they do? What would be the reason? The answer is simple and can be found by taking a comparative look at how the U.S. government handled two of the three members of the “axis of evil”.
North Korea has a modest nuclear arsenal and therefore will not be attacked by the United States. Instead, we are forced to deal with North Korea through diplomatic means. Iraq had no such deterrent, and therefore was attacked as a first resort. What lesson did this teach Iran? What lesson did it teach the rest of the world? The United States, the leading Rogue State on the planet earth, perhaps in human history, will attack wherever and whenever they see a potential threat, real or imagined, unless there is a nuclear deterrent. Essentially, George Bush’s unilateral, illegal invasion has basically told the world to acquire nuclear weapons, or else face the consequences. Would you blame Iran for wanting a nuclear deterrent under this scenario? Should they be punished for a situation that we created?
You want to stop nuclear proliferation? Start respecting and enforcing the NPT’s. Start with the U.S., the world’s biggest offender, then move to Israel, who egregiously disregards any and all rule of law. Follow that up with Pakistan and so on, before threatening a nation that hasn’t invaded one of its neigbors in over 250 years.
Enough already. I’m tired of the hypocrisy and arrogance.
Despite this NIE, the administration still tried to spin the information by saying that they were right to keep up the pressure on Iran, and that we shouldn’t negotiate with the Iranians. What planet are they living on?
Let’s all of us Progressives take a moment to give three cheers for the CIA analysts who produced an honest report without yielding to tremendous pressure from the White House!
It’s easy to whine and bitch with anonymous posts and pseudonyms on the blogs, but fighting the President and Vice-President when your job and your future are on the line isn’t quite so easy.
tommybones asks:
> “Mark Abram, who are you to demand that Iran justify their legal program… Would you blame Iran for wanting a nuclear deterrent…?”
No, I wouldn’t blame them at all. That’s just my point, their “legal program” is obviously a cover for their acquiring a “nuclear deterrent.” Only a fool thinks otherwise. But maybe they can be persuaded not to actually build the bomb. I think that’s the main message of their halting specific weapons work, as conveyed in new NIE.
For Jacob Freeze:
Hip hip….hoo-ray!!!!
Hip hip…hoo-ray!!!!
Hip hip…hoo-ray!!!!
(Three cheers for the “CIA analysts who produced an honest report without yielding to tremendous pressure from the White House!”)
I agree with Jacob Freeze. In this climate, an honest assessment in contradiction to the party line is heroic. Sad but true…
I for one hope they got it right because it’s right, and not because I like it or I don’t.
Allow me to present to you the conclusions of a THESIS that is NOT fact, is not THIS IS IT, but is where seems to tentatively take me my information and analysis. I hope I’m wrong. And, I hope that in his apparent 360 degrees reversal Bush succeeds. As a fellow Christian, I believe in redemption, yet I can appreciate the insatiable desire for revenge of millions of Islamic victims of the Bush circle of thieves, liars and fools whose grand illusions of hate after 9/11, the neocons and Bushies never realized, are far beyond the capacity of their collective mediocrity. MY ONE HOPE IS TO GET OTHERS TO THINK OF THIS AND ALL THE OTHER POSSIBLE CATASTROPHIC EVILS THAT CAN HAPPEN WHEN GOOD MEN AND WOMEN DO NOTHING BUT SHOP UNTIL THEY DROP WHILE SENDING THEIR NEIGHBOR TO KILL AND DIE FIGHTING IN THE MUSLIM WORLD, LEAVING FAMILIES BEHIND, HELPLESS TO FACE THE CONSEQUENCES OF *MY OPINION* OF WHAT HAS BEEN GOING ON. AGAIN, I WISH I WERE DEAD WRONG….AND STILL DARE TO HOPE THAT I AM.
Suddenly an INR comes out from the intel community telling us that Iran had abandoned development of a nuclear bomb in 2003. Could it be that we just found this out, though two months ago President Bush invoked the risk of WW III?
Actually, the US knew all along that the only nuclear state in the Middle East is Israel. In 2003, Iran included the elimination of its nuclear program for the same reason that Libya had: With no threat of a nuclear power arising other than the old familiar Israel, why bother? Why not seek economic ties with the West instead?
But the real atomic bombshell in all this is what “dumb goyim” the neocons took us all to be in their insistence that we bomb Iran. For Israel, the real danger was that it does not dominate the Middle East, as the neocons sought to achieve, and that the opening of US-Iran relations might weaken the Rumsfeld-Cheney promise to the neocons to make Israel the dominator of the Middle East. Bush was reluctant to extend the “war on terror” beyond Afghanistan at cost to our efforts to eliminate alQaeda. But Rumsfeld needed a war in Iraq and quickly. Why?
Because his real goal was to become president and he knew that after 2004 his age would be a problem. So 2004 was his last chance. Towards his goal he demanded that Bush give him the job of head of the CIA. But Bush’s father, Bush 41, recommended to Bush 43 that his, Bush 41’s, old enemy, Rumsfeld, not be given that post but that Tenet be held there for continuity sake, something vitally needed to de-politicize the intel community. So Bush 43 offered Rumsfeld the SecDef post instead. Rumsfeld refused. But, with Cheney (Rumsfeld’s troll), the neocons went to Rumsfeld and urged him to accept– on grounds that Bush 43 “is a one term putz like his father”– and as SecDef, Rumsfeld could start a war with Iraq, win it fast and clean, thus becoming a national hero that they would support in the 2004 Presidential race.
So Rumsfeld went off on his own preparing for war in Iraq, despite Bush’s insistence that we cannot attack Iraq until the Afghan venture, then wobbly, is completed. It is ironic that Joe Wilson, enamored of Bush 41, was speaking across Wash DC until Feb. 2003, trying to convince people that Bush 41 had assured him that Bush 43 would not attack Iraq.
So how could Rumsfeld continue to have his way despite the President’s insistence on delay? It turns out that the GW Bush’s National Guard records– “missing” from the Pentagon– were in Rumsfeld’s possession; he literally was blackmailing Bush into non-interference with Iraq War preparations. Unable to enforce his “no,” Bush, under the advice of his father’s retainers, attempted to slow down the invasion. Alas, wanting to be in on the decision (as they had been in on the first Gulf War), the Democrats in the Senate forced on Bush an irreversible position by passing a resolution. This is why Carl Rove twists the history to say that Congress, not the President, insisted on an Iraq War Resolution.
It seemed smart to slow down your blackmailer rather than oppose him. But in the end, Cheney got all the Oil Lobby people in to grease the skids and Bush was helplessly reading the teleprompter– policy by speechwriters. At the same time, Cheney was putting out the word to the media that Bush would not go to a second term. Rumsfeld, Cheney, the neocons and Sharon thought themselves on an inevitable path to dominance of the Mideast by Israel and dominance of Iraq’s oil by the US. Undercutting Bush, Cheney negotiated with the Saudis; the latter also wanted Saddam removed and Iran threatened. It was a “perfect storm,” with the top Arab and Jewish states both pushing for the same war on Iraq.
In the end, the mediocrity of Rumsfeld and Cheney dominated the catastrophe that befell the best layed plans of mice (neocons) and little men (Cheney and Rumsfeld). Bush could do nothing but go along. In 2004 he tried to rid himself of the neocons in his Administration and of Cheney, replacing him with McCain. But Cheney threatened to expose Bush to the right wing “base,” causing an electoral reversal. Bush was advised to keep Rumsfeld as his SecDef so that he could later be scapegoated for how badly Iraq goes. It worked, and in 2006 Rumsfeld was fired ignobly, proving again that mediocrities cannot be more than mere mediocrities.
But what of Iran?
Expecting the US to attack Iraq, in his last years Saddam sought better ties with Iran. He proposed that together they could destroy the US economy by converting their petrodollars into Euros. He also proposed collaboration with China through Pakistan to develop a regional nuclear bomb. Once Bush spoke of “the axis of evil” under necon-Rumsfeld pressure, Iran decided that it had no choice but to collaborate with Saddam while seeking diplomatic mollification of the US. Russia and China promised to under-write the project.
As Iraq was going from bad to worse in Bush’s second term, he could not afford to change course, for fear of exposure as incompetent, the way Hurricane Katrina proved him to be domestically. He knew that fear was his only asset and he sought to switch focus from Iraq to Iran, always desperate to hide the incompetence characteristic of his administration. How incompetent Bush is was made clear by his re-adoption of the neocons after 2005 in pushing once again for expansion of the war to Iran under the guise of yet another lie– that Iran was near to developing a nuclear bomb– and that the US should link its Iraqi and Afghan Wars with a war on Iran.
Bush’s big chance came in March 2006 when Israeli PM Olmert came begging for an extra $10 billion to save Israel’s economy from collapse. Bush demanded that Israel attack Lebanon, then Syria, expanding to Iran; and when it gets into trouble, the US would be forced to come to its rescue. But Israel’s air blitzkrieg on Lebanon failed and its invasion proved too costly because, like the US invasion of Iraq, it was intel blind. Olmert was man enough to pull out. All that remained possible is for Bush to recklessly attack Iran just before his term ends. But, supported by the new SecDef Gates, the Joint Chiefs threatened a mass resignation if Bush gives the order to attack. Finally, with some semblance of success in Anbar, Bush chose to pull a Bill Clinton and succeed where the latter had failed: to end his term with peace in the Middle East.
It is in that context that Annapolis followed by the recent NIE (which lied, claiming that only in the last year did we realize that Iran had abandoned its nuclear ambition) should be seen. A failure at war, desperate to be remembered as something other than a total bungler, Bush is seeking to be a miracle Mideast peace maker.
The neocons and Bush are, needless to say, utterly irresponsible. The “now we know” pendular swing of outrage at the neocons that will produce popular American anti-Semitism and an anti-Israel position were never considered in the carnal passion for power that drove them. As the finger pointing spreads in books and articles with the demise of the Republican Party, Americans will not consider that the neocons are a small cabal of Jewish-born profiteers– NOT Jewish ideologs and NOT really Zionists– who speak only for themselves and certainly not for many Jewish Americans or Israelis. A scapegoat will be needed and the Jews will once again be conveniently there– especially for the Jesus fascists out to make America a Christians (of their stripe, of course) only country.
Oil avarice, entrepreneurship played with loaded dice and rape of the US treasury are the motivating material factors at issue, NOT ideology, NOT values, NOT principles. Right wing mediocrities never would had believed that one day they would come to power; and when they did, they made it into a perverted bacchanal. From then on, the rest was cover-up and the Constitution be damned as they manipulated a clueless President. In contrast to Bush, Nixon was seeking power in order to bring about a bloodless end to the Cold War, never to acquire wealth or self-interest. That Nixon was brilliant but those around him were mediocre thieves is an historical debate I am ready to enter with gusto. But in the case of the Right Wing that rode to power with Bush and 9/11, there is no question but that they are crooks with major psychological disorders, seeking to assert the one title that always evaded them: MENSH. For that, they recklessly sent America’s real heroic men intel blind into insane Mideast war. It is only at the last moment that the few confidants left around Bush are trying to salvage their “legacies” by reversing course.
Of course those who cannot reverse course are the 30,000 or so dead or injured American heroes and the hundreds of thousands of Muslims massacred in the Bush-neocon quest for oil, cash and manhood.
Daniel E. Teodoru
Here’s to tommybones, for pointing in such clear detail to the elephant in the room that everyone agrees to pretend isn’t there–the extreme hypocrisy of the US government in worrying about the possibility of this or that (oil-rich) country having a bomb when it has thousands, and has just announced it’s developing a new generation, and wants weapons in space, and has lots of biowarfare labs, and is the only country to have actually used nuclear weapons, and has announced that it, and any friends it so authorizes, may seize anyone anywhere anytime, declare them an enemy combatant and disappear them into a dungeon somewhere forever. All, of course, to spread “democracy.” Which means, “the crushing of rule by the people wherever it threatens to arise.’
Tomorrow, the propaganda will become “nuk’lur related programs,” or “activities that could lead to other activities that could possibly lead to nuk’lur stuff,” followed by the new old “supplying weapons and tech” to the Iraqi resistance that kills our troops…
“Which is why I, Pres. CocoBananas have ordered our Air Force to kill a few hundred thousand innocent Iranians in order to protect the homeland from evil doers whom God was kind enough to identify for me during a late night call.”
Great post, tommybones.
Mark Abram December 3rd, 2007 7:51 pm:
That’s just my point, their “legal program” is obviously a cover for their acquiring a “nuclear deterrent.”
First of all, outside of America, few people in the west believe that Iran is attempting to build a nuclear weapon; absent anything other than the word of America’s chicken little. The NIE and some change will buy you a cup of coffee. So Iran doesn’t need cover for something that is not there. Also don’t assume that the law is held in as low regard around the world as it is in the US.
Secondly, The Iranians have good reason to be self-sufficient. Nobody will come to their rescue in the event of another major US attack. Obviously they need to have guaranteed access to technology to keep their economy growing. Does anyone expect Iran to trust Americans to keep their part of some bargain to guarantee fuel shipments to Iran? The US can’t even honour its commitment to the Geneva Conventions.
Iran does not need nukes. It’s already the most powerful nation in the neighborhood, politically, economically, and militarily.
Right on NIE! Hansen at NASA stood up to them. Some of the military publicly doubts IEDs from Iran (especially when used by Sunnis!). Maybe we won’t have to wait until 2009 for the reign of the fringe neocon chickenhawks to end. The pros in DC are doing their jobs again.
Iran is a nuke bomb wannabe. No doubt about that. Trust but verify. Forever.
When India exploded those nukes back in 98, the “intelligence community” found out what had happed from the morning newspapers. So much for the “intelligence”.
Since when has the Bush administration acepted facts as a basis for their reality?
Bush has not only been goading Iran and threatening to bomb them, but he has been attempting to push them into getting involved in Iraq as part of his continuing plan to make Iraq a U.S. territory with permanent U.S. military bases.
If Bush CAN draw the Iranians into Iraq, we’ll have a bigger mess than we ever dreamed, that could turn the entire Middle East into a bloodbath that will last a generation.
You are correct on that SAILA. Except they may fear Isreal __ who does have nukes and who in a pre-emptive strike, bombed their nuclear power plant several years ago.
Thanks again, Ray McGovern for an honest report about a report.
Salia; True, but having nuclear weapons and the ability to launch them is somewhat of an “equalizer” when other countries have threatened to use them.
Now that the neo-cons can’t use the nuclear weapons excuse, I guess they’ll have to resort to plan B; cause some horrendous attack on this country and blame it on them. Gee, that sounds familiar.
Doesn’t anyone find it odd this revelation comes immediately on the heels of the Chinese publicly reversing their previous UN security council position and saying they were in favor of stronger sanctions against the Iranians?
Perhaps here we really are seeing a “Mission Accomplished”.
Since Israel is part of the American Empire it must be protected by Uncle Sam. The basis of our foreign policy is the protection of Israel.
Hello KEM PATRICK,
I think you meant to say Israel bombed Iraq’s nuclear power plant, not Iran’s. Iran has had only one nuclear power plant in Bushehr, and it’s now in the final stages of being operational.
Israel is the most powerful nation in the region by far, not Iran.
Let’s logically look at the Iranian “threat”. What would happen to Iran if they attacked either Israel or the United States with a nuclear weapon, either directly or through a secondary agent? The answer is simple; they would be wiped from the face of the earth in a few hours. Israel has the capability to do this all by themselves. The United States clearly could do it as well. So, an attack by Iran would essentially be a call for mass suicide by the Iranian government. That makes little sense. As nasty as the Iranian government can be to its own population, they haven’t given the slightest hint that they are in fact a suicidal nation. What makes a lot of sense, in fact it’s as clear as day at a mere glance, is the concept that Iran is only our “enemy” because they refuse to cater to U.S. and Israeli hegemony in the region.
The entire debate is an Orwellian nightmare.
Since the purpose of the intel-security establishment of the state is promotion of American dominance throughout the world, it will be intersting to see how this latest revelation fits into what has to be a long-term strategy of trying to rehabillitate a very tarnished history for this rogue government agency.
The CIA has been compicit in overthrowing regimes in Iran, Iraq, Guatamala, Greece, Vietnam, etc, since its inception 60 years ago. This development does not signify any changing of such posture only a tweaking of its procedure.
I supppose next we will see the FBI (another corrupt and rogue agency of the national security-intel state) doing civil rights crime investigations. These predators have not changed their stripes or lost their spots, only the background against which they pose.
Assuming the report to be accurate and true, it will thus be irrelevant to the Bush administration. The truth has never been a factor in decision-making by these fascists, and it won’t slow them down now.
Sadly, I don’t hold expect any other politicians, of any stripe, to be more enthusiastic about truth/reality.
And guess what? Even if Iran were getting the bomb tomorrow, we wouldn’t have the legal right to do anything about it. It would still be an act of aggression to or invade bomb Iran. Hmmm. Did we ever get a patent on the H-bomb and A-bomb? If so, maybe we should be suing other countries for patent infringement.
Hmmm,I still think this is a VERY watered down version of the original. Our Prez and Vice Prez would never allow anything that made them look like complete idiots. If this is what they “allowed” to be released after weeks or months of editing, I am sure the original was pretty complete with the fact that Iran IS NO THREAT TO US!
Hilarious — as if the ‘manifest destiny’ and ‘full spectrum dominance’ policies of a country that exclude neither first use of nuclear weapons nor their use against non-nuclear nations were somehow constrained by its legal rights.
In future, please try to avoid all such quaint and obsolete notions. The United States of America can do whatever it damned well pleases. It has that ‘right’ just because it says so, and because it can and does readily eliminate anyone else who might have the temerity to disagree.
wow…
They play-you one way, and you hold them ‘evil-incarnate’. They bs-you differently, and suddenly they are ‘honest and straight-forward’…[”it is to laugh…”]
It was Anglo/Israeli-Interests who gave-birth to both pre&post-’Revolutionary’ Iran, the same who directed/enabled whatever degree of Policy/’usefulness’ it played economically/militarily/covertly-since (most-certainly, re: any of its ‘terrorist’-involvements and/or nuclear-developments — as laundered-through Paki/Franco/Israeli-operatives), structured/invented/supported the so-called Islamic-radicalism out of it (well-laundered, also — as useful against Iraqi/Saudi/Russki/Chinese/Caspian-Interests)…and you really-thought we were gearing-up to ‘attack it’? Or think, now, that this ‘revelation’ is in any-sense legitimate, new, or ‘unwanted&oppositional’ to our overall and longstanding Strategy regards Eurasia/ME?
Please…
Seems to me that this is evidence that Bush not only does not intend to bomb anything in Iran but wishes to ramp down the rumor mill that has been insisting America is about to launch such an attack any minute. Further, I believe this was released to STRENGTHEN diplomatic efforts and try to keep Republicans in the 1/20/09 government. It’s not some “accident.”
I am skeptical of any government report, especially one that is produced by 16 different intelligence agencies. I wonder how a report that appears to be in such sharp contrast to what was released earlier actually reaches the light of day. I think we need to know a lot more about how this happened.
Also, rather than accept any of this at face value, how can this report be verified? Are any foreign reports available? Does any one have contacts in Iran? Where is the proof?
As the Iraq fiasco proves, the little bits of information that get spoon fed to us are woefully inadequate. The internet has great possibilities as a control and check on the attempts of the “state” to manage information. How can we put it to better use?
To Mark Abram;
Regarding nuclear energy, it is gnerally thought that if you decide to go down the nuclear path (which I don’t agree with, by the way), then it is better to use fast breeder reactors to produce plutonium. This is because uranium resources are not renewable. If we all switched from fossil fuels to nuclear, we would only have 100 years of uranium left, at least that was the last statistics I saw about that. But if we created plutonium fuel from Uranium in fast breeder reactors, we could extend that for various centuries more.
I’m not going to make a whole economic analysis here, to be honest, nuclear energy never seems to make economic sense, but it seems to me that it probably does make better sense to produce your own nuclear fuel, at least in the long term, than rely on imports.
Of course, rather like nuclear power in general, the Iran program has proven to be very expensive, and more trouble than its worth. They should just have built a load of high efficiency gas turbines, or even better, solar panels.
And of course, it does always give them the option to pursue nuclear weapons, should they want. Maybe if Israel began dismantling its own nuclear weapons, Iran would be more inclined to listen to western concerns.
The Republican Party is a party of no consequence.
They are a party of followers with no leaders.
Bush looked like a coker trying to explain that he would pay his bill when he gets his check from Daddy
during his speech today.
Please…make them go away.
By the way, nice job tommybones.
Why is Iran our “Enemy”?
In order to fully understand why our nation is beating the drums of war with Iran, we need to begin with our relationship with Iran since the end of WWII.
In 1953, the CIA backed a military coup (with help from the British Secret Service) that deposed the democratically elected Iranian parliament, which resulted in the installation of a brutal dictator (and CIA puppet) who repressed the Iranian population while catering to the United States multi-national corporations for the better part of 25 years. It need not be mentioned how we would react if another country backed a coup that overthrew our own democracy, forcing us to live under a ruthless dictator for several generations, while systematically stealing our precious resources. In any case, the years of repression led to a rise in Islamic fundamentalism. Religious extremism relies on anger and hopelessness as its greatest recruitment tool, and the decades of U.S.-supported repression took its toll on the Iranian people. The Islamic revolution in 1979 removed the United States puppet and resulted in the much talked about hostage crisis. Once again, looking in context at the egregious U.S. meddling in Iran, can we really complain about the taking of our embassy in Tehran? Especially when one considers the fact that the President Carter, in the midst of the uprising, sent a General to the embassy in Tehran to help facilitate yet another military coup, to re-install the Shah. I’m not condoning the hostage taking, but merely putting into correct context.
Anyway, the new Iranian government was deemed a United States enemy, with a stated goal of “regime change” happening almost instantaneously. We then backed Saddam Hussein with military supplies and know-how, massive financial “grants” and logistical support in his illegal invasion of Iran a few years later. Close to a half million Iranians died in the war with Iraq, in large part due to the U.S. support. It need not be mentioned how we would feel if another country supported a massive illegal invasion of our homeland, resulting in hundreds of thousands of dead Americans.
As if backing the illegal Iraq invasion wasn’t enough, the United States added insult to injury by escalating the conflict and therefore the massive death count by playing both sides of the war through the illegal selling of arms to Iran during what came to be known as the Iran/Contra scandal. The funds acquired from the illegal arms sales to Iran were used to pay for yet another illegal endeavor; the proxy war against the peasants in Nicaragua, who were guilty in the eyes of the Reagan administration of having the audacity to want to control their own natural resources, instead of merely catering to U.S. multi-national corporations, as is the correct “order of things.” This war resulted in the United States being condemned as a terrorist State by the United Nations.
In 1988, the United States shot down an Iranian commercial airliner, killing all 290 passengers. Vice President George H.W. Bush later stated at a news conference that he “will never apologize for the United States of America—I don’t care what the facts are.” Need we articulate what the reaction of the American public would be had the reverse happened to us?
After the attacks on September 11th, 2001, the Iranian government proved to be a great ally to the United States in its attempts to bring al Qaeda to justice. They volunteered intelligence information as to the wherabouts of al Qaeda operatives, as well as turned over captured al Qaeda prisoners to U.S. officials for questioning. The Iranian public took to the streets in vast numbers in solidarity with the American people.
Later, George W. Bush thanked the Iranian government after they helped the U.S. topple the Taliban regime in Afghanistan by infamously labeling them part of an “axis of evil,” along with Iraq and North Korea. This absurd charge ignored the fact that those three nations had little contact with one another and what contact they did have, especially in the case of Iran and Iraq under Saddam, would not qualify as friendly and therefore could hardly be termed an “axis” of any kind. This double-cross created an enormous firestorm in Iran, as the hardliners used it as leverage against the moderate Iranian President, pointing out that they had always stated that you could not trust the United States government.
Nevertheless, in 2003, the moderate Khatami government in Iran offered to completely suspend nuclear enrichment as well as open all areas of disagreement with Washington to negotiations. This included all nuclear issues, the Israeli/Palestinian issues and support of Hezbollah. The only condition placed on such negotiations was a halt to the threats of attack by Washington and removal of Iran from the “axis of evil.” Not only does the Bush administration reject the offer, they didn’t even respond to it, and reprimanded the Swiss diplomat who brought the offer. One has to question the true motivations of an administration that rejects such a pragmatic offer with such blatant contempt.
Additionally, Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the IAEA and 2005 Nobel Laureate, proposed putting all weapons-grade fissile material production under international control and supervision, while allowing any nation that wanted the materials for peaceful use to apply for it. The only nation to agree to the very practical idea was Iran. The only nation on earth. During the same IAEA meetings in Vienna, Iran’s Supreme Leader, the Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei issued a fatwa, decreeing that the production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons was forbidden under Islam. Furthermore, the EU made a deal with Iran (a country that hasn’t invaded another nation in over 250 years) to guarantee “security” (read: no U.S. invasion) in exchange for a halt in uranium production. Washington forced the EU to back out of the deal.
Where did this lead? Khatami, who took a huge risk in taking a diplomatic stance with Washington in the face of severe hardline opposition, was humiliated and lost the next election to Ahmadinejad. Unlike in our ally countries like the arch-repressive Saudi Arabia and the brutal despotism in Egypt, Iran actually holds elections, with limited but very real consequences. Hardline President Ahmadinejad won the election, and the nuclear power program then began in earnest.
Even with the election of a hardliner President, Iran continued its diplomatic overtures. In 2006, Iran’s supreme leader had agreed to abide by the tenets of the Arab peace initiative, also known as the “Saudi Plan,” which is a two-state solution that respects Israel’s right to exist as a free and sovereign nation within the pre-war 1967 borders. This news was, as is usually the case, largely ignored by the U.S. corporate media.
How are the American people supposed to give an opinion on an issue as important as this, when the mainstream news ignores the history described here? At best, you get a mention of the hostage crisis, before jumping to some out of context Ahmadinejad rhetoric. What percentage of Americans actually have a clue as to the real history and the nefarious U.S. role within it?
TOMMY BONES — Thank you for the thorough analysis.
When you ask “How are the American people supposed to give an opinion on an issue as important as this, when the mainstream news ignores the history described here?”
The answer is simply they’re not to know, and are to be fed discombobulated and inconsistent pieces, so as to swallow whole the mass of propaganda.
Namaste … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … Mahatma Gandhi … … … … … … … … … …
« We must be the change we wish to see in the world »
« There is a sufficiency in the world for man’s need but not for man’s greed »
Does this mean we should expect one of the neo-CON ’sleeper’ cells to detonate a suitcase nuclear device in the US soon just so they can go, “Nya, nya, told you so”? I would not put it past these lying psychotic crooks.
Bush has already issued Presidential Directive 51, which gives him control of all functions & branches of the government in the event of a national emergency which HE decides as well as the length of the emergency.
Then comes martial law & cancellation of the elections. Isn’t that how dictators do it in other banana republics, what we have become since these loons stole power.
Then there is also the bill passed by the House the other day 404-6, which could be interpreted to mean protesters could be subject to being declared “terrorists”, and detained without the habeas corpus rights they have already done away with.
Add to that the recently signed Presidential Directive which causes property forfieture for anyone giving aid (even unknowingly) to terrorists or enemies of the state, and the package is pretty complete, even down to the fact there are FEMA detention facilities already set up capable of containing 2 million people.
It’s not a pretty picture, folks, and this latest serious embarrassment to the administration could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back setting the whole sordid process in motion.
Then again I could be wrong, but after seeing what they have done to us in the past would a sane person trust them?
Great lucid posts danielet & tommybones
PAUL MAGILL SMITH — If we could force ourselves to attempt to think as these vile and wicked fascists do, it would be interesting if we could guess where they might consider nuking(or splashing bloody red with significant death), to make the case for Martial Law (and end of private ownership of guns & rifles)?
the the Gays in SF?
the Hollywood glitz in LA?
Cindy’s Peace Conference?
Eco-terrorist in WA or OR?
Namaste … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … Mahatma Gandhi … … … … … … … … … …
« We must be the change we wish to see in the world »
« There is a sufficiency in the world for man’s need but not for man’s greed »
Tommybones, may I make an insert into your well-presented history?
The 17 March 1987 Iraqi missile attack on the U.S.S. Stark which killed 37 seamen: Saddam apologized, Reagan accepted and shifted the blame to Iran for escalating the Tanker War:
” In the aftermath of the Stark incident, the rhetoric coming out of
Washington was of a forgiving nature where Iraq was concerned, while
growing increasingly hostile in reference to Iran.”
http://eightiesclub.tripod.com/id344.htm
Ray,
Thanks for the addition.
Excuse my faith-based libel, but I wonder if others feel like Ima Blackstone - author, or submitter of this:
https://israel.indymedia.org/mod/comments/display/4135/index.php
Nonsense…
“Believe-it, the NIE is no ‘ruse by Intel to stop any-attack’…in fact, the ‘ruse’ was the pretense that any attack against Iran was actually-desired or intended (we didn’t spend covert-billions and all that ‘hard work’ over-decades creating this Ruse of ‘Islamo-fascism’ [an oxymoron, of-itself] and ‘required’-GWoT [currently best-justified and rationalized in the ME/Caspian by our expensive paper-tiger, Iran] just to now ’show our hand now’ and waste all that by/with any ‘attack’). [Nor would we have any carrier-group a ’sitting-duck’ in Strait if we feared-one in return…duh!]
When the Shaw ‘weakened’, these self-same NIE-’Strategists’ manipulated all parties-concerned (as they did in ‘53, only in-obverse) to absolutely-insure a so-called ‘Islamic-Revolution’ there — and directly received/achieved ‘payment’&control by having the ‘returned-from-France Ayatollah-Kocamami’ hold our CIA-hostages long enough to usher-in R&B-41 and their ‘conservative/pro-business-Era’ here [the ‘October non-Surprise’, remember?], followed by a HUGE-degree of interaction between this nascent ‘false-Enemy’ and the Mossad/CIA/MI-5&6 [itself following that hugely-BS ‘Carter rescue-attempt’], and diverse South American/Argentinian covert-entities, coordinated power-plays in the Gulf including countering our out-of-favor/’weakening-himself’ Saddam, and we forced subsequent Iranian money-trails and ’support’ for-and-to the ‘terror’ purportedly against-Israel and all those multiple-schemes regarding ISI-laundered and joint US/Israel/Iranian-nonsense re: Afghanistan, Paki-’terrorism’, Syrian false-fronts with Lebanese-targeting, and Hamas/’Infantada’/Hezbollah-baiting, Kurdish&other ‘instigation’ and abuse, and Intel-’feedback’ on a scale unheard-of — even during the height of the ColdWar. Follow-that with some basic observation of just how eager Iran has been, since well-before ‘9/11′, to covertly-AND-overtly ‘cooperate’ regards any real-terrorism and “What does that all tell you?” That we find it in our-Interests to attack-Iran, or that we instead continue to USE-it (in exactly the same-fashion we ‘used’ the USSR in decades-past)?
[Did you not note the ’smirks’ on Ineedajob at Columbia, or B-43 just-yesterday — if you don’t know ‘why they are smirking’, you are just not paying-attention…nor did you notice how ‘frowny’ B-41 was when ‘the USSR-’fell’…]
Iran has NOT been ‘under threat’ — it’s much-ballyhooed nuclear-program would still be at the stage it was when the Shaw reluctantly allowed the CIA/Westinghouse to ‘nudge-it’ into-such, had we and Israel/Britain not deliberately-allowed/directed our Paki/ISI-minions and Franco-enablers to elevate-it into today’s-’threat’…in furtherance of this overall Propagandist/’GreatGame’-ruse and ‘joke’ towards a perfect/endless-’GWoT’. Israel and the US have NO (current) ill-intent towards Iran [quite the opposite] — nor does Iran towards the ‘West’ [also, quite the opposite].
I’ve been telling-all this for months-now — perhaps this ‘leaked/surprise’ NIE-report will ‘offer some Evidence’?”
Can’t we all just ‘get a clue’?
They (Bush & Cheney et. al.) keep repeating “Iran is the greatest threat to peace in the region” like a mantra. Of course, they’ll fabricate enough “evidence” to make their arguments sound plausible to the American public. Maybe this NIE will stave off the push for airstrikes against Iran until after the next election, whose winner will most likely keep chanting the same mantra, in any case, to keep Israel and Saudi Arabia happy.
The 800 pound gorilla in the room is the stock/commodities market. With all the Bush/Cheney sabre-rattling against Iran oil has jumped close to $100 per barrel on speculation NOT a decrease in current supply. Does this help Bush’s cronies in the oil industry and commodities markets?…hell yes!!! This whole ruse is less about national security, and more concerning financial security for the ‘elite’.
Damn them to hell, and all their investment income blood money.
Over the period of the preparations to launch the war on Iraq, one of the clear voices for considering the sanity or more clearly, the insanity of the justification from the point of view of intelligence professionals, the necessity of the Irag has been Ray MacGovern.
I am feeling better today, because I trust him to tell me that this is a move on the part of someone with accurate information telling us to stop, consider and be thoughtful. I am persuaded that this is a moment on the board of
“Check.” I really hope so.
RE: richard k December 5th, 2007 12:08 am
What’s the deal here? I’ve tried to access the link you provided two times. Both times I got a high security alert from my computer saying ’stay away might be dangerous to your computer’. I ignored it and got an infection even though the site did open to something called IMC Isreal.
I then tried a Google search of the author you mentioned (Ima Stone), but nothing shows up on Google for that name. Is there something on that site someone doesn’t want people to see? Is this a ploy to use spyware to invade people’s computers? Are you a troll? Can you just post the article you asked people’s opinion about? Who is this Ima Stone that I should even care what they say?
This looks very suspicious my CD friends. Approach with CAUTION.
Correction, what I google searched was Ima Blackstone