Early Monday afternoon, the Bush administration released a new National Intelligence Estimate revealing that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003. Though the blockbuster revelation was featured prominently that night in all three network newscasts, it was all but ignored on Fox News. Steve Benen reports that on Monday night, only one of Fox’s primetime shows — Special Report with Brit Hume — even mentioned the report. On Tuesday, after President Bush held a news conference, the shows did cover it, but with only conservatives and administration supporters discussing it.
I almost felt bad for Bush the other day when he was giving that press release talking about how Iran's not making nukes. He looked like my little cousin (Five years old) when she gets yelled at.
To think, if we'd listened to all the FOX pundits and the likes of Joe Leiberman for the better part of the year demanding war ASAP and trying to scare up images of WWIII, we'd be at war right now over bad intel once again.
It was a year ago this month that Seymour Hersh wrote in the New Yorker that the White House (ie: Cheney) was pushing back against the release of a National Intelligence Estimate on Iran that had failed to find any evidence of an ongoing nuclear weapons program. Once again I guess you could say Sy is the polar opposite of ‘the boy who cried wolf’.’
Wolf Blitzer had him on to discuss it and what to make of the new NIE and the recent claims by the President that he was just informed about it’s contents a week ago.
Quote:
Hersh: What’s interesting here is the President’s position. As you know today in his news conference he said he only learned about this the other week.
Blitzer: He said he only got the word from Mike McConnell, the National Intelligence Director, last week that there was in fact now a new the National Intelligence Estimate, although last Aug he was told there is some new information - we haven’t vetted it - it’s not yet confirmed - there may be some new information. He only says that he learned about the new NIE last week.
Hersh: Look, it’s a lose-lose for them. Either he did know what was going on at the highest levels - the fight I’m talking about began last year. I was writing about something in November and also you mentioned earlier. They were aware of a big dispute inside the community that is between the White House and the community about this. Now, maybe he didn’t know what was going on at the Vice Presidential level about something that serious. If so, I mean, we pay him to know these things and not to make statements based on information that turns out not to be accurate, or else he is misrepresenting what he knows. I don’t think there is any question this is going to pose a serious credibility problem. I assume people are going to be asking more and more questions about what did he know, when. …
It’s little wonder why Seymour Hersh is so often the target of fierce criticism from The Administration as he’s been a thorn in their side just as he has many an administration before them. Sy has earned his place as one of the US’s greatest investigative reporters/muckrakers ever after his exposing many of the greatest scandals of our time. He broke the My Lai massacre, the torture at Abu Ghraib, and the CIA’s “Family Jewels” which was Nixon wiretapping journalists, dissidents and antiwar protesters, that led to the Church hearings which in turn led to th FISA law, and even Clinton’s bombing of a pharmaceutical factory in Sudan, just to name a few of his more well known exposes.
In the wake of a National Intelligence Estimate that concluded Iran stopped its nuclear-weapons program in 2003, the White House story on what Bush knew when has been burdened by contradictions and apparent falsehoods.
President Bush was told in August that Iran’s nuclear weapons program “may be suspended,” the White House said Wednesday, which seemingly contradicts the account of the meeting given by Bush Tuesday.
Adm. Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, told Bush the new information might cause intelligence officials to change their assessment of the Iranian program, but said analysts needed to review the new data before making a final judgment, White House press secretary Dana Perino said late Wednesday.
“Director McConnell said that the new information might cause the intelligence community to change its assessment of Iran’s covert nuclear program, but the intelligence community was not prepared to draw any conclusions at that point in time, and it wouldn’t be right to speculate until they had time to examine and analyze the new data,” Perino said in a statement issued by the White House.
The new account from Perino seems to contradict the president’s version of his August conversation with McConnell and raised new questions about why Bush continued to warn the American public about a threat from Iran two months after being told a new assessment was in the works.
Of course it contradicts Bush’s version. On Tuesday, the White House line was that Bush wasn’t given any sense of what the latest Iranian intelligence said. On Wednesday, the White House line was that Bush was told the latest Iranian intelligence suggested Iran’s nuclear program might not exist.
The president is stuck in a lie he can’t get out of.
To think, if we'd listened to all the FOX pundits and the likes of Joe Leiberman for the better part of the year demanding war ASAP and trying to scare up images of WWIII, we'd be at war right now over bad intel once again.
It was a year ago this month that Seymour Hersh wrote in the New Yorker that the White House (ie: Cheney) was pushing back against the release of a National Intelligence Estimate on Iran that had failed to find any evidence of an ongoing nuclear weapons program. Once again I guess you could say Sy is the polar opposite of ‘the boy who cried wolf’.’
Wolf Blitzer had him on to discuss it and what to make of the new NIE and the recent claims by the President that he was just informed about it’s contents a week ago.
Quote:
Hersh: What’s interesting here is the President’s position. As you know today in his news conference he said he only learned about this the other week.
Blitzer: He said he only got the word from Mike McConnell, the National Intelligence Director, last week that there was in fact now a new the National Intelligence Estimate, although last Aug he was told there is some new information - we haven’t vetted it - it’s not yet confirmed - there may be some new information. He only says that he learned about the new NIE last week.
Hersh: Look, it’s a lose-lose for them. Either he did know what was going on at the highest levels - the fight I’m talking about began last year. I was writing about something in November and also you mentioned earlier. They were aware of a big dispute inside the community that is between the White House and the community about this. Now, maybe he didn’t know what was going on at the Vice Presidential level about something that serious. If so, I mean, we pay him to know these things and not to make statements based on information that turns out not to be accurate, or else he is misrepresenting what he knows. I don’t think there is any question this is going to pose a serious credibility problem. I assume people are going to be asking more and more questions about what did he know, when. …
It’s little wonder why Seymour Hersh is so often the target of fierce criticism from The Administration as he’s been a thorn in their side just as he has many an administration before them. Sy has earned his place as one of the US’s greatest investigative reporters/muckrakers ever after his exposing many of the greatest scandals of our time. He broke the My Lai massacre, the torture at Abu Ghraib, and the CIA’s “Family Jewels” which was Nixon wiretapping journalists, dissidents and antiwar protesters, that led to the Church hearings which in turn led to th FISA law, and even Clinton’s bombing of a pharmaceutical factory in Sudan, just to name a few of his more well known exposes.
In the wake of a National Intelligence Estimate that concluded Iran stopped its nuclear-weapons program in 2003, the White House story on what Bush knew when has been burdened by contradictions and apparent falsehoods.
President Bush was told in August that Iran’s nuclear weapons program “may be suspended,” the White House said Wednesday, which seemingly contradicts the account of the meeting given by Bush Tuesday.
Adm. Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, told Bush the new information might cause intelligence officials to change their assessment of the Iranian program, but said analysts needed to review the new data before making a final judgment, White House press secretary Dana Perino said late Wednesday.
“Director McConnell said that the new information might cause the intelligence community to change its assessment of Iran’s covert nuclear program, but the intelligence community was not prepared to draw any conclusions at that point in time, and it wouldn’t be right to speculate until they had time to examine and analyze the new data,” Perino said in a statement issued by the White House.
The new account from Perino seems to contradict the president’s version of his August conversation with McConnell and raised new questions about why Bush continued to warn the American public about a threat from Iran two months after being told a new assessment was in the works.
Of course it contradicts Bush’s version. On Tuesday, the White House line was that Bush wasn’t given any sense of what the latest Iranian intelligence said. On Wednesday, the White House line was that Bush was told the latest Iranian intelligence suggested Iran’s nuclear program might not exist.
The president is stuck in a lie he can’t get out of.
"We'd be at war with Iran", Whomod?
I guess the same way we're at war with North Korea over nukes?
Try to be a little less hyperbolic.
I'd agree with you that Bush and Cheney favor invasion of Iran. But there are a lot of other difficult hurdles at this point before we'd get to war, and in addition to a backlash such a war would cause by Senate Democrats and many of their fellow Senate Republicans, probably half the Pentagon leadership would resign in protest if Iraq invasion were to happen in the current situation.
I think the neo-cons are a near-dead movement at this point, who are trying to finish with some diplomatic accomplishments, and to not destroy the chances of a Republican getting elected in Nov 2008.
And as I said, regardless of the desire for war in Iran, the intelligence projecting the likelihood that Iranian nukes have been on hold since 2003 are not absolute, just the best current projection. Similar projections completely missed the fall of the Berlin Wall, the fall of Poland and other Soviet governments in eastern Europe, and even the collapse of the Soviet Union itself in 1991. So I wouldn't put absolute stock in our safety from Iranian nukes. That doesn't mean I think we should immediately go to war with them, but I do think we should continue to ratchet up the pressure to abandon their nuclear ambitions altogether, and open their facilities up to U.N. weapons inspectors.
Regarding Wolf Blitzer and the whole thing about what Bush knew and when he knew it, Bush said he got earlier overview of the intelligence that the Iranian nuclear program was taken off the fast track, but that intelligence has to be verified before it can be considered reliable. Would that the facts were more verified regarding Chalabi prior to the Iraq war. I don't think Bush, Cheney, or the Democrats and the Republicans in the Senate are likely to repeat that embarrassment.
Bush's and others' remarks were hypothetical (i.e., "if there's a threat, we want to avoid W W III..."), and not an immediate call to war. But as I said before, Iran is the last country we want to have nuclear weapons, given their fanaticism, and stated eagerness to use nukes, if acquired.
Stating the threat is not the same as rushing to war.
To think, if we'd listened to all the FOX pundits and the likes of Joe Leiberman for the better part of the year demanding war ASAP and trying to scare up images of WWIII, we'd be at war right now over bad intel once again.
It was a year ago this month that Seymour Hersh wrote in the New Yorker that the White House (ie: Cheney) was pushing back against the release of a National Intelligence Estimate on Iran that had failed to find any evidence of an ongoing nuclear weapons program. Once again I guess you could say Sy is the polar opposite of ‘the boy who cried wolf’.’
Wolf Blitzer had him on to discuss it and what to make of the new NIE and the recent claims by the President that he was just informed about it’s contents a week ago.
Quote:
Hersh: What’s interesting here is the President’s position. As you know today in his news conference he said he only learned about this the other week.
Blitzer: He said he only got the word from Mike McConnell, the National Intelligence Director, last week that there was in fact now a new the National Intelligence Estimate, although last Aug he was told there is some new information - we haven’t vetted it - it’s not yet confirmed - there may be some new information. He only says that he learned about the new NIE last week.
Hersh: Look, it’s a lose-lose for them. Either he did know what was going on at the highest levels - the fight I’m talking about began last year. I was writing about something in November and also you mentioned earlier. They were aware of a big dispute inside the community that is between the White House and the community about this. Now, maybe he didn’t know what was going on at the Vice Presidential level about something that serious. If so, I mean, we pay him to know these things and not to make statements based on information that turns out not to be accurate, or else he is misrepresenting what he knows. I don’t think there is any question this is going to pose a serious credibility problem. I assume people are going to be asking more and more questions about what did he know, when. …
It’s little wonder why Seymour Hersh is so often the target of fierce criticism from The Administration as he’s been a thorn in their side just as he has many an administration before them. Sy has earned his place as one of the US’s greatest investigative reporters/muckrakers ever after his exposing many of the greatest scandals of our time. He broke the My Lai massacre, the torture at Abu Ghraib, and the CIA’s “Family Jewels” which was Nixon wiretapping journalists, dissidents and antiwar protesters, that led to the Church hearings which in turn led to th FISA law, and even Clinton’s bombing of a pharmaceutical factory in Sudan, just to name a few of his more well known exposes.
In the wake of a National Intelligence Estimate that concluded Iran stopped its nuclear-weapons program in 2003, the White House story on what Bush knew when has been burdened by contradictions and apparent falsehoods.
President Bush was told in August that Iran’s nuclear weapons program “may be suspended,” the White House said Wednesday, which seemingly contradicts the account of the meeting given by Bush Tuesday.
Adm. Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, told Bush the new information might cause intelligence officials to change their assessment of the Iranian program, but said analysts needed to review the new data before making a final judgment, White House press secretary Dana Perino said late Wednesday.
“Director McConnell said that the new information might cause the intelligence community to change its assessment of Iran’s covert nuclear program, but the intelligence community was not prepared to draw any conclusions at that point in time, and it wouldn’t be right to speculate until they had time to examine and analyze the new data,” Perino said in a statement issued by the White House.
The new account from Perino seems to contradict the president’s version of his August conversation with McConnell and raised new questions about why Bush continued to warn the American public about a threat from Iran two months after being told a new assessment was in the works.
Of course it contradicts Bush’s version. On Tuesday, the White House line was that Bush wasn’t given any sense of what the latest Iranian intelligence said. On Wednesday, the White House line was that Bush was told the latest Iranian intelligence suggested Iran’s nuclear program might not exist.
The president is stuck in a lie he can’t get out of.
"We'd be at war with Iran", Whomod?
I guess the same way we're at war with North Korea over nukes?
Try to be a little less hyperbolic.
I'd agree with you that Bush and Cheney favor invasion of Iran. But there are a lot of other difficult hurdles at this point before we'd get to war, and in addition to a backlash such a war would cause by Senate Democrats and many of their fellow Senate Republicans, probably half the Pentagon leadership would resign in protest if Iraq invasion were to happen in the current situation.
I think the neo-cons are a near-dead movement at this point, who are trying to finish with some diplomatic accomplishments, and to not destroy the chances of a Republican getting elected in Nov 2008.
And as I said, regardless of the desire for war in Iran, the intelligence projecting the likelihood that Iranian nukes have been on hold since 2003 are not absolute, just the best current projection. Similar projections completely missed the fall of the Berlin Wall, the fall of Poland and other Soviet governments in eastern Europe, and even the collapse of the Soviet Union itself in 1991. So I wouldn't put absolute stock in our safety from Iranian nukes. That doesn't mean I think we should immediately go to war with them, but I do think we should continue to ratchet up the pressure to abandon their nuclear ambitions altogether, and open their facilities up to U.N. weapons inspectors.
Regarding Wolf Blitzer and the whole thing about what Bush knew and when he knew it, Bush said he got earlier overview of the intelligence that the Iranian nuclear program was taken off the fast track, but that intelligence has to be verified before it can be considered reliable. Would that the facts were more verified regarding Chalabi prior to the Iraq war. I don't think Bush, Cheney, or the Democrats and the Republicans in the Senate are likely to repeat that embarrassment.
Bush's and others' remarks were hypothetical (i.e., "if there's a threat, we want to avoid W W III..."), and not an immediate call to war. But as I said before, Iran is the last country we want to have nuclear weapons, given their fanaticism, and stated eagerness to use nukes, if acquired.
Stating the threat is not the same as rushing to war.
Try to be less narrow minded WB
The situation with Iran was completely diffrent with N.Korea. Your side of the fence pushed much harder for a conflict with them. From day one it was nothing but diplomatic actions with N.Korea. With Iran the right tried to use diplomacy but was constantly pointing out that war may be necessary.
The rationalization being we should let China deal with N.Korea.
Rudy Giuliani will probably regret going on Meet The Press yesterday. Tim Russert asks Rudy if he still agrees with the statements made by his unhinged, campaign foreign policy adviser, Norman Podhoretz, who thinks the latest NIE report on Iran was a hit job on President Bush, and recently wrote that he “hopes and prays” that President Bush bombs Iran soon — and that Rudy agrees with him completely.
Giuliani tries and succeeds in completely scrubbing Podhoretz from the conversation, (without actually answering the question, of course) saying that while he believes the military option must be left on the table, he thinks invading Iran should only be done as a last resort. This shows a big disconnect in the Giuliani campaign, but when it comes right down to it, does anybody believe him?
It's funny when people have to publicly disavow their own hired nutjobs on TV.
Speaking of nutjobs.....
Can’t have Sunday without a little William “the Bloody” Kristol bloviation. Poor little Bloody Bill didn’t like that NIE report, which directly contradicted all of his assertions and cheerleading for war with Iran. Watch him spin the fact that once again he was wrong–not a little wrong, but wrong on a potentially catastrophic level–and try lamely to turn it into a positive:
Quote:
I believe we invaded a neighboring country in 2003 and removed their dictator and that sent shock waves through the region and at the time people were quite worried. Qaddafi gave up his program, he dismantled his. We took it out. Iran didn’t dismantle anything. That’s why they remain a threat. They halted it, maybe they’ve restarted it, maybe not. This is yet another feather in the cap for the invasion of Iraq.
Oh, poor misguided, completely clueless Kristol. Once again, you pull facts out of your posterior that probably sound correct to the average Fox viewer, but here in the reality-based community, we know you’re just as wrong here as you’ve been about basically every single thing that’s come out of your mouth. Qaddafi didn’t give up his program because we invaded Iraq. Qaddafi signaled years ago that he was willing to negotiate and his eventual concessions came from years and years of concerted diplomatic effort. You know, the kind your buddy Bush refused to do with Iran, leaving it to six other nations? And the unmitigated arrogance to assume that the every nation’s actions revolve around the U.S. approval shows how little you understand about anything outside your little bubble. The nuclear program in Iran was shut down because the Iranian Supreme Leader felt that a nuclear program was not consistent with Islam.
That’s no feather in the cap, Billy Boy. This is proof that once again, listening to anything you say just leaves you even less informed than before. And yet, sadly, you’ll be back next Sunday being wrong again.
Plus I always find that weaselly closet gayish man-boy difficult to swallow as he always sits there and grins about matters of life and death and deploying troops as if he's playing a video game.
In the view of some modern conservative authors, McCarthy's place in history should be re-evaluated. Ann Coulter's book Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism is a notable example of this. Coulter, a controversial right-wing author, devotes a chapter to her defense of McCarthy, and much of the book to a defense of McCarthyism.
She states, for example, "Everything you think you know about McCarthy is a hegemonic lie. Liberals denounced McCarthy because they were afraid of getting caught, so they fought back like animals to hide their own collaboration with a regime as evil as the Nazis."[77] Other authors who have voiced similar opinions include William Norman Grigg of the John Birch Society,[78] and M. Stanton Evans.[79] Another recent defense of McCarthy is William F. Buckley, Jr.'s sympathetic fictionalized biography, The Redhunter: a Novel Based on the Life of Senator Joe McCarthy.[80]
These authors frequently cite new evidence, in the form of Venona decrypted Soviet messages, Soviet espionage data now opened to the West, and newly released transcripts of closed hearings before McCarthy's subcommittee, asserting that these have vindicated McCarthy, showing that many of his identifications of Communists were correct. It has also been said that Venona and the Soviet archives have revealed that the scale of Soviet espionage activity in the United States during the 1940s and 1950s was larger than many scholars suspected,[81][82] and that this too stands as a vindication of McCarthy.
Some responses to these viewpoints have been written by Kevin Drum[83] and Johann Hari.[84] Historian John Earl Haynes has also argued against this 'rehabilitation' of McCarthy, saying that McCarthy's attempts to "make anticommunism a partisan weapon" actually "threatened [the post-War] anti-Communist consensus", thereby ultimately harming anti-Communist efforts more than helping.[85]
well, gee. if Anne Coulter thinks Mccarthy was a hero I guess that settles the matter.
forget the fact that many people had their lives ruined for refusing to "name names." forget that it was a witch hunt motivated by blind ambition and over the top jingoistic fear. forget that history has shown that he was a nutjob who violated people's rights. paranoid delusional fear, violation of people's rights, and a secretly gay man leading the charge. he was a republican pioneer.
An exiled Iranian opposition group on Tuesday contested a U.S. intelligence report that said Tehran halted a nuclear weapons development program in 2003, insisting the bomb-making program resumed the following year.
"We announce vehemently that the clerical regime is currently continuing its drive to obtain nuclear weapons," said Mohammad Mohaddessin, a spokesman for the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran, or NCRI.
In Tehran, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad rejected the group's assertions.
"Wrong information from non-credible sources has led them (the Americans) astray (in the past)," he told a news conference in the Iranian capital. "You should not bank on information from non-credible sources."
The International Atomic Energy Agency declined to comment on the NCRI's allegation.
The U.S. National Intelligence Estimate released last week said that Iran halted a nuclear weapons development program in 2003 because of international pressure. Mohaddessin told a news conference that Iran appeared to have duped U.S. intelligence into that conclusion.
"The clerical regime leaks false information and intelligence to Western intelligence services, through double agents," Mohaddessin said.
He said Iran did shut down a Tehran weapons program center known as Lavizan-Shian in 2003 under international pressure and demolished the site. However, Mohaddessin said the Iranian authorities shifted their weapons program to other sites, which resumed the work in 2004.
The NCRI is the political wing of the People's Mujahedeen of Iran, an opposition group that advocates the overthrow of the government in Tehran. The NCRI has been designated a terrorist group by Iran and by both the United States and the European Union.
"This group can't be the source of correct information," Ahmadinejad said, pointing to past attacks by the group that killed Iranian civilians.
It was not possible to independently verify the NCRI claims, which Mohaddessin said came from sources within Iran, including some among staff at covert nuclear plants.
Four years ago, the group disclosed information about two hidden nuclear sites that helped uncover nearly two decades of covert Iranian atomic activity. But much of the information it has presented since then to back up claims that Iran has a secret weapons program has not been publicly verified.
Mohaddessin said Iran was developing nuclear weapons technology at a site near the original plant in the Tehran neighborhood of Lavizan and other units around the country. He said the group had checked with its sources in the past week and discovered that the centers were still working.
"These centers are working just now for producing nuclear bombs. This is contrary to the United States' National Intelligence Estimate," he said.
Iran claims its nuclear development is peaceful and aimed at producing energy.
whomod said: I generally don't like it when people decide to play by the rules against people who don't play by the rules. It tends to put you immediately at a disadvantage and IMO is a sign of true weakness. This is true both in politics and on the internet."
Fuckin hell. Making nukes, not making nukes, making nukes, not making nukes. It's kinda like Iraq. Things are improving, getting worse, things are improving, getting worse.
No matter what this govt. is incompetent. Democrat or Republican. We'd be better of with complete fucking anarchy at this point.*
Actually, why don't we just let them test the nukes? we can place them right in the smack dang middle of Teheran...
I'm gonna roll with Chant here...
For the sake of ending this flapdoodle I'm inclined to agree except (and this is crazy, I know) but all Muslims aren't evil and therefore not everybody in Iran deserves to die. So then I think to myself...maybe, just maybe, we should avoid nuking them or helping them nuke themselves.
Plus I always find that weaselly closet gayish man-boy difficult to swallow as he always sits there and grins about matters of life and death and deploying troops as if he's playing a video game.
The Associated Press is reporting this morning that the International Atomic Energy Agency has commenced a new round of talks with Iran over traces of weapons-grade uranium that have been found at a university in Tehran.
So, just to recap, eight days after the U.S. intelligence community certifies “with high confidence” that Iran halted its nuclear weapons work no less than four years ago, the UN is in talks with the Iranian regime about why it, in fact, hasn’t halted anything of the sort.
The Associated Press is reporting this morning that the International Atomic Energy Agency has commenced a new round of talks with Iran over traces of weapons-grade uranium that have been found at a university in Tehran.
So, just to recap, eight days after the U.S. intelligence community certifies “with high confidence” that Iran halted its nuclear weapons work no less than four years ago, the UN is in talks with the Iranian regime about why it, in fact, hasn’t halted anything of the sort.
Ohhhh....kay....
*sigh*
This is the reason that I try to import the ENTIRE article, not just the parts that bolster my argument. Yeah, I may be accused of "cutting and pasting" but at least it spares everyone blatantly misleading (by omission) posts like yours.
Let me fill in a gap:
Quote:
In 2003, the IAEA revealed other incidents where traces of weapons-grade uranium were found elsewhere in the country, but Iran said those traces came from imported equipment that had been contaminated before it was purchased.
IAEA findings in 2005 vindicated Iran, saying the traces of highly enriched uranium were found on centrifuge parts that had entered the country already contaminated and were not a result of Iranian nuclear activities. The centrifuge parts were bought from Pakistan.
The IAEA delegation in Monday talks was headed by Herman Nackartes, head of the watchdog's Safeguard Operations department.
In its November report, the IAEA also said it requested access to documents, individuals and relevant equipment and locations for sample-taking to determine the source of the contamination.
Iran officials taking part in the talks must answer all IAEA questions about how the uranium particles got to the university.
While Iran has responded to many IAEA questions about past nuclear activities such as P-1 and P-2 centrifuges, a technology used to enrich uranium, some issues still remain unresolved, such as the university contamination.
Which is all good and fine. They need to answer for that particular contamination. Based on your posting however, you act as if it's some smoking gun that vindicates all the Iran hysteria. The article clearly shows that this has been an issue before and it's been shown to have been due to prior contamination before Iran purchased the parts.
So it'd be prudent to still hold back on the fighter jets, Tex.
An exiled Iranian opposition group on Tuesday contested a U.S. intelligence report that said Tehran halted a nuclear weapons development program in 2003, insisting the bomb-making program resumed the following year.
"We announce vehemently that the clerical regime is currently continuing its drive to obtain nuclear weapons," said Mohammad Mohaddessin, a spokesman for the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran, or NCRI.
In Tehran, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad rejected the group's assertions.
"Wrong information from non-credible sources has led them (the Americans) astray (in the past)," he told a news conference in the Iranian capital. "You should not bank on information from non-credible sources."
The International Atomic Energy Agency declined to comment on the NCRI's allegation.
The U.S. National Intelligence Estimate released last week said that Iran halted a nuclear weapons development program in 2003 because of international pressure. Mohaddessin told a news conference that Iran appeared to have duped U.S. intelligence into that conclusion.
"The clerical regime leaks false information and intelligence to Western intelligence services, through double agents," Mohaddessin said.
He said Iran did shut down a Tehran weapons program center known as Lavizan-Shian in 2003 under international pressure and demolished the site. However, Mohaddessin said the Iranian authorities shifted their weapons program to other sites, which resumed the work in 2004.
The NCRI is the political wing of the People's Mujahedeen of Iran, an opposition group that advocates the overthrow of the government in Tehran. The NCRI has been designated a terrorist group by Iran and by both the United States and the European Union.
"This group can't be the source of correct information," Ahmadinejad said, pointing to past attacks by the group that killed Iranian civilians.
It was not possible to independently verify the NCRI claims, which Mohaddessin said came from sources within Iran, including some among staff at covert nuclear plants.
Four years ago, the group disclosed information about two hidden nuclear sites that helped uncover nearly two decades of covert Iranian atomic activity. But much of the information it has presented since then to back up claims that Iran has a secret weapons program has not been publicly verified.
Mohaddessin said Iran was developing nuclear weapons technology at a site near the original plant in the Tehran neighborhood of Lavizan and other units around the country. He said the group had checked with its sources in the past week and discovered that the centers were still working.
"These centers are working just now for producing nuclear bombs. This is contrary to the United States' National Intelligence Estimate," he said.
Iran claims its nuclear development is peaceful and aimed at producing energy.
Oh brother...
haven't we danced this dance twice already?
The first time before the Kuwait/Iraq war with the Kuwaiti ambassadors daughter lying to Congress about babies and incubators and the next time with Ahmed Chalabi and "Curveball"?
whomod User apoplectic with liberal rage 3000+ posts Fri Jan 11 2008 01:47 AM Reading a post Forum: Politics and Current Events Thread: Iran Volunteers to Test Israeli Nukes
Image from Iranian video depicting the Jan. 7 encounter with U.S. warships in the Strait of Hormuz.
WASHINGTON, Jan 10 (IPS) - Despite the official and media portrayal of the incident in the Strait of Hormuz early Monday morning as a serious threat to U.S. ships from Iranian speedboats that nearly resulted in a "battle at sea", new information over the past three days suggests that the incident did not involve such a threat and that no U.S. commander was on the verge of firing at the Iranian boats.
The new information that appears to contradict the original version of the incident includes the revelation that U.S. officials spliced the audio recording of an alleged Iranian threat onto to a videotape of the incident. That suggests that the threatening message may not have come in immediately after the initial warning to Iranian boats from a U.S. warship, as appears to do on the video.
Also unraveling the story is testimony from a former U.S. naval officer that non-official chatter is common on the channel used to communicate with the Iranian boats and testimony from the commander of the U.S. 5th fleet that the commanding officers of the U.S. warships involved in the incident never felt the need to warn the Iranians of a possible use of force against them.
Further undermining the U.S. version of the incident is a video released by Iran Thursday showing an Iranian naval officer on a small boat hailing one of three ships.
The Iranian commander is heard to say, "Coalition warship 73, this is Iranian navy patrol boat." He then requests the "side numbers" of the U.S. warships. A voice with a U.S. accent replies, "This is coalition warship 73. I am operating in international waters."
The dramatic version of the incident reported by U.S. news media throughout Tuesday and Wednesday suggested that Iranian speedboats, apparently belonging to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard navy, had made moves to attack three U.S. warships entering the Strait and that the U.S. commander had been on the verge of firing at them when they broke off.
Typical of the network coverage was a story by ABC's Jonathan Karl quoting a Pentagon official as saying the Iranian boats "were a heartbeat from being blown up".
Bush administration officials seized on the incident to advance the portrayal of Iran as a threat and to strike a more threatening stance toward Iran. National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley declared Wednesday that the incident "almost involved an exchange of fire between our forces and Iranian forces". President George W. Bush declared during his Mideast trip Wednesday that there would be "serious consequences" if Iran attacked U.S. ships and repeated his assertion that Iran is "a threat to world peace".
Central to the depiction of the incident as involving a threat to U.S. warships is a mysterious pair of messages that the sailor who heard them onboard immediately interpreted as saying, "I am coming at you...", and "You will explode after a few minutes." But the voice in the audio clearly said "I am coming to you," and the second message was much less clear.
Furthermore, as the New York Times noted Thursday, the recording carries no ambient noise, such as the sounds of a motor, the sea or wind, which should have been audible if the broadcast had been made from one of the five small Iranian boats.
A veteran U.S. naval officer who had served as a surface warfare officer aboard a U.S. Navy destroyer in the Gulf sent a message to the New York Times on-line column "The Lede" Wednesday pointing out that in the Persian Gulf, the "bridge-to-bridge" radio channel used to communicate between ships "is like a bad CB radio" with many people using it for "hurling racial slurs" and "threats". The former officer wrote that his "first thought" was that the message "might not have even come from one of the Iranian craft".
Pentagon officials admitted to the Times that they could not rule out that the broadcast might have come from another source
The five Iran boats involved were hardly in a position to harm the three U.S. warships. Although Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman described the Iranian boats as "highly maneuverable patrol craft" that were "visibly armed," he failed to note that these are tiny boats carrying only a two- or three-man crew and that they are normally armed only with machine guns that could do only surface damage to a U.S. ship.
The only boat that was close enough to be visible to the U.S. ships was unarmed, as an enlarged photo of the boat from the navy video clearly shows.
The U.S. warships were not concerned about the possibility that the Iranian boats were armed with heavier weapons capable of doing serious damage. Asked by a reporter whether any of the vessels had anti-ship missiles or torpedoes, Vice Adm. Kevin Cosgriff, Commander of the 5th Fleet, answered that none of them had either of those two weapons.
"I didn't get the sense from the reports I was receiving that there was a sense of being afraid of these five boats," said Cosgriff.
The edited Navy video shows a crewman issuing an initial warning to approaching boats, but the footage of the boats maneuvering provides no visual evidence of Iranian boats "making a run on U.S. ships" as claimed by CBS news Wednesday in its report based on the new video.
Vice Adm. Cosgriff also failed to claim any run toward the U.S. ships following the initial warning. Cosgriff suggested that the Iranian boat's manoeuvres were "unduly provocative" only because of the "aggregate of their manoeuvres, the radio call and the dropping of objects in the water".
He described the objects dropped by the Iranian boat as being "white, box-like objects that floated". That description indicates that the objects were clearly not mines, which would have been dark and would have sunk immediately. Cosgriff indicated that the ships merely "passed by them safely" without bothering to investigate whether they were explosives of some kind.
The apparent absence of concern on the part of the U.S. ships' commanding officers about the floating objects suggests that they recognised that the Iranians were engaging in a symbolic gesture having to do with laying mines.
Cosgriff's answers to reporters' questions indicated that the story promoted earlier by Pentagon officials that one of the U.S . ships came very close to firing at the Iranian boats seriously distorted what actually happened. When Cosgriff was asked whether the crew ever gave warning to the Iranian boats that they "could come under fire", he said the commanding officers "did not believe they needed to fire warning shots".
As for the report circulated by at least one Pentagon official to the media that one of the commanders was "close to firing", Cosgriff explained that "close to" meant that the commander was "working through a series of procedures". He added, "[I]n his mind, he might have been closing in on that point."
Despite Cosgriff's account, which contradicted earlier Pentagon portrayals of the incident as a confrontation, not a single news outlet modified its earlier characterisation of the incident. After the Cosgriff briefing, Associated Press carried a story that said, " U.S. forces were taking steps toward firing on the Iranians to defend themselves, said the U.S. naval commander in the region. But the boats -- believed to be from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard's navy -- turned and moved away, officials said."
That was quite different from what Cosgriff actually said.
In its story covering the Cosgriff briefing, Reuters cited "other Pentagon officials, speaking on condition of anonymity" as saying that "a U.S. captain was in the process of ordering sailors to open fire when the Iranian boats moved away" -- a story that Cosgriff had specifically denied.
*Gareth Porter is an historian and national security policy analyst. His latest book, "Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam", was published in June 2005.
I wonder how many more fake provocations we'll get until these guys realize they aern't going to goad and inflame passions in order to start a war with Iran before Bush's term is up.
But he said that probably the "most historically significant feature" of the declassified report was the retelling of the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident.
That was a reported North Vietnamese attack on American destroyers that helped lead to president Lyndon Johnson's sharp escalation of American forces in Vietnam.
The author of the report "demonstrates that not only is it not true, as (then US) secretary of defense Robert McNamara told Congress, that the evidence of an attack was 'unimpeachable,' but that to the contrary, a review of the classified signals intelligence proves that 'no attack happened that night,'" FAS said in a statement.
"What this study demonstrated is that the available intelligence shows that there was no attack. It's a dramatic reversal of the historical record," Aftergood said.
"There were previous indications of this but this is the first time we have seen the complete study," he said.
The only thing that's clear regarding that Iranian/U.S. potential clash in the Straight of Hormuz, Whomod, is that there was confusion about who exactly said what over the radio (whether or not the Iranian message to the U.S. boats came from one of the five Iranian boats, or another source). What's known for certain is they were speeding toward a U.S. ship, but veered away before they were fired upon.
This is typical between two hostile nations, for enemies to test reaction time of the U.S. response times, and vice versa (of the U.S. to test Russian, Chinese, or others' response time).
You --of course!-- immediately jump to the highly speculative conclusion that this was manufactured provocation by the U.S. for an invasion of Iran. Because Bush and Cheney are eeeeeevilll !!
So, based on nothing specific and a lot of speculation, you again slander your own government and take the side of those who are truly evil, to slander your own country. There was no exchange of fire, so it doesn't rise to the level of being a provocation for U.S. retaliation or invasion.
Originally Posted By: from article above
The five Iran boats involved were hardly in a position to harm the three U.S. warships. Although Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman described the Iranian boats as "highly maneuverable patrol craft" that were "visibly armed," he failed to note that these are tiny boats carrying only a two- or three-man crew and that they are normally armed only with machine guns that could do only surface damage to a U.S. ship.
The ship that bombed the U.S.S. Cole, off the coast of Yemen, similarly appeared to not pose a threat to a U.S. ship.
You, I guess, would prefer if the U.S. Navy assumed these Iranian boats were not a potential threat, and that our navy didn't take every precaution, and more U.S. soldiers ended up dead as a result?
Like the incident at the beginning of Bush's presidency where a Chinese plane confronted a U.S. plane off China's coast, like with the U.S.S. Cole, these approaches by foreign vessels can be threatening to U.S. planes and ships, and I don't take them so lightly.
Nor do I assume the evil intent of our leaders in knee-jerk fashion, on the flimsiest evidence and speculation.
An exiled Iranian opposition group claimed Wednesday that Tehran was speeding up a program to develop nuclear weapons. "The Iran regime entered a new phase in its nuclear project," said Mohammad Mohaddessin of the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran.
The NCRI is the political wing of the People's Mujahedeen of Iran, which advocates the overthrow of government in Tehran. The Mujahedeen has been designated a terrorist group by the United States and the European Union as well as Iran.
Mohaddessin claimed that Tehran has established a command and research center near a Tehran university. And, he said, Iran is developing a nuclear warhead for use on medium-range missiles at a site on the southeast edge of Tehran. Mohaddessin also claimed that the regime obtained aid from North Korea.
It was not possible to independently verify the NCRI claims. Mohaddessin said his group got the information from "hundreds" of reports and sources from within the Iranian regime, whom he did not name. He said some of the sources are within the nuclear project itself.
An official of the International Atomic Energy Agency, who spoke anonymously because he was not authorized to talk to the media, said the agency was aware of the allegations. Mohaddessin said he had provided information to the IAEA on Tuesday.
Iran has steadfastly denied it is working to obtain a nuclear bomb, arguing that its nuclear program is civilian.
No doubt the Whomods of the world call this guy a Chalabi, who is trying to whip up U.S. "paranoia" to invade Iran and bring about regime change for them.
Never mind that the Israelis will probably invade Iran long before the U.S. even has the ability to, with current U.S. commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan making U.S. invasion highly unlikely.
It is not the U.S. leading the charge to invade Iran. I think this is a political football that is being punted way back for the next administration to deal with. And if the next administration is Obama, then we might as well get used to Sharia Law, and check our balls at the door.
He must be really confident that Obama's going to win in November. That or he figures it might be fun to recreate his halycon college days and seize an embassy again.
An exiled Iranian opposition group claimed Wednesday that Tehran was speeding up a program to develop nuclear weapons. "The Iran regime entered a new phase in its nuclear project," said Mohammad Mohaddessin of the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran.
The NCRI is the political wing of the People's Mujahedeen of Iran, which advocates the overthrow of government in Tehran. The Mujahedeen has been designated a terrorist group by the United States and the European Union as well as Iran.
Mohaddessin claimed that Tehran has established a command and research center near a Tehran university. And, he said, Iran is developing a nuclear warhead for use on medium-range missiles at a site on the southeast edge of Tehran. Mohaddessin also claimed that the regime obtained aid from North Korea.
It was not possible to independently verify the NCRI claims. Mohaddessin said his group got the information from "hundreds" of reports and sources from within the Iranian regime, whom he did not name. He said some of the sources are within the nuclear project itself.
An official of the International Atomic Energy Agency, who spoke anonymously because he was not authorized to talk to the media, said the agency was aware of the allegations. Mohaddessin said he had provided information to the IAEA on Tuesday.
Iran has steadfastly denied it is working to obtain a nuclear bomb, arguing that its nuclear program is civilian.
So, this group, who's been labeled a terrorist group by OUR government as well as the European Union and Iran, is somehow trustworthy?!?
Knutreturns said: Spoken like the true Greatest RDCW Champ!
I wouldn't venture to guess whether these terrorists are any more trustworthy than the terrorist who actually runs Iran.
Where in my post does it indicate that I thought this was some sort of "smoking gun"? All I did was mention that yet-another source was making the allegation that Iran was working on getting nukes.
