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Both McCain, Obama Exaggerating Iran's Nuclear Program
WASHINGTON - The presumptive Republican nominee for president and the leading contender for the Democratic nomination are exaggerating what's known about Iran's nuclear program as they duel over how best to deal with Tehran.
Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Barack Obama, D-Ill., say that Iran is developing nuclear weapons.
The U.S. intelligence community, however, thinks that Iran halted an effort to build a nuclear warhead in mid-2003, and the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency, which is investigating the program, has found no evidence to date of an active Iranian nuclear-weapons project.
The candidates' comments raise questions about how carefully the two have studied the public record on what's become a major campaign issue and is one of the most difficult foreign-policy challenges likely to confront the next president.
The issue is also significant because the Bush administration inflated assessments of the Iraqi nuclear threat and the possibility that former dictator Saddam Hussein could pass nuclear weapons to terrorists as it sought to whip up public support for the March 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Iran has been expanding an industrial-scale uranium enrichment program in defiance of U.N. Security Council demands that it be suspended. Enrichment is the process that produces low-enriched uranium fuel for nuclear generating stations and highly enriched uranium for nuclear weapons.
Iran, whose known enrichment facilities are under IAEA monitoring, says it's making low-enriched uranium reactor fuel and has no intention of developing weapons. Few experts, however, think that Iran has come clean about all its nuclear activities.
In a major speech Monday to a powerful Jewish American lobbying group, McCain asserted that Iran is actively developing nuclear weapons that threaten the security of Israel and could be passed to terrorist groups.
"Tehran's pursuit of nuclear weapons poses an unacceptable risk, a danger we cannot allow," he told the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
Israel, however, is thought to have a significant nuclear arsenal of its own, and an Iranian nuclear attack on Israel would invite a devastating nuclear counterstrike.
In criticism aimed at Obama, McCain said, "The idea that they now seek nuclear weapons because we refused to engage in presidential-level talks is a serious misreading of history."
McCain was referring to an interview Friday with Fox News in which Obama rebuked President Bush for rejecting direct negotiations with Iran on its nuclear program.
"Iran is stronger now than when George Bush took office," Obama said. "And the fact that we have not talked to them means that they have been developing nuclear weapons."
Neither campaign immediately responded to requests for comment on its candidate's assertions.
The 16 agency-strong U.S. intelligence community said last November in an unclassified National Intelligence Estimate that it concluded with "high confidence" that Iran had halted an effort to develop a nuclear weapon in fall 2003.
A senior U.S. intelligence official, who requested anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak publicly, said that U.S. intelligence agencies stuck by the NIE's judgment of "moderate confidence" that Iran hadn't reactivated the alleged effort.
In Vienna, Austria, IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei told his board of governors Monday that the agency is continuing to look into allegations that Iraq conducted secret studies related to developing a nuclear warhead for a missile.
The allegations are based on documents provided to the agency by the United States and other IAEA members that purport to show that Iran conducted the research until March 2004. Iran has dismissed the documents as forgeries.
ElBaradei said the IAEA couldn't give the Iranian program a clean bill of health until Tehran had implemented "all the transparency measures required to clarify this cluster of allegations and questions."
Democratic Sen. Hillary Clinton, who's battling Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination, has been more nuanced in describing Iran's nuclear program, telling MSNBC on April 21 that Iran "appears" to have a "continuing goal of obtaining nuclear weapons."
© McClatchy Newspapers 2008
65 Comments so far
Show AllIt appears to me that Obama believes Iran, or at least the Amadinijad faction, has the goal of some day becoming a nuclear power. He agrees Iran's possession of a nuclear weapon, even if only for prestige,is unacceptable and a threat to Israel's existence. What sane individual actually wants Iran to have the bomb?
Where he differs from the neocons is he WILL talk to Iranian leaders, hopefully including moderates, and he WILL NOT attack Iran. He will work with other interested parties regarding diplomacy and sanctions and end the cowboy go it alone policies of the current administration. He does not share the neocon dream of world domination.
The US "nuclear umbrella" extends over Israel. Even if Iran does develop nuclear weapons, he will make sure the Iranians completely understand this. He WILL NOT use Iranian nukes as an excuse to conduct an imperialistic adventure. Seems a pretty clear view and policy to me.
Regarding McCain, at least he isn't a lock step neocon and he isn't Dubya.
Caught in a tender embrace knowing all the time they're merely vying to become a figurehead for a faceless machine out of control.
Got to please the Zionists and War Profiteers if you want to be prez.
They are just two politicians hyping a potential threat in order to appear like strong national security candidates. Unfortunately, it also serves to strike fear into the minds of the average American, which will make selling war with Iran that much easier. Iraq redux.
The Ford administration was more than happy to sell Iran all the reactors it wanted in 1975. Cheney, Wolfowitz, and Rumsfeld were members of the Ford administration at the time. If the Shah had stayed in power in little longer Iran would have had all the nuclear materials that they desired.
Scott Ritter has stated that Iran never had a nuclear weapons program.
Everywhere their is something sleazy going on it seems Kissinger is involved.
April 22, 1975: Kissinger Outlines US Plans to Help Iran Achieve Nuclear Capability Secretary of State Henry Kissinger circulates National Security Decision Memorandum 292 on "US-Iran Nuclear Cooperation" outlining the administration's negotiating strategy for the sale of nuclear energy equipment to Iran. The document states the government would permit "US material to be fabricated into fuel in Iran for use in its own reactors and for pass through to third countries with whom [the US has] agreements." According to the document, the administration would "[a]gree to set the fuel ceiling at the level reflecting the approximate number of nuclear reactors planned for purchase from US suppliers," but would consider increasing the ceiling "to cover Iran's entitlement" from their proposed $1 billion investment in a 20 percent stake in one of the private US uranium enrichment facilities that would be supplying Iran. The strategy paper also explains under what terms the Ford administration would be willing to grant Iran approval to reprocess US supplied fuel. [US National Security Council, 4/22/1975; Washington Post, 3/27/2005] Three decades later, Kissinger will tell the Washington Post that the Ford administration was never concerned about the possibility of Iran building nuclear weapons or the potential for proliferation. "I don't think the issue of proliferation came up," he will recall. "They were an allied country, and this was a commercial transaction. We didn't address the question of them one day moving toward nuclear weapons." [Washington Post, 3/27/2005]
The Bush administration is still creating reality. That is, making up a lie, and watching while reality based people scramble to counter it with truth.
Too bad Obama isn't even trying. He's accepting their lie as reality for his own purposes and riffing off of it.
The ones that will suffer will be the Iranian people, mostly, but the whole planet suffers when the US attacks other countries with their diabolical weapons of mass destruction.
It is more than a little troubling that Obama sees Iran's lack of transparency as proof of anything. He stated, "And the fact that we have not talked to them means that they have been developing nuclear weapons." The US also did not talk to Saddam Hussein, but that certainly did not mean Iraq was developing nuclear weapons. Is Obama playing politics here, or did he not learn anything from the Iraq fiasco?
There is a narrative spun by the US, which on a gut level implies that Iran is developing nuclear weapons. All the mainstream accounts about the US saber rattling and the need to "confront" Iran (there "must" be WMD with all this talk of "grave risk to national security," "need to confront," "additional carrier groups sent to the Gulf," etc.)reinforce this basis gut truth. The facts, inlcuding the consensus report of the US intel community a few months ago that Iran years ago halted steps in the nuclear weapons R&D direction, cannot stand in the way of this basic gut truth. It's analogous to how 2/3 of the American public according to polling data believed that WMD were discovered in Iraq. It's a gut truth that was succesfully planted by great and sustained effort by the propoganda machine.
As a result, Obama, who pledges a less beligerent foreign policy tone, also internalizes the narrative and criticizes Bush/McCain from within the framework of the narrative. It's a fascinating glimpse into gov't propoganda, the mainstream press role in uncritically reporting and propogating it, and the psychological phonomenon by which people exposed to this "get" the basic gut truth beneath all the talk ("where there is smoke there must be fire"--there "must" be WMD with all this talk of "grave risk to national security," "need to confront," "additional carrier groups sent to the Gulf," etc.)
Can the IAEA give Israel a clean bill of health?
Peas in a pod. One party of the rich in this country: two branches, of course
No, no, say it isn't so! A Democrat following the neocon lies and advocating more war?, more bombing? more imperialist hubris? It can't be. I refuse to believe it, damn it. I'm continuing to believe in "hope".
A Jewish friend of mine thinks Obama is anti-Semitic because he doesn't toe the AIPAC line. If Obama wants to win, he'll have to make some concessions for the Jewish vote (which is why Bush won Florida in 2004, Kerry wasn't "pro-Israel" enough).
Hopefully Obama is too smart to really beleive this bull___t and is just going about the business of trying to get elected. I would be greatly dissapointed if, after all his stumping about peace and change, he really beleived this hype that could could get us into yet a 3rd war and murder even more people.
I agree with the first post that there are more important people then the voters to please. Neither man would be in the running without pleasing the war daddies and the Israeli government.
That said I think there is a huge difference in how they would proceed from there, and we would be way better off with the better man. Obama of course.
-"Tehran's pursuit of nuclear weapons poses an unacceptable risk, a danger we cannot allow," he told the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
I find it awfully sad that most of you reading this will vote for Obama, hoping that he is lying when he says this. I suppose McCain believes it no more than Obama and its just a question of mouthing the obligatory incantations. Ex: Cuba bad!, Israel good! etc.
Let's hope that, whomsoever gets elected, they try to steer the ship of state just a few degrees more away from the iceberg. The trouble is that, if they, in the run up to the election have fed these myths to the electorate, they will not have much in the way of popular support if when in office they try to go against the inertia of the huge bureaucracy of the US government. The permanent state and defence department people who have been running the show, through Republican and Democrat governments alike, will sabotage and embarrass them if they try to reverse course.
This is why I'm not going to vote in November.
We have a corrupt system, nothing good can come from it, and I'm not going to pretend I can improve anything by participating.
Obama said. "And the fact that we have not talked to them means that they have been developing nuclear weapons."
Isn't Obama saying we are in the current fix for not having entered into a dialogue with Iran earlier on in the Bush administration? I don't think the two candidates really are taking the same position here.
After all the Cheney warmongering, the Iranians are scared of the nuclear holocaust Cheney along with the usual band of Israeli extremists seems so impatient to unleash.
Obama has made the point several times in his campaign that we should talk with our enemies, or supposed enemies, before we start killing people on the horrible scale we see in Iraq.
Democrats and Rethuglicans: Two sides of the same war-party coin. Dums.... er, Dems, are just a little more polite, but it's still Tweedle Dum & Tweedle Dee.
I'll still vote for Obama since he seems to have a cooler head than McNut.
Why are so many here opposed to McCain? He is the perfect solution to our energy issues. He's so freakin' white that he emits enough lumens to power the whole grid. And at night, we can plug the grid into his ass for 24/7 coverage.
Ken Nuti
Medford, MA
Obama is still part of the MIC. Just a little slicker. This is the one time a third party could make it...VOTE NADER! Yeh, I'm a "Dreamin' man"..guess that's my problem...After 63 years, why stop now!
RichM - It's the ugly underbelly of democracy that you have to be a middle-of-the-road whore to have any hope of getting elected. But if we win the crapshoot, if Obama really does know better, then there is perhaps hope. We are also a republic, one with recently established executive power that is enormous for good or ill. Once the guy is in office he can pull the masks and rule like a king if he has the cojones to pull it off. It is indeed madness, and on a mass scale. Social change, change of collective language and myth, is going to be incremental and slow going. If the guy can articulate sanity (why, for example, you talk to your enemies, as Kennedy talked to Khrushchev,, or why it might be wiser to ask what "terrorists" want rather than to attempt to exterminate them faster than they multiply) he might pull the American psychosis back from acting out its paranoid lunacy. I'm glad I'm not him. If he is not in the pocket of big business, I hope he is aware that he is up against a huge and ruthless evil that will not automatically die after the election.
Obama=McCain..
Obama looks like a better package than McCain. McCain is too old. Obama will continue what Bush and the neo-cons want...
He is just another lying candidate wanting the highest office in the land. Yes, he will say anything to get elected. No news there.
The hypocrisy is staggering! The whole world knows who the only nuclear power in the ME is..
They won't IAEA inspectors anywhere near the facilities.
The Zionists convicted the only man to tell the truth about it and sentenced him to 18 year solitary confinement.
Why does the world tolerate these madmen.. These paranoid delusion people who think because supposedly god made them his chosen people that the rest of world, so mad with jealously is out to get them.
When are they going to realize, that they are the own worst enemies..
Another thing they should do is honor UN resolution 247 and get back behind the pre "67" borders.
The economy is crumbling, the Dow sinking, the dollar dying and elections coming up.
So it's time to ratchet up FEAR!
McPain is whole-heartedly dialing up scare tactics about Iran. Obama could either claim to be better at managing the purported dire situation or disagree that things are as bad as propagandized.
In front of AIPAC he went with the first option. What a shame.
It is high time to stop cow-towing to AIPAC, and do what's best for the world and for the U.S. Start reducing our "foreign aid" to Israel significantly, and it will soon become obvious how the Israelies will start to be better neighbors in the Middle East
and more ready to find peaceful solutions to land issues and control of water resources, etc. Iran is not the threat that some of our politicos make it out to be.
There you are. Obama's true nature. Nothing new and hopeful at all. America's very own Tony Bliar.
bush changed his stated policies he espoused in the campaign"I'm not interested in democracy building", then the opposite happened.If the PNAC agenda was known far and wide , and the party hierarchy all members of the PNAC,exposed repeatedly I don't believe bush would of been able to have such a close election which was stolen by roger ailes, and SCOTUS.
McCain, like Bush, WANTS to attack Iran. Obama is just hedging his bets.
Re-due the working function of Washington! Fire them all and hire the ones who would
1. Bring our troops home to guard what they were meant to guard; our borders.
2. Who would work in the precept that they serve the people of this would-be fine land.
3. Who will dismantle every arm of government that threatens life, limb or property of any US citizen or threaten any foreign power with the bloodshed we have already witnessed.
The list goes on…….
We are all in the same boat, and so far from home.........
Obama is in the pocket of the Irael mafia the same way McCain is. Obama = Bush with a tan.
The height of hypocrisy is the notion that the leading builder and exporter of WMD and terror, the USA, which spends more on its military than almost the entire world put together is accusing another nation of wanting to acquire weapons. As long as you are an ally, Pakistan, India or Israel it's okay. The "good guys" can have them but the "bad guys" can't. We of course, decide who are good and who are bad.
Why doesn't the US get rid of its own nuclear weapons as it promised to do when it signed the NPT and then worry about everybody else? If its good for the goose why isn't it good for the gander?
I think I see a small rectangular bulge sticking out of Obama's back and McCain can be seen pushing some type of button attached to it. If you listen to the audio you can actually hear the "click".
Gossip works. If you just keep accusing someone of something, pretty soon everyone will believe it. Iran's "nuclear weapons" program is a figment of Republican imagination, nothing more. Yet there are intelligent (but gullible) people that actually believe these ghost stories. How many times can the same person be played for an idiot?
Hey you fool! Bin Laden is the bad guy we need to go to war with Afghanistan.
Hey you fool! Hussein is the bad guy we need to go to war with Iraq.
Hey you fool! Ahmadinejad is the bad guy we need to go to war with Iran.
You know the saying is "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me." The next line needs to be "Fool me 3 times I'm a total idiot."
Both pissing into the same pot, judging by the picture.
Seems like they're also sharing the same pants.
Why is the author using the word "exaggerate" if he himself has no idea what Teheran is doing and up to? The use of the word "exaggerate" suggests the author knows for sure nothing is going on... Is that wishful thinking of the other extreme?
The use of the photo for this article is also of the manipulative kind...
not serious...
What political clown doesn't exaggerate claims of one kind or another?
Both Obama and McShifty, for instance, have based their political careers on flimflammery and shell games; happily accepting gratis while artfully dodging (Nixon Two Stepping) the critics, media and supporters. In `ole Foggy Bottom, exaggerating, or puffing up, claims is par for the course....
Don't you just love slogans like: "Yes, we Can!"
Yes we can start another war!
Yes we can capitulate to the status quo!
Yes, Maybe one day the sheep will wake up!
Thank whatever is holy for the few remaining journalists like Jonathan Landay. Catch his response to Scott McClellan's new book here.
http://washingtonbureau.typepad.com/nationalsecurity/2008/05/what-happened.html
Obama is just throwing out a popular political guess when he says that the fact we have not talked to Iran means they are developing nuclear weapons... but He is right on that in any case we need to talk to them and that is the right attitude and policy for world peace... and in any case here is what the real leader of Iran has to say about all this bull.. http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/D581F011-0D4C-4833-8A81-95F415244F9C.htm
glenn goodman June 3rd, 2008 1:38 pm ..You believe the war profiteers and the Zionists are more important the We the People? This must be meant facetiously.
What sad state of affairs we have gotten ourselves into.
Maybe Barack is just kidding around when he say this "crazy" stuff about Iran. Just faking it. Pretending to be a war monger when he is really a working class hero.
Maybe if I put my tooth under the pillow the "tooth fairy" will leave me five hundred dollars. I don't have a job, but if the "tooth fairy " comes through I will be able to feed my kids.
McCain, Obama, Clinton all tied to the capitalist class by a thousand threads. We should not have to guess what they are going to do. The class they represent should give us a clue.
Asia Times story:
It tells how MCCain will open the big AIPAC jamboree this year and Obama and Clinton will close it. I wonder what the topic will be? As I have said boys
THERE WILL BE NO CHANGE IN AMERICA AFTER THE ELECTION!!!!!
PS, I love the move to Canada, wow what a great country. When you can look at the US and the world from the outside, wow is America fu**ed
Obama fans do you need any more evidence your man is not about change?
What did you expect? His foreign policy advisors are all from the same crowd Hillary picked from: Former Clinton Administration officials and other hawks like Samantha Power and Zbig Brzezinski.
This is no surprise. Both men will fit right into the establishment agenda, no matter which one is elected.
If anyone thinks they are having a voice in the coming election, they must be smoking the funny weed.
We're told who the nominees will be, who their VPs will be, and they will decide which one of the two will win.
And this is called democracy, "my friends".
Obama is being a politician. Trying to get elected POTUS.
HOPEfully though, if he was, he would be better than McCain.
America would be better off talking to Iran than bombing them.
War in the ME would be terrible for all the countries and people of the region.
With reference to TheLorax (3:38pm)
You missed the most important one:
Hey you fool, George W. Bush is the bad guy; why'd you stupid bastards re-elect him in '04?
So McCain was addressing a powerful group of Jewish lobbyists, eh? I'll bet they really ate up that Iran being a threat to Israel crap.
As we come to an article like this where we find little difference in candidates' views on a particular issue, it should remind us of the basic rule in politics.
Know what the people want to hear; then tell them what they want to hear; if it happens to turn out to be the truth, chalk it up to lucky coincidence.
As so many are looking for this thing(the Democratic race) to come to a close tonight or tomorrow, we may get to see just how badly Obama really wants the nomination.
There are all kinds of rumors stirring of late how Hillary has made it known that she will accept the VP slot "for the sake of the party".
If Barack thinks that adding her to the ticket is his best chance to beat McCain, that could very well be the case because I do not pretend to be an expert.
However, the one thing that he should consider most carefully is what is he going to do about the selection of cabinet members if successful in November.
He might just as well pick Tom Cruise, Keanu Reeve, and a few more of those pretty boys because all they'll amount to is eye candy. You take Hillary and it's a package deal; her & Bubba will be too much for any Secretary of State, Defense, etc. to tangle with.
In comparison, you'll be looking back at Dick Cheney and saying "He was just a pussycat"
Of course they are.
Hey, don't vote for a candidate that lies to you like this. There are other choices who are not doing this. Mr. Nader and Ms. McKinney come to mind.
But, I'm sure this will be like impeachment. On impeachment, the Dems said they would not do it. But then lots voted for them in 2006. Now they complain that the Dems won't impeach.
On Iran, its clear that Obama is adopting the line of the hard-right Israelis. Its clear that he's been right there supportive of Bush and agreeing with McCain on this. But, lots of fools will vote for him anyways. Then when he continues the same policies, they'll complain out here like they do about impeachment.
The much better choice is to vote for the candidates who are not lying to you.
If the always reliable "Duck Test" is applied, I also believe that Iran is working towards a nuke. Consider: 1) Their nuclear related facilities are widely dispersed not like Iraqs centralized Osirik facility that got waxed by the Israelis in 1983. 2) Why else would they be extending the range of their Shahab 3 missile? ( the plutonium in a warhead could weigh as little as 25 lbs) 3) why else would many of their nuclear "research" facilities, including the enrichment plant at Natanz, be 75 feet underground with more concrete reinforcing recently added?
If it its dispersed like a nuke facility; if the Shahab 3 is designed to carry a nuke and if the enrichment facility is bomb proof like a nuke facility, then they're working on nukes.
Gawd, I'm still amazed by how desparate the Democrats are to try to con our votes from us this time around.
There big problem is that they run candidates that fundamentally disagree with big percentages of the voters they need to win. This is a wonderful case. They are running a pro-war candidate that supports an attack on Iran. They are trying to convince a populace that's 70% against the Iraq war and that doesn't want to expand the war to Iran. Especially the likely Dem voters are hugely opposed to attacking Iran.
So, what to do? What they are doing is making up this complete bull about how Obama has to say this but he doesn't really mean it. I've heard some pretty desperate stuff and bald-faced lies in politics, but that's really got to take the cake.
The Dem message this time is that voters should make up a fantasy in their own mind about what a President should be, then vote for Obama on the lie that this is who he is. Voters are supposed to ignore everything he says and instead pretend he's the fantasy candidate that they've made up.
You've got to be kidding me.