| Author | Message | | smallaxe | | Posted: Sat Feb 03, 2007 10:21 am Post subject: |
| Justifications for attacking Iran on shaky ground
By Jonathan S. Landay and Warren P. Strobel
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration is escalating its confrontation with Iran, sending an additional aircraft carrier and minesweepers into the Persian Gulf as it accuses the Islamic regime in Tehran of arming Shiite Muslim militias in Iraq for attacks on American troops.
A new U.S. intelligence estimate on Friday, however, concluded that Iranian and other outside meddling is "not likely" a major cause of the bloodshed in Iraq, and a new McClatchy analysis of U.S. casualties in Iraq found that Sunni Muslim insurgents, not Iranian-backed Shiites, have mounted most - but not all - of the attacks on American forces.
The Bush administration, which made exaggerated or false claims about Iraq's weapons programs and ties to al-Qaida to justify its 2003 invasion of Iraq, hasn't provided evidence to back up its charges.
Intelligence officials said the Mahdi Army militia of anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has used weapons from Iran to kill Americans in Iraq. But Secretary of Defense Robert Gates confirmed Friday that the administration isn't sure whether Iran's leaders sanctioned the arms shipments to Iraq or whether rogue elements are behind them.
"I don't think that we know the answer to that question," Gates told reporters.
Some experts, citing Bush's order to send more U.S. air and naval forces to the Persian Gulf, worry that President Bush is exaggerating the Iranian role to build a case for attacking Iran's nuclear facilities.
Bush and his top aides deny that they've been exaggerating Iran's role in Iraq, saying it should be seen in the context of Tehran's efforts to dominate the oil-rich Persian Gulf, strengthen Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups and bolster Shiite political power in Lebanon and other Arab countries with large Shiite populations.
They also say the United States has no intention of attacking Iran.
"The president has made clear, the secretary of state has made clear, I've made clear ... we are not planning for a war with Iran," Gates told reporters. "What we are trying to do is, in Iraq, counter what the Iranians are doing to our soldiers, their involvement and activities."
The U.S. government's own data, however, show that Sunni insurgents, not the Shiite militias supported by Iran, have been responsible for most American combat deaths.
According to data provided by Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, an Internet site that closely tracks military and civilian deaths in Iraq, more than two-fifths of the U.S. combat deaths in 2006 occurred in the Sunni heartland of Anbar province, where Iran has virtually no influence.
The proportion of U.S. casualties that occurred in Anbar - 44 percent - was higher than it was in 2005, when it was about 36 percent.
"The vast majority of Americans who are being killed are still being killed by IEDs (improvised explosive devices) set by Sunnis," said Kenneth Pollack, a former CIA and White House expert on Persian Gulf affairs.
Pollack, now at the Washington-based Brookings Institution, questioned the White House's rhetorical campaign and military movements aimed at Iran.
"The evidence that I am seeing does not seem to support the level of rhetoric, let alone the military actions" the administration is taking, Pollack said.
Many experts worry that escalating the tensions could increase the danger that a misstep by either side could lead to open conflict in the Persian Gulf, which could send oil prices soaring, strengthen both Shiite and Sunni extremists and threaten pro-Western Arab nations.
"It's a high risk strategy ... and does have the possibility of actually making things worse," warned Gary Sick of Columbia University, a leading expert on Iran who served in the White House under President Jimmy Carter.
Nevertheless, the Bush administration is under growing pressure from Israel and Arab nations to counter Iran's growing assertiveness.
"The administration is between a rock and a hard place here," said a senior U.S. intelligence official, speaking anonymously because the intelligence on Iran is highly classified. "On one hand, they have to convince people here and abroad that this time they're telling the truth and they've got the goods, which won't be easy. And a lot of our friends in the region, like the Saudis and the Israelis and the Lebanese, are nervous and want us to get tough with Iran."
Challenged by Iran to make its evidence public, the administration has postponed briefings on what one U.S. official called "the Iran dossier."
On Friday, the National Intelligence Council, comprising the top U.S. intelligence analysts, released an assessment of the Iraq crisis that said "lethal support" from Iran to Shiite militants "clearly intensifies" the conflict, but isn't a significant factor.
"Iraq's neighbors influence, and are influenced by, events in Iraq, but the involvement of these outside actors is not likely to be a major driver of violence or the prospects for stability because of the self-sustaining" sectarian strife, said the analysis, known as a National Intelligence Estimate.
Intelligence officials said they have strong evidence of Iranian support for Iraqi Shiite militias, especially the Madhi Army. The question is how great a role they're playing in the conflict.
"No one sees a problem," said a U.S. defense official who requested anonymity because the issue involves top-secret intelligence.
The weapons include shaped-charge explosives capable of breaching advanced armor, armor-piercing rocket-propelled grenades and Katyusha rockets, said the senior U.S. intelligence official.
But Iran's motives remain murky, he said.
"Are the Iranians mucking around in Iraq? You bet," he said. "Do they want to make sure they've got a government in Baghdad that's simpatico instead of another war? Yep. But are they fighting a secret war against the Americans in Iraq? We have no evidence of that."
The fact that some Iranian weaponry is flowing to the Mahdi Army, and that Mahdi Army fighters have attacked Americans, doesn't prove that the Iranians are targeting Americans, said a second U.S. intelligence official, who also agreed to speak only on condition of anonymity.
Moreover, a third intelligence official said, Iraq is awash in weapons purchased by Saddam's regime and never secured by U.S. forces after the 2003 invasion. Plenty of Iranian weapons are also "floating around" because the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps created the militia of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), and forces loyal to the Dawa party of U.S.-backed Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki, the official added.
Further compounding the problem, the three U.S. intelligence officials said, is that the Bush administration supports not only Dawa's Maliki, but also two major SCIRI leaders, Abdul Aziz al Hakim and Abdul Adel Mahdi, who are also in the government.
"So what do we do?" said one of the officials. "Accuse the Iranians of supporting the same guys we support? That's awkward." | |  | | smallaxe | | Posted: Sat Feb 03, 2007 7:08 pm Post subject: |
| The United States and Iran: the logic of war
Paul Rogers
1 - 2 - 2007
The Bush administrations's hardline rhetoric, backed by more military hardware in the Persian Gulf, brings a devastating confrontation nearer.
------------------------------------------
The surge in United States troop levels in gathering pace. As it does so, the civilian losses in Iraq continue at an appalling rate: as many as a hundred people often die each day as a result of car-bombs, shootings and other attacks. American soldiers themselves continue to fall. A relatively low level of casualties in the first two weeks of January may have reflected a reduced number of patrols, but from the middle of the month the US casualty rate soared. In the four weeks to 24 January, eighty were killed and 400 wounded.
There is now little expectation in Washington that the surge will have a radical effect, and indeed the notable current tendency is radically to curb expectations. President Bush's nominee to replace General John Abizaid as head of US central command (the military operations centre covering the middle east, including Iraq and Afghanistan) is Admiral William Fallon; during his confirmation hearings in front of the Senate armed-services committee on 30 January, he was notably cautious.
Paul Rogers is professor of peace studies at Bradford University, northern England. He has been writing a weekly column on global security on openDemocracy since 26 September 2001
Two elements of Fallon's thinking were apparent. The first was to limit expectations in Iraq, and to expect any degree of success to be slow in coming, despite the reinforcements now being deployed. The second was to concentrate on curbing the power and influence of Iran, an aspect of the war that has come rapidly to the fore in Washington in the past three months.
This week, under-secretary of state Nicholas Burns warned that Iran was involved in attacks on US forces:
"We have picked up individuals who we believe are giving very sophisticated explosive technology to Shi'a insurgent groups, who then use that technology to target and kill American soldiers. It is a very serious situation. And the message from the United States is that Iran should cease and desist" (National Public Radio, Morning Edition, 1 February 2007)
Burns went on to say that the matter could be resolved by diplomatic means, but repeated the standard administration line that all options remained open including military action, specifically in relation to Iran's nuclear ambitions.
A few commentators have warned of a confrontation with Iran for several years - see, for example, Crisis Action and the Oxford Research Group. Several columns in this series have also emphasised this prospect (see, for example, "Iran, the real focus", 16 March 2006 and "Iran: the politics of the next crisis", 28 September 2006). For the most part, they have been discounted. Today, in the context of the changed mood in Washington - and even though it is an extraordinarily dangerous prospect and seems so far-fetched as to be unbelievable - the risk can no longer be ignored.
Tehran sting
What has happened is this. As the United States predicament in Iraq has steadily deteriorated, the reaction among the more hawkish opinion-formers in the US has been to insist in the strongest terms on the need for victory in Iraq, while seeing Iran as the real reason for current failures. Iran therefore must be dealt with, initially at least in terms of destroying any nuclear capability it may possess or be seeking to acquire. This objective is aided by the rhetoric of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, especially his holocaust-denial propaganda, notwithstanding the fact that much of it is intended to deflect criticism from the mounting failures of his domestic policies.
In one sense, Iran was always the main issue for neo-conservatives: "the road to Tehran runs through Baghdad" was their mantra. Indeed there was a strong view in 2003 that the best way to deal with Iran was by installing a client administration in Iraq, secured by a substantial permanent American military presence at four large bases. Iraq would become a western bastion, with the added double benefit of reducing the significance of a somewhat unpredictable House of Saud while ensuring the Iran would know its place. In essence, regime termination to Iran's east (Afghanistan) and west (Iraq) within two years would achieve a precious strategic success: a pliant Tehran.
It has not exactly worked out like that. Instead, a Taliban revival is underway to the east and a terrible descent into violence to the west, with US forces steadily losing control. US neocons cannot in any sense consider this to be a failure of US policy; someone else must therefore be to blame, and Iran is the obvious candidate. Its culpability is both in its underpinning the evolving role of Shi'a militias in Iraq, and in its working full-tilt to develop nuclear weapons which threaten the United States's closest ally, Israel.
There are, in fact, numerous signs that the Iranian nuclear programme is in serious difficulty. But Iran's president has chosen to announce an expansion of the uranium-enrichment programme, a move calculated to raise tensions as well as (again) to divert his people's attention from domestic concerns. In a further, military initiative that could come to fruition at any time, Iran is reported to have converted one of its ballistic missiles into a satellite launch-vehicle able to lift small reconnaissance satellites into low orbit (see Aviation Week, 26 January 2007). This would be little more than a technological demonstration, but its psychological and political significance across the region would be considerable.
Iran is making progress on two other fronts in ways that annoy Washington. First, Pakistan and India have agreed with Iran a pricing formula for gas delivered to both countries by a planned $7 billion pipeline. Second, and even more of an affront, is Iran's decision to promote close economic, diplomatic and military cooperation with Iraq. This includes an offer of training equipment and advisers for the Iraqi army, aid in civil reconstruction and (most symbolically) the opening of a branch of the Iranian national bank in Baghdad (see James Glanz, "Iran looking to expand its presence in Iraq", International Herald Tribune, 30 January 2007).
In addition to his weekly openDemocracy column, Paul Rogers writes an international security monthly briefing for the Oxford Research Group; for details, click here
Paul Rogers's new book is Into the Long War: Oxford Research Group, International Security Report 2006 (Pluto Press, November 2006)
The cost of conflict
Meanwhile, the overall attitude of the Bush administration has become progressively more hardline. Its more strident comments about the threat from Iran have been accompanied by two other moves that may well be designed to prepare the way for war. As with the increased troop numbers in Iraq, these go directly against the recommendations of the Baker commission's report which called for improved diplomatic links with Tehran.
The first dates back to autumn 2006 when "Bush gave the military secret authorization to kill or capture members of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, including members of a Guard unit known as the Quds Force, and any Iranian intelligence operatives suspected of arming or supporting Shiite militias in Iraq" (see Dafna Linzer & Ann Scott Tyson, "Lethal-Force Order Justified, Bush Says", Washington Post, 27 January 2007). What is significant here is that this decision was only publicised four months later, in what appears to be a deliberate policy of preparing the domestic audience in the US for a crisis with Iran.
The second initiative is the widely publicised deployment of a second US navy carrier battle-group to the region. This initially appeared to be a temporary measure which would entail merely a longer-than-usual overlap between deployments (carrier battle-groups normally deploy for six months before being replaced, but each group has the capability to remain on station for much longer than that, allowing for a short-term doubling-up).
Now, however, it seems that the two-group arrangement is not a temporary political "symbol" but a longer-term arrangement. The point here is that having two carriers in the area at any one time allows for even more "overlap". It will therefore be quite easy to deploy three full carrier battle-groups for extended periods if required.
This is the first time that more than one group has been in the region for any length of time since mid-2003. The resources of a powerful naval force to support any action against Iran are abundantly present.
In these circumstances, the conclusion must be that a direct military confrontation with Iran is now seriously likely in the next six months, no matter how dangerous that might prove. The perils of such a confrontation remain as great as ever; they were assessed in (for example) this Oxford Research Group report in 2006:
It is clear that a full-scale US air attack on Iranian nuclear facilities and related infrastructure could do substantial damage, as well as causing hundreds and probably thousands of casualties. Even a more limited Israeli raid would have a major effect.
Equally clear is the wide range of options open to Iran in responding to such an attack - especially as its principal immediate effect would be a fundamental unifying of opinion in favour of the government (no matter how unpopular it might be in other respects).
The possibilities include:
* immediate withdrawal from the non-proliferation treaty and a wholehearted effort to develop nuclear weapons as quickly as possible - leading to further action by the United States and Israel, and a long war
* action against US forces in Iraq, through Shi'a militia intermediaries on a far larger scale than at present
* direct involvement of Iran's Revolutionary Guards in Iraq
* closure of the Straits of Hormuz, causing a steep increase in world oil prices
* aid and encouragement to Hizbollah in southern Lebanon (especially if Israel was involved in the attacks)
* paramilitary attacks on oil facilities in western Gulf states.
Furthermore, an attack on Iran would be seen by Shi'a groups in many other countries as an attack on them; this would create potential for severe disturbance, not least in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.
Against the trend to escalation, there are fortunately many indications of serious unease by European governments at the prospect of a war with Iran. Moreover, the public mood in countries such as Britain may simply not tolerate another war. There is also a much higher level of knowledge about the risks; Crisis Action plans on 5 February to release a major report on this theme, which highlights the dangers and argues strongly for further diplomatic engagement.
The neocon tide may still be flowing in Washington, but US military action against Iran is certainly not inevitable. A pivotal influence in shaping the key decision could well be the position of the Tony Blair government in London. If one of his last actions in office is to back a US confrontation with Iran, it would be an even more grievous mistake than Britain's Iraq policy - a grim end to his decade in office, and a devastating farewell to people in the middle east whom war will affect most harshly. | | | | smallaxe | | Posted: Mon Feb 05, 2007 7:10 pm Post subject: |
| Why is the US press silent on Brzezinski’s warnings of war against Iran?
By Barry Grey in Washington DC
Feb 3, 2007, 04:52
The major national newspapers and most broadcast outlets failed even to report Thursday’s stunning testimony by former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Brzezinski, national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter, is among the most prominent figures within the US foreign policy establishment. He delivered a scathing critique of the war in Iraq and warned that the policy of the Bush administration was leading inevitably to a military confrontation with Iran which would have disastrous consequences for US imperialism.
Most significant and disturbing was Brzezinski’s suggestion that the Bush administration might manufacture a pretext to justify a military attack on Iran. Presenting what he called a “plausible scenario for a military collision with Iraq,” Brzezinski laid out the following series of events: “Iraqi failure to meet the benchmarks, followed by accusations of Iranian responsibility for the failure, then by some provocation in Iraq or a terrorist act in the US blamed on Iran, culminating in, quote/unquote, ‘defensive’ US military action against Iran...” [Emphasis added].
Thus Brzezinski opined that a US military attack on Iran would be an aggressive action, presented as though it were a defensive response to alleged Iranian provocations, and came close to suggesting, without explicitly stating as much, that the White House was capable of manufacturing or allowing a terrorist attack within the US to provide a casus belli for war.
It is self-evident that such testimony at an open congressional hearing from someone with decades of experience in the US foreign policy establishment and the closest ties to the military and intelligence apparatus is not only newsworthy, but of the most immense and grave import. Any objective and conscientious newspaper or news channel would consider it an obligation to inform the public of such a development.
Yet neither the New York Times nor the Washington Post carried so much as a news brief on Brzezinski’s testimony in their Friday editions. Nor did USA Today or the Wall Street Journal. All of these publications, of course, have well-staffed Washington bureaus and regularly cover congressional hearings—especially those dealing with such burning political questions as the war in Iraq.
There is no innocent explanation for their decision to suppress this story. The Washington Post on Thursday published a large page-two column and photo on Henry Kissinger’s appearance the previous day before the same Senate committee. The former secretary of state under Richard Nixon gave testimony that was generally supportive of the Bush administration’s war policy.
Moreover, the Post’s web edition carried an Associated Press report on Brzezinski’s appearance. That article introduced subtle but significant changes to Brzezinski’s speculative scenario of the road to war with Iran which had the effect of underplaying the sharpness and urgency of Brzezinski’s critique of the Bush administration. It omitted the suggestion that a terrorist attack within the US could become the justification for war, and it removed the quotation marks from Brzezinski’s talk of a “defensive” war against Iran.
The World Socialist Web Site on Friday telephoned the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal and USA Today to ask for an explanation for their failure to report Brzezinski’s testimony. None of the newspapers returned our calls.
As for the television news outlets, the “News Hour with Jim Lehrer” on PBS showed a clip of Brzezinski laying out his war scenario before the Senate committee, without making any comment. “NBC Nightly News” ignored the story entirely.
The suppression of this damning critique of the Iraq war, the conspiratorial methods of the Bush administration, and its drive to an even wider war in the Middle East is one more demonstration of the corrupt and reactionary character of the American mass media. It indicates that the establishment media is preparing once again, as in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, to serve as a sounding board for the administration’s war propaganda and lies. | | | | smallaxe | | Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2007 6:08 pm Post subject: Gates: Iranian Weaponry Found In Iraq |
| Gates: Iranian Weaponry Found In Iraq
Defense Secretary Says Serial Numbers, Markings "Pretty Good" Evidence Of Iran's Role
(CBS/AP) Serial numbers and markings on explosives used in Iraq provide "pretty good" evidence that Iranians are providing either weapons or technology for militants there, Defense Secretary Robert Gates asserted Friday.
Gates' comments made official the Iran weapons connection first reported by CBS News at the end of January, when officials told national security correspondent David Martin that serial numbers on parts used to make advanced explosive devices, powerful enough to breach the armor on an American tank, had been traced directly back to Iran.
The officials also told Martin rocket-propelled grenade launchers and assault rifles found in Iraq had Iranian factory markings.
Offering some of the first public details of evidence the military has collected, Gates said, "I think there's some serial numbers, there may be some markings on some of the projectile fragments that we found," that point to Iran.
At the same time, however, he said he was somewhat surprised that recent raids by coalition and Iraqi forces in Iraq swept up some Iranians.
Just last week, Gates said that U.S. military officers in Baghdad were planning to brief reporters on what is known about Iranian involvement in Iraq but that he and other senior administration officials had intervened to delay the briefing in order to assure that the information provided was accurate.
Speaking to reporters at a defense ministers' conference in Seville, Spain, Gates said Friday, "I don't think there was surprise that the Iranians were actually involved, I think there was surprise we actually picked up some."
He and other U.S. officials have said for some time that Iranians, and possibly the government of Iran, have been providing weapons technology, and possibly some explosives to Iraqi insurgents.
But, Bernie Kaussler, an associate fellow at the University of St. Andrews' Institute for Iranian Studies, tells CBSNews.com that he's not convinced top Iranian officials are involved in weapons smuggling.
"There are so many players in Iranian politics, many times the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. That might well be the case," he explains. "It is possible that there are a few hotheads supplying weapons and support without the central government knowing."
The improvised explosive devices (IEDs) have been a leading killer of U.S. forces in Iraq, where more than 3,000 servicemen and women have died in the nearly four-year-old war.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has denied his government is supporting Iraq's militias with money or weapons.
The IEDs have been a leading killer of U.S. forces in Iraq, where more than 3,000 servicemen and women have died in the nearly four-year-old war.
Gates, who is attending his first NATO defense ministers meeting, said Iran is "very much involved in providing either the technology or the weapons themselves for these explosively formed projectiles. Now they don't represent a big percentage of the IED attacks but they're extremely lethal."
Gates said the raids combined with the movement of an additional U.S. aircraft carrier into the Persian Gulf have created a stir, but said the Bush administration has no intention of attacking Iran. | | | | davidjones | | Posted: Sat Feb 10, 2007 6:51 am Post subject: |
| Rice grilled over lack of smoking gun in allegations against Iran
February 8, 2007
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice faced a blistering challenge in Congress over the administration's failure to provide evidence to back up allegations Iran is building nuclear weapons and fueling attacks on US forces in Iraq.
"Unproven charges against Iran's nuclear intentions are eerily reminiscent of the false charges made against Iraq before we invaded that country," said Ron Paul, a lawmaker from President George W. Bush's own Republican Party, during an appearance by Rice before a congressional panel.
He said "unproven accusations of Iranian support for the Iraqi insurgency" were also serving as a pretext for "escalating our sharp rhetoric toward Iran."
"Pressed for proof of dramatic claims of Iranian involvement in Iraq, the administration keeps promising that they are compiling it," he said.
"This sounds like Iraq, where accusations came first and proof was supposed to come later — only that proof never came because the accusations turned out to be false," he said, referring to now discredited allegations that Saddam Hussein's regime was building weapons of mass destruction.
US officials have been promising for weeks to make public what State Department spokesman Sean McCormack described as a "mountain of evidence" to back up US allegations about Iranian involvement in attacks on US and allied forces in Iraq.
But the proof has yet to be forthcoming.
Rice rejected suggestions the administration was exaggerating its case against Iran to pave the way for military action.
"We are not planning or intending an attack on Iran," she said.
"What we are doing is that we are responding to a number of Iranian policies both in Iran and around the world that are actually quite dangerous for our national security," she said.
Rice asserted that Iranian support for terrorism was "well known and well-understood" and included providing arms and training to the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon and backing sectarian death squads in Iraq.
She said British forces in Iraq had also linked Iran to attacks on allied forces in the country, notably with sophisticated bombs able to penetrate armored vehicles.
"I don't think any government in the world would stand by and not react to that," she said.
McCormack meanwhile rejected suggestions the administration had yet to reveal its proof of Iranian involvement in Iraq because the evidence was not strong enough to sway skeptics.
"We're going to do this on our own timeline," he said, arguing that it took time to vet the "rich fact base" pointing to Iran's guilt so as not to compromise US intelligence sources.
"There are always going to be doubters, critics, skeptics, that's fine, we accept that," he said.
"It's not going to influence us into hurrying through something that we don't think is ready or appropriate."
LINK | | | | smallaxe | | Posted: Sun Feb 11, 2007 2:59 pm Post subject: |
| Evidence Grows That White House Planned To Release Cooked Intel On Iran
The New York Times today published a front-page story by Michael Gordon which recites administration claims about Iran’s involvement in Iraq “without the slightest questioning, investigation, or presentation of ample counter-evidence.” Greg Mitchell notes, via Glenn Greenwald, that it was Gordon “who, on his own, or with Judith Miller, wrote some of the key, and badly misleading or downright inaccurate, articles about Iraqi WMDs in the run-up to the 2003 invasion.”
The Times story comes even as evidence grows that the administration planned to release contained cooked intelligence in a “briefing” on Iranian involvement in Iraq .
In little noted comments on Feb. 2, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley acknowledged that the Iran briefing washeld back because it was “overstated” and not “focused on the facts.”
HADLEY: The reason we put the intelligence briefing on hold was really two reasons. One, we thought we’d better get the NIE out so people could see the full context, which you now can. And secondly, quite frankly, we want to make sure that if we put out intelligence, the intelligence community and MNFI can stand behind it, because we are sensitive to try and put out the facts as accurately as we can. …
Q And now [the briefing has] been pushed back. Can we conclude anything from that other than people looked at the intelligence that was set to offered and said, this is not good enough?
MR. HADLEY: No, I wouldn’t –
Q Does that mean there was a willingness to overstate it?
MR. HADLEY: The truth is, quite frankly, we thought the briefing overstated. And we sent it back to get it narrowed and focused on the facts.
But a new report in the National Journal states that it was the intelligence community, not the White House, that demanded the briefing be “scrubbed” of overstated claims:
At least twice in the past month, the White House has delayed a PowerPoint presentation initially prepared by the military to detail evidence of suspected Iranian materiel and financial support for militants in Iraq. The presentation was to have been made at a press conference in Baghdad in the first week of February. Officials have set no new date, but they say it could be any day.
Even as U.S. officials in Baghdad were ready to make the case, administration principals in Washington who were charged with vetting the PowerPoint dossier bowed to pressure from the intelligence community and ordered that it be scrubbed again.
Despite the intelligence community’s intervention, there is still no guarantee that the intel on Iran that is eventually made public will be factual or comprehensive. As yesterday’s report on Douglas Feith reinforced, senior administration officials are perfectly willing to work around intelligence professionals to obtain the “facts” that justify their ideology.
UPDATE: U.S. officials leak the intelligence to Joe Lieberman, who says he approves:
U.S. military commanders in Iraq have shown members of Congress explosive devices that bear Iranian markings as evidence Tehran is supplying Iraqi militants with bombs, a senior U.S. government official said Saturday.
One of the lawmakers, independent Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, said he has seen some of the evidence, though he would not be specific. “I’m convinced from what I’ve seen that the Iranians are supplying and are giving assistance to the people in Iraq who are killing American soldiers,” said Lieberman, who was attending an international security conference in Munich. | | | | Edithann | | Posted: Sun Feb 11, 2007 3:09 pm Post subject: |
| It was on the news this AM..."proof Iran is killing US soldiers with their home made bombs". It's the same ginning up they did for Iraq, exactly the same...
I'm wondering if they'll get away with it again? Reading all the stuff tells us it's on a roll...but reading Congress, that's a different story, and so far it's been quiet!
TATA | | | | smallaxe | | Posted: Sun Feb 11, 2007 3:22 pm Post subject: |
| | Edithann wrote: | | I'm wondering if they'll get away with it again? | Never underestimate the deviousness of the US administration!
How the press can prevent another Iraq
Journalists, and through us the public, have a grave responsibility to not be complicit in another march to war on false pretenses. So what lessons should we have learned from Iraq?
Lessons we thought had been learned from Vietnam were forgotten in the rush to invade Iraq. And now, as we cover President Bush’s ratcheting up of the rhetoric against Iran, it’s looking like the lessons we should have learned from Iraq may not have been learned at all. So at the risk of stating the obvious, here are some thoughts about what those lessons were. (Feel free to add more in comments.)
You Can’t Be Too Skeptical of Authority
* Don’t assume anything administration officials tell you is true. In fact, you are probably better off assuming anything they tell you is a lie.
* Demand proof for their every assertion. Assume the proof is a lie. Demand that they prove that their proof is accurate.
* Just because they say it, doesn’t mean it should be make the headlines. The absence of supporting evidence for their assertion -- or a preponderance of evidence that contradicts the assertion -- may be more newsworthy than the assertion itself.
* Don’t print anonymous assertions. Demand that sources make themselves accountable for what they insist is true.
Provocation Alone Does Not Justify War
* War is so serious that even proving the existence of a casus belli isn’t enough. Make officials prove to the public that going to war will make things better.
* Demand to know what happens if the war (or tactical strike) doesn’t go as planned?
* Demand to know what happens if it does? What happens after “victory”?
* Ask them: Isn’t it possible this will make things worse, rather than better?
Be Particularly Skeptical of Secrecy
* Don’t assume that these officials, with their access to secret intelligence, know more than you do.
* Alternately, assume that they do indeed know more than you do – and are trying to keep intelligence that would undermine their arguments secret.
Watch for Rhetorical Traps
* Keep an eye on how advocates of war frame the arguments. Don’t buy into those frames unless you think they’re fair.
* Keep a particular eye out for the no-lose construction. For example: If we can’t find evidence of WMD, that proves Saddam is hiding them.
* Watch out for false denials. In the case of Iran, when administration officials say “nobody is talking about invading Iran,” point out that the much more likely scenario is bombing Iran, and that their answer is therefore a dodge.
Don’t Just Give Voice to the Administration Officials
* Give voice to the skeptics; don’t marginalize and mock them.
* Listen to and quote the people who got it right last time: The intelligence officials, state department officials, war-college instructors and many others who predicted the problem we are now facing, but who were largely ignored.
* Offer the greatest and most guaranteed degree of confidentiality to whisteblowers offering information that contradicts the official government position. (By contrast, don’t offer any confidentiality to administration spinners.)
Look Outside Our Borders
* Pay attention to international opinion.
* Raise the question: What do people in other countries think? Why should we be so different?
* Keep an eye out for how the international press is covering this story. Why should we be so different?
Understand the Enemy
* Listen to people on the other side, and report their position.
* Send more reporters into the country we are about to attack and learn about their views, their politics and their culture.
* Don’t allow the population of any country to be demonized. All humans deserve to be humanized.
* Demand to know why the administration won’t open a dialogue with the enemy. Refusing to talk to someone you are threatening to attack should be considered inherently suspect behavior.
Encourage Public Debate
* The nation is not well served when issues of war and peace are not fully debated in public. It’s reasonable for the press to demand that Congress engage in a full, substantial debate.
* Cover the debate exhaustively and substantively.
Write about Motives
* Historically, the real motives for wars have often not been the public motives. Try to report on the motivations of the key advocates for war.
* Don’t assume that the administration is being forthright about its motives.
* If no one in the inner circle will openly discuss their motives, then encourage reasonable speculation about their motives.
Talk to the Military
* Find out what the military is being told to prepare for. | | | | Edithann | | Posted: Sun Feb 11, 2007 4:07 pm Post subject: |
| | Quote: | Never underestimate the deviousness of the US administration!
Oh, I don't underestimate that for a moment....but this time it might be different..Americans are 98% against any Iran confrontations...the other 2% are the Jewish minority, but they can never be discounted from buying the decision to go to war... Propaganda coming out of Israel for the Iran threat is played up to American Jews...and we know they follow like sheep..and when push comes to shove..they are all Israeli's...
We have to watch Congress..namely the Senate...
TA
| | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Sun Feb 11, 2007 5:23 pm Post subject: |
| Edithann,
I can't believe how naive you are being with three aircraft carriers to be in the Persian Gulf soon and US fighters being sent into Turkey and elsewhere for the coming attack on Iran... Bush can launch the attack anytime he wants as he couldn't care less about public opinion and the US (AIPAC hacked) Congress as well... Or Israel could even initiate the attack with the US Congress falling all over themselves for US to 'defend' our 'ally' Israel when Iran retaliates.. WAKE UP TO THIS as you are in BIG TIME DENIAL..
U.S.-led forces show evidence of Iranian arms in Iraq (Reuters)
By Ibon Villelabeitia1 hour, 5 minutes ago
U.S.-led forces in Iraq presented on Sunday what officials said was "a growing body" of evidence of Iranian weapons being used to kill their soldiers, as U.S. anger at Tehran's alleged involvement in the war rises.
A senior defense official from the U.S.-led Multinational Force in Baghdad told a briefing that 170 coalition forces had been killed by Iranian-made roadside bombs known as explosively formed penetrators (EFPs) that he said were smuggled into Iraq.
Officials showed journalists fragments of what they said were Iranian-manufactured weapons, including one part of an EFP -- which is strong enough to penetrate the armor of an Abrams tank -- and tail fins from 81 mm and 60 mm mortar bombs.
"The weapons had characteristics unique to being manufactured in Iran ... Iran is the only country in the region that produces these weapons," the senior defense official said in Baghdad, briefing reporters on condition of anonymity.
The officials said they were showing the evidence now out of concern about the "vast increase" in sophisticated weapons used by Iraqi militants against U.S. forces in 2006.
Washington has long accused Iran of fanning violence in Iraq by giving sophisticated bomb-making technology, money and training to militant Shi'ite groups, some of which have links with Iraq's Shi'ite-led government.
"We assess these activities are coming from the highest levels of the Iranian government," said one of the officials, a senior defense analyst, referring to the training and funding of Iraqi militant groups.
Tehran denies the charge and blames American soldiers for the violence and for inflaming tensions between Shi'ites and once-dominant Sunni Arabs.
"We are a friend of Iraq. We have common culture and history, and Iraq's stability, security and integrity, means Iran's stability, security and integrity," Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told a rally in Tehran on Sunday marking the 28th anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution.
"You send a message to us asking for help to leave Iraq, but you didn't listen to our advice and instead arrested a few people," he said referring to the seizure by U.S. forces of a number of Iranians in Iraq over the past two months.
The briefing by the defense official and other coalition officers comes amid rising U.S.-Iranian tension over Tehran's nuclear ambitions.
SURROGATES
The officials also said Iran had several surrogate groups operating in Iraq using the EFPs, among them rogue elements of radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army, to whom Iran was supplying weapons and guerrilla warfare training.
The Pentagon calls the Mehdi Army the biggest threat to peace in Iraq. Al Sadr, who is a key political ally of the Iraqi prime minister, denies any involvement in attacks to troops.
Non-Arab, Shi'ite Iran resumed diplomatic relations with Iraq after Saddam Hussein fell in the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.
Washington, which says Tehran is seeking to build a nuclear bomb under the cover of a nuclear energy program, has repeatedly told Iran not to fuel violence in Iraq.
Two U.S. aircraft carrier groups have been stationed in the Gulf as a warning to Iran, although President George W. Bush has said he has no intention of invading the Islamic Republic.
But some war critics say the Bush administration's language on Iran echoes comments made leading up to the 2003 invasion.
The main justification given for the invasion was that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, but the weapons were never found and Washington later blamed faulty intelligence.
Given the criticism that still dogs Bush over the handling of that intelligence, U.S. officials have stepped more carefully in preparing their dossier to support their claims that Iran is interfering in Iraq.
Officials do not want to be accused of either overstating the case against Iran or presenting information that appears poorly sourced.
(Additional reporting by Ross Colvin in Baghdad and Edmund Blair in Tehran)
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