Cheney Beats the Drums of War

[valpomike]

Charles,

I have had the same problem with many Germans, closed mind, they want to tell you what to do, even if you don't want them to, and they act like they know if all.
But I am here in the U.S.A. and not in there land. They are the guest, not me. When I travel I do not act like this with the people where I am at. I want to be told than, but not now.

Michael Dabrowski

[valpomike]

Charles,

I am sure you are not like the others. You would not try and force your ideas on anyone, would you? You won't even tell the Americans, what is wrong with this great place, would you? But than you are not like them.

Michael Dabrowski

[Jaga]

Michael,

stay on the topic - Iran thread. I do not understand your posts to Charles, they had nothing to do with the discussion about politics, just some stereotyping what you think about Germans, nonsense!

[Jaga]

There is a very confusing report about it in the foxnews. It almost looks like they are contradicting the report in some paragraphs, in the other admitting that Iran halted its program. My comments are in brackets:

www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,314782,00.html?sPage=fnc.politics/executivebranch

Hadley: U.S. Policy Toward Iran Nuclear Weapons Must Continue (this is vaque, what policy to continue?)

WASHINGTON — The intelligence community has high confidence that Iran had a covert nuclear weapons program that it never acknowledged and continues to deny, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley said Monday, but the program is currently halted although perhaps not indefinitely. (this suggest that the program is continuing but not now... it is like saying - there is a war... but not now)

The assessment, outlined in the latest National Intelligence Estimate, states that Iran stopped its nuclear weapons development program in the fall of 2003 under international pressure, but is continuing to enrich uranium and could be capable of developing a weapon as early as late 2009.

The findings are a change from two years ago, when U.S. intelligence agencies believed Iran was determined to develop a nuclear capability and was continuing its weapons development program.

Hadley said the change in assessment does not suggest a failure on the part of the U.S. intelligence community, but a success in finding the true status of the program. (this is of course the contradiction. The program was halted in 2003 but until... the last week they did not know anything about it and then suddenly all 16 agencies learnt that the program is not there?)

Hadley said no secret has been more closely kept than Iran's nuclear weapons pursuits. (but there are no pursuits for nuclear weapons in Iran, so what secrets are kept?)

"They are very good at his business of keeping secrets," he told reporters in an afternoon press conference at the White House. (I think, Iran tried to convince the world that it does not have weapons. It was the US which could not be convinced, just like in the case of Iraq WMD which never materialized)

[hollister]

Interesting analysis from Juan Cole

So if the Iranians were doing some weapons experiments in 2002, why did they stop?

1. The anti-government Mojahedin-e Khalq terrorist organization, which Saddam Hussein had given a base in Iraq, was able to discover the nuclear research facility at Natanz and to pass information about it not only to Saddam but also to the US. Anything weapons-related was then obviously open to being bombed, and the government may have decided that keeping such experiments covert was too difficult and the possibility of its enemies bombing them too likely, to continue.

2. Having seen what international economic sanctions did to Iraq, reducing it to a fourth world country, the Iranians were afraid of sanctions once Natanz became known.

3. As the US rushed to war against Saddam, Iran's rulers saw an opportunity for a grand alliance with Washington, and they knew that one quid pro quo would be giving up any ambitions to become a nuclear state.

Thus, the Iranian government's decision to drop the experiments at Natanz were probably prompted by a combination of discouragement about the likelihood they could be kept secret and an ambition to do what Libya later did and reposition itself in a less adversarial posture toward Washington.

The Iranians must have been astonished when Dick Cheney shot down their overtures.

Some speculate that Asghari also had information about a secret Syrian missile site, leading to the Israeli strike on it in September.

If the decisive evidence for the lack of any nuclear weapons program in Iran was the documents Asghari spirited out when he defected last winter, then the US intelligence community has had this information for at least 6 months.

So why has the Bush administration continued to rattle sabers at Iran all this time.

Why was Cheney conspiring with Neoconservatives on his staff to convince Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to attack the Natanz facilities, in hopes Iran would over-react and give Bush and Cheney a pretext for doing regime change in Tehran?

Why did the Bushies keep leaking to prominent journalist Seymour Hersh the story that Cheney was planning an attack on Iran?

Why did Bush go so far as to say that World War III could only be prevented if Iran was denied the knowledge of how to enrich uranium?

Cheney and Bush have probably known since at least April that Iran has no weapons program.

I can only speculate, of course. But I believe that Bush and Cheney want regime change in Tehran. Being oil men, they are very well aware that petroleum switched over in the late 1990s to being a seller's market. There was a danger of China doing proprietary deals with Iran (and Iraq and others) that would ultimately deny the US access to the Gulf oil and gas bonanza.

If Iran learns how to close the fuel cycle, it could always make a bomb fairly quickly if it thought that the US was planning an invasion. (If you use centrifuges to enrich to 5% for fuel, you could theoretically keep feeding the uranium back through them to enrich to 80% for a bomb).

In short, regime change by force becomes impossible if Iran has the knowledge of how to make a bomb. And if you can't do regime change by force, you might well not be able to forestall a new Iran-China economic and military axis, in which the US increasingly risks being cut out of the petroleum not only in Iran but in the Oil Gulf more generally.

So from a hawkish Cheney point of view, it is irrelevant whether Iran has a weapons program. It cannot be allowed to develop enrichment capabilities even for civilian purposes.

If China found a way to monopolize Gulf petroleum, the US could be reduced to a third rate power during the next century. That's why Bushco invaded Iraq, and it is why they keep the pressure on Iran. They want to ability to maneuver and to use conventional force if necessary to secure US energy security.

So although the NIE makes it less likely that Cheney can get his way on attacking Iran in the next 12 months, as Fred Kaplan rightly argues, the new finding only postpones the crisis.

Ominously, whereas the Los Angeles Times leads this story with "Iran has no nuke program, U.S. intel says," the hawkish Washington Postleads with "Iran Is Judged 10 Years From Nuclear Bomb." The WaPo diction (for which poor Dafna Linzer is almost certainly not responsible) implies facts not in evidence. Iran cannot be 10 years away from a bomb if it has no weapons program. It would have to constitute a weapons program and then it would be X years from having a bomb. But the WaPo way of putting it is going to dominate the debate from here on in. Cheney may yet have his way, down the road, by inspiring younger hawks.

Juan Cole is President of the Global Americana Institute

[bescheid]

Interesting situation at present with the loss of focus upon the Iranian nuclear question.

One point is apparently in on the table: The Israeli people {Goverment} are very confused and vastly disappointed in the back walking from bombing of Iranian nuclear research facilities.

Especially of the following public document release of currant. It is a finalized report commensurate with normal compilation of information, for presentation to however lofty towers of ivory it may find to end.

www.dni.gov/press_releases/20071203_release.pdf

It is becoming more in reality, if the Israelies want some thing done for them, they will look into the prospective of doing their own dirty work. {They want some thing bombed, they will be faced with completing the work them selves}.

Charles

[kaima]

Interesting situation with this sudden trun-around in intelligence! Being a Bush sceptic, I wonder if he scared the intelligence community so much in his rush to wars that they really feared his use of nuclear weapons in this case and they let the cat out of the bag (let the lack of a nuclear program in Iran be known publicly) to short circuit this crazy idea.

Speaking of intelligence leaks, it seems Bush has given up on ever finding the source that identified Valerie Plame as a spy. That seems to be an act of high treason that I would think would have a whole lot of people upset, but it seems Americans don't really care.

Well, with the rush to war in Iraq distracting us so totally from the War on Terror, we have pretty well blown it anyhow. We have to inflate the dollar to pay for our war debts and that will drive away foreign investors to the more stable Euro. That will weaken the US and our leadership position to where the terrorists, even if we kill many of them and the others retire, will have won. They will have taken the US out of the leadership position that we enjoyed so long. It almost makes me wonder why the Democrats want to get back into office so they can take a larger share of the blame. Well, they were pretty short sighted to buy into the program without kicking and screaming all the way. I wish there was a viable third political party on the horizon!

Kai

[Jaga]

Holly,

interesting article. It looks that Cheney and Bush knew that Iran does not have nuclear bomb but they were still pushing to go after Iran to change the regime to more American friendly.

One more war, one less more, what a difference?

Bush should not even try to take a credit for Iran not to have a program since it is thanks to European negotations.

+++Why was Cheney conspiring with Neoconservatives on his staff to convince Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to attack the Natanz facilities, in hopes Iran would over-react and give Bush and Cheney a pretext for doing regime change in Tehran?+++

Cheney wanted Iran, but Israel is also pushing for it. Still, who knows whether neoconservatists really gave up. Wolfowitz is back in power working for Condoleeza, Bush states that nothing change, since it is always a possibility that Iran will have nuclear weapons after they recinstruct program. So many if... if... then...
it reminds me the case that it is better not to go to sleep tonight because there is a chance that we would die always (small, but still).

[Jaga]

here is more about Israel being dissapointed with the info that Iran is not a threat anymore:

afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iSv6GWpCp_i7i581Q62F4VbjgTeQ

Israel vows to resist Iran nuclear drive despite US report
15 hours ago

JERUSALEM (AFP) — Israel on Tuesday charged that Iran was still seeking nuclear weapons despite a US report claiming the contrary, and vowed to continue its diplomatic campaign against its arch-foe.

"Iran is probably continuing its programme of producing a nuclear bomb," Defence Minister Ehud Barak told army radio, according to its website.

Even if the Islamic republic halted its programme in 2003, as said in a new US intelligence assessment, Israel believed it has since been relaunched.

Amid fears that with the new report Israel could find itself isolated in its drive to keep international pressure on Iran over its controversial nuclear programme, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert vowed to push ahead with such efforts.

"It is necessary to continue our efforts with our American friends to prevent Iran from obtaining non-conventional weapons," Olmert said on army radio.

...

[freetobe]

Mike and all the rest,
Does any body know what's REALLY going on in the Middle East? Intelligence reports are skewed and the media only spins it's wheels. I believe that the major issue is oil and greed of the petroleum industry, but once you get into Jihad, the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and all the other wars,sub wars etc. in the Mideast since the beginning of time who the hell knows? And lately I am starting to not care. Just get Bin Laden, bring our troops home and let the devil take what's left

[Jaga]

Here is an interesting article from FoxNews. By the way, now the discussion is - how much pres. Bush really knew, when he knew it. He was not telling the truth that he learned the details just last week. He was informed about the potential outcome of the raport already in August. He also talked about it with Israeli prime-minister. Of course Jewish government is the worst hawk in terms of attacking Iran so they were not happy.

Clinton was impeached for lie about Lewinsky, this administration lies about security issues, put us to war under wrong pretenses, still nobody is impeached.

Here are fragments from FoxNews:
www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,315742,00.html
Bush Administration Credibility Suffers After Iran NIE Report

WASHINGTON — The new National Intelligence Estimate — which says Iran had a nuclear weapons development program, but halted it in 2003 — made President Bush's week play out like a sad country song.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was smiling and called the report a victory. Rush Limbaugh blasted the report as a product of administration sabotage. And Democrats were accusing the president of being a flip-flopper.

The NIE drew fire from nearly all sides, including anti-war Democrats in Congress, foreign leaders the administration needs to hold the line against Iran, and conservatives usually supportive of the administration.

The root issue for many critics comes down to credibility: Credibility of the estimate, credibility of the intelligence community that developed it and the credibility of the administration for whom those agencies work. Bridging that credibility gap might prove difficult for an administration heading into its final months.
The administration remains resolute in its position that policy toward Iran shouldn’t change. This is because while the NIE said with "high confidence" that the program halted in 2003, the estimate only says with "moderate confidence" that it had not started up again earlier this year, and "moderate-to-high" confidence that it remained off-line as the report was being released.


Because the report also says Tehran maintains a civilian nuclear program, and the estimate is silent on whether Iran intends to start up its nuclear weapons program again, U.S. officials say this means the United States and other countries must be ever-vigilant against the possibility.

But convincing people here and abroad of that argument now appears to be more difficult.

U.S. hardliners on Iran are saying the intelligence document is too ridden with internal political squabbles to be credible.

...
International troubles were just as quick to appear.

The Associated Press quotes a top Czech official saying it is now harder to do his job explaining the need for a U.S. missile defense system, which U.S. officials say is needed to ward off attack from Iran.

...
FOX News military analyst Ret. Marine Lt. Col. Bill Cowan said he thinks the report is basically credible — but acknowledges credibility is a problem for the administration. The problem lies in the fact that the two reports — the one from 2007 and the one from 2005 — are so drastically different.

Leading up to Monday's report, he said, "We've got all this stuff about they're two years away from bomb, they're two weeks from a bomb. ... And suddenly, they're not even making a bomb."

"All of a sudden, you know, in one day, we have a new NIE comes out that really flip-flops one-eighty, and says they quit working on it back in '03. I would say we have a major credibility issue," Cowan said.

But he said — in contradiction to those like former U.N. Ambassador Bolton — that doesn't mean the report itself is flawed. He said he has faith in National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell to put together a good report, and he credited efforts to bring in non-consensus opinions — an effort intelligence officials say is to try and prevent another situation like the infamous 2002 Iraq NIE.

Cowan said he believes the administration, with new NIE in hand, needs to go back, vet past reports and re-evaluate its policy. He said he thinks the NIE means policy will change, but not dramatically.

"Some of the rhetoric is going to have to change, and like the president said, we're going to have to keep the international pressure on the Iranians, but maybe the U.S [will] back off a little bit," and rely more the United Nations and foreign allies, he said.

[Jaga]

If you still have doubts who presses for attack of Iran please read this from AP (Israeli secret services are visiting the CIA now):

The U.S. and Israel will hold additional formal meetings on the matter in coming weeks, the Israeli officials said. Israel will use these forums to try to persuade the Americans that Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons, and to present top secret Israeli intelligence material, the officials said.

from:
ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iJZ9jtm0mjZovx5YirnDlYlkJKdQD8TIQL585

[bescheid]

admin said:

If you still have doubts who presses for attack of Iran please read this from AP (Israeli secret services are visiting the CIA now):

The U.S. and Israel will hold additional formal meetings on the matter in coming weeks, the Israeli officials said. Israel will use these forums to try to persuade the Americans that Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons, and to present top secret Israeli intelligence material, the officials said.

from:
ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iJZ9jtm0mjZovx5YirnDlYlkJKdQD8TIQL585

It is indeed, and interesting situation building. For one, America is caught head on in a tar baby named Iraq, and at similar, attempting to appease the Russians in contrast with the proposed missile/radar installation in Poland and Czech Republic.

Now the continuance of up-playing a losing argument with the Iranian Nuclear Electrical Generation Complex, very much contested by the Israelis.

And as a topping to curl the hairs of American Foreign policy, Russian is suppling Uranium generation fuel to Iran.

If not so serious, it has the appearance of a comic strip daily.

www.infoisrael.net/cgi-local/text.pl?source=2/a/ix/181220072

cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/030327.htm

Charles

[hollister]

Bush Still Spinning Nukes in Iran

mwcnews.net/content/view/18841/42/

from the article
"Bush "rewarded" Iran for its help in consolidating U.S. power in Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks by inaugurating Iran into his “axis of evil” in January 2002. The following year, Iran offered the U.S. government a comprehensive plan for negotiations and cooperation, which addressed all of Bush's claimed pet peeves about Iran. In Iran's 2003 memorandum, sent to the U.S. government via Swiss diplomats, Iran proposed a "dialogue in mutual respect." It sought negotiations with the United States on the concerns Bush has repeatedly expressed.

"This 2003 offer by Iran to negotiate these pressing issues with the United States was an incredible opportunity, which Bush, who claims to pursue diplomacy, should have seized. Yet the White House thumbed its nose at the Iranian offer and then tried to cover up the story."

Iran proposed “full transparency” to show “there are no Iranian endeavors to develop or possess WMD.” It also sought to guarantee “decisive action against any terrorists (above all Al Qaida) on Iranian territory, full cooperation and exchange of all relevant information.” In Iraq, Iran proposed "coordination of Iranian influence for activity supporting political stabilization and the establishment of democratic institutions and a non-religious government." Iran agreed to discuss the “stop of any material support to Palestinian opposition groups (Hamas, Jihad etc.) from Iranian territory" and "pressure on these organizations to stop violent action against civilians within borders of 1967." And Iran listed its "acceptance of the Arab League Beirut declaration (Saudi initiative, two-states-approach)." This meant Iran would recognize the state of Israel."

Marjorie Cohn, MWC News Magazine senior editor, is a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, president of the National Lawyers Guild, and the US representative to the executive committee of the American Association of Jurists. Her new book, Cowboy Republic: Six Ways the Bush Gang Has Defied the Law is published by PoliPointPress.
Other articles by this author :.
Visit her web site at: www.marjoriecohn.com/

[valpomike]

So this is her view on things, does not make if fact. I am sure, if you look you can find another side to this, and could be someone with a brain. She does not have one, just wants to sell books.