War Without End

Alpha · Last edited by Alpha on Wed Jan 31, 2007 5:34 pm; edited 7 times in total

Coming Iran Attack for Israel:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XD8YrU7QP_M

The transcript of the above YouTube video short is included at the following URL:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16809950/

Scarborough and Buchanan discuss coming war with Iran again as conveyed via the transcript at the following URL (scroll down to such):

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16886775/

Cheney Refuses to Rule Out Attack on Iran

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/29/1453224

President Bush's comments come as Vice President Dick Cheney refused to rule out a U.S. attack on Iran. In an interview with Newsweek Cheney said "we haven't taken any options off the table." Cheney also admitted that the United States is sending a second aircraft-carrier to the Persian Gulf in order to send a "strong signal" to Iran. When the Stennis aircraft carrier arrives in the Persian Gulf next month, the United States will have two carrier groups stationed there for the first time since the 2003 Iraq invasion.

Europeans fear US attack on Iran as nuclear row intensifies

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2007/01/31/europeans-fear-us-attack-on-iran-as-nuclear-row-intensifies.php

Is war with Iran next? Skeptical voters wonder
Wider war in Middle East ‘suddenly thinkable’ to more than skeptics

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16886900/from/RS.1/

Kuwait media: U.S. military strike on Iran seen by April:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2007/01/20/u-s-plans-envision-broad-attack-on-iran-analyst.php

Iran: The Next War (for Israel):

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2006/07/28/iran-the-next-war-for-israel.php

Bush Is About to Attack Iran
Why Can't Americans See it?:

http://www.antiwar.com/roberts/?articleid=10411

Homage to Herzliya
The Lobby wants war with Iran:

http://antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=10399

More Deception from the War Criminal
By Paul Craig Roberts

VDARE.COM - http://vdare.com/roberts/070124_war.htm

Pro-Israel lobby (AIPAC and similar) Pushing for US to attack Iran for Israel:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2006/03/17/u-s-middle-east-policy-motivated-by-pro-israel-lobby.php

Ramifications of Coming War with Iran:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2007/01/13/ramifications-of-coming-attack-on-iran-for-israel.php

Why hasn't '60 Minutes' done an interview with Colin Powell about what he conveyed about the 'JINSA crowd' being in control of the Pentagon?:

A War for Israel? Colin Powell seems to think so:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2006/10/08/a-war-for-israel-colin-powell-seems-to-think-so.php

If the following Kuwait media report is credible, then we have very little time left (keep in mind how much longer the Eisenhower aircraft carrier has on location in the Gulf even though her stay can be extended):

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2007/01/20/u-s-plans-envision-broad-attack-on-iran-analyst.php

Cheney: U.S. carrier to Gulf sends "strong signal

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2007/01/29/cheney-u-s-carrier-to-gulf-sends-strong-signal.php

Cheney and Neo-Cons Plotting More Wars:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2006/11/18/cheney-and-neo-cons-plotting-more-wars.php

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Iran could only use nuclear weapons in self-defense - Edward S.
Herman and David Peterson

Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2007 11:25:47 -0800 From: Jeffrey Blankfort
<jblankfort@earthlink.net>

"These media failures are closely related to the power of the
pro-Israel
Lobby in the United States, which has paralyzed the Democratic Party
and
made it into an ally of Bush administration hardliners pushing for an
attack on Iran. Israeli leaders want a war with Iran, preferably with
the United States doing the fighting, and this translates into Lobby
pressures and hence Democratic leaders jumping on the war bandwagon,
often trying to outdo the Republicans."

An excellent article which leaves one with the feeling that an attack
on
Iran is inevitable. Given the current anti-Bush climate on Capitol Hill
and elsewhere, however, I think that it will be Israel that will launch
the attack, if there is one, because it would be loudly applauded and
"understood" by both parties and both whorehouses of Congress whereas
they would be obliged to criticize Bush if he were to launch it on the
heels of his un-popular ziocon scripted escalation in Iraq. If Israel
does it, they will clap like trained seals when Bush formally announces
that "US forces have joined those of Israel to prevent a second
Holocaust," when Iran fires back.-JB

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=67&ItemID=11963

ZNet | Iran

Hegemony and Appeasement: Setting Up the Next U.S.-Israeli Target
(Iran)
For Another "Supreme International Crime" 1

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Iran: The Next War (for Israel):

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2006/07/28/iran-the-next-war-for-israel.php

Esteemed intelligence author/writer James Bamford discusses the 'A Clean Break'/war for Israel agenda of the JINSA/PNAC Israel first Neocons Richard Perle, Douglas Feith and David Wurmser from pages 261-269/321 of his 'A Pretext for War' book:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2005/02/11/a-clean-break-from-james-bamford-s-a-pretext-for-war.php

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here is the kind of propaganda that the Cheney (JINSA/PNAC Neocon) cabal will be coming out with to 'sell' the attack on Iran to the US public:

US says its has proof Iran is interfering in Iraq

Wed Jan 24, 7:35 PM ET
The United States said it had proof of Iran's interference in Iraq, promising soon to publish details of Iranian networks in its strife-torn neighboring country.
"There is solid evidence that Iranian agents are involved in these networks and that they are working with individuals and groups in Iraq and that they are being sent there by the Iranian government," said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.
"And I would expect that ... in the near future, we are going to try to talk a little bit more in public -- to the extent that we can because, again, you're dealing with intelligence information -- about what we know of Iranian support for these networks," he added.
The United States, which accuses Iran of funding and equipping Shiite militias in Iraq, arrested five Iranians at an office in the northern Iraqi city of Arbil on January 11, accusing them of being agents for Tehran, arming militias and inciting anti-US attacks in Iraq.
The arrests triggered a diplomatic row, with Tehran accusing US forces in Iraq of violating international diplomatic regulations, but Washington and the US military in Iraq maintain that those arrested had no diplomatic status.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari has said that the five Iranians had been working in Arbil with official sanction, but that their "liaison office" had not yet become a full consulate.
McCormack rejected the idea the detainees were working at a "liaison office."
"One thing we can tell you is they're not diplomats," he said, adding that the detainees were "still in the custody of multinational forces."
The spokesman refused to say whether the US had evidence linking Iran to any of the explosives or bombs that have been set off in Iraq. However, he said his government was sure of it.
"You don't necessarily have to construct something in Iran in order for it to be a threat to the US or British troops from the Iranian regime," he said.
"There are a lot of different ways you can do that. You can bring the know-how. You can train other people in Iraq to do that. So there are a lot of different ways to do it.
"I would suspect that they're probably trying to hide their tracks somewhat, so you're not going to have a "made in Iran" stamp on all of these items. But certainly the technology and the know-how originates in Iran," said McCormack.
The Los Angeles Times said the US government lacks any proof of Iranian involvement in Iraq and that some observers fear there is a US plot under foot for a military operation against Iran.
Before attacking Iraq in March 2003, the administration of President George W. Bush said it had irrefutable evidence dictator Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, but no such weapons have been found since in the country.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Justin Raimondo had the following article which seems to counter the above:

Intelligence vs. Evidence (for the coming attack on Iran):

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=10368

January 22, 2007
Intelligence vs. Evidence
The Axis of Deception is lying us into war – again
by Justin Raimondo
In his most recent peroration defending our escalating war of "liberation" in the Middle East, our Dear and Glorious Leader opined that Iran was stirring the Iraqi pot, and he strongly implied that they'd better back off – or else. Vowing to guarantee Iraq's borders and territorial integrity, the president declared:
"This begins with addressing Iran and Syria. These two regimes are allowing terrorists and insurgents to use their territory to move in and out of Iraq. Iran is providing material support for attacks on American troops. We will disrupt the attacks on our forces. We will interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria. And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq."
These charges have been persistently pressed by this administration since the U.S. colonial administration set up shop in the Green Zone: first, the insurgency was said to consist primarily of "foreign fighters" and Ba'athist "dead-enders," as Rumsfeld put it. Later, however, as the popular character of the insurgency became undeniable, the party line shifted to pointing the finger at Iran and its ally Syria: the mullahs of Tehran are arming and funding the Sunni insurgency, as well as aiding and encouraging Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army, a radical Shi'ite militia. Resistance to the Americans has nothing to do with the daily depredations and humiliations of an occupied people: Iraqis acting at the behest of "foreign" influences, i.e., the Iranians, are killing increasing numbers of American soldiers as well as their fellow Iraqis.
The British dispute this, with Defense Secretary Des Browne averring:
"I have not myself seen any evidence – and I don't think any evidence exists – of government-supported or instigated armed support on Iran's part in Iraq."
The British military backs him up. "It's a question of intelligence versus evidence," says Basra-based Brig. James Everard of Britain's 20th Armored Brigade. "One hears word of mouth, but one has to see it with one's own eyes."
This "intelligence" vs. evidence dichotomy is useful in understanding how we got dragged into Iraq in the first place. You'll recall that we had scads of intelligence coming at us, including on the front page of the New York Times, such that even most war opponents – present company excluded – conceded that Saddam undoubtedly did have "weapons of mass destruction," but that, for other reasons, we ought to at least delay attacking him. There was, however, as some of uspointed out at the time, no hard evidence of Iraq's fabled WMD. Like tales of the Yeti and the Loch Ness monster, breathless stories of the Saddam Bomb, ubiquitous since the early 1990s, turned out to be utterly false, imaginative narratives spun by Ahmed Chalabi and his fellow "heroes in error," with a little help from Judith Miller. I suppose it takes a libertarian to fully appreciate the irony of how American taxpayers paid for their own deception.
Once again, we are seeing the victory of "intelligence" over solid evidence, this time in the run-up to war with Iran. Wayne White, until 2005 the deputy director of the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research's Near Eastern Division, has this to say about allegations of Tehran's ties to Iraqi insurgent groups:
"I have no doubt whatsoever that al-Quds forces are on the ground and active in Iraq. That's about it. I saw evidence that Moqtada al-Sadr was in contact with Sunni Arab insurgents in western Iraq, but I never saw evidence of Iran in that loop."
The New York Sun piece in which this citation appears purports to reveal "Iran's Secret Plan for Mayhem" in Iraq, supposedly based on captured "secret documents" – and also reminds readers that "in 2003, coalition forces captured a playbook outlining Iranian intentions to support insurgents of both stripes, but its authenticity was disputed."
Yeah, I'll bet – not that the history of the gang that lied us into war would in any way cause us to suspect the authenticity of key documents and other "intelligence" produced by them. The same lie factory that churned out war propaganda based on lies, half-truths, and outright forgeries is being revved up once again, this time in the service of a new and even more dangerous war plan.
White, who worked as a top analyst for the State Department's own intelligence agency, has also revealed the frightening scope of this administration's war intentions:
"I've seen some of the planning. … You're not talking about a surgical strike. You're talking about a war against Iran that likely would destabilize the Middle East for years. We're not talking about just surgical strikes against an array of targets inside Iran. We're talking about clearing a path to the targets by taking out much of the Iranian Air Force, Kilo submarines, anti-ship missiles that could target commerce or U.S. warships in the Gulf, and maybe even Iran's ballistic missile capability."
Forget the Iraqi civil war: the consequences of a U.S. military confrontation with Iran could prove particularly deadly to our troops in Iraq, where they are sitting ducks for Iranian attacks. As White puts it:
"'I'm much more worried about the consequences of a U.S. or Israeli attack against Iran's nuclear infrastructure,' which would prompt vigorous Iranian retaliation, he said, than civil war in Iraq, which could be confined to that country."
Numerousreports that the president is determined to confront Iran, one way or another, before leaving the White House have to be taken seriously, and there are at least some indications that even the Democratic leadership in Congress is finally beginning to notice that we're headed for war with Tehran. Harry Reid has openly warned the administration that the president would need congressional authorization before unleashing American bombers, and others, including Joe Biden, have struck the same pose.
One wonders, then, why House Joint Resolution 14 – legislation recently introduced by Rep. Walter B. Jones (R-N.C.) which explicitly forbids a U.S. attack on Iran, except in response to a "demonstrably imminent" attack on U.S. forces or interests – has yet to attract more than a dozen or so co-sponsors. Unlike the weak palliatives offered up on the Iraq question by the Democrats, the Jones resolution is a binding one.
Although I started making inquiries last week, I have yet to get an answer from Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office as to her position on H.J. Res. 14. It's now quite popular to be antiwar when it comes to Iraq, but Iran is a different story altogether. Hillary Clinton, who seems on track to grasp the Democrats' presidential nomination, has criticized the Bush administration for being too soft on Tehran, and Howard Dean takes the kooky "Objectivist" position that the Iraq war is a case of attacking the wrong enemy, the right one being Iran.
Unless the Democrats and the fast-rising antiwar faction of the Republicans in Congress are willing to go on record as explicitly forbidding an attack on Iran, the presidential exercise of the military option will hang over our heads like a veritable sword of Damocles.
Confronted with this obstacle to his war plans, will a president who believes he has absolute power in wartime assert his supremacy and provoke a constitutional crisis? Given the legendary cowardice of the Democrats on questions of war and peace, we may never get to find out.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lethal-Force Order Justified, Bush Says
President Says Iran Poses Threat in Iraq

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/26/AR2007012601050_pf.html

By Dafna Linzer and Ann Scott Tyson
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, January 27, 2007; A12

President Bush yesterday defended a Pentagon program to kill or capture Iranian operatives inside Iraq, saying that U.S. troops would use all necessary measures to protect themselves and Iraqi civilians from harm.
"It makes sense that if somebody's trying to harm our troops, or stop us from achieving our goal, or killing innocent citizens in Iraq, that we will stop them," Bush said in response to a question about the program, the details of which were first reported in yesterday's Washington Post.
But Bush and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said U.S. troops would not cross Iraq's border with Iran under the program, and the president said he is still committed to resolving the dispute over Iran's nuclear program diplomatically.
Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said that U.S. troops must defend themselves in Iraq but that the president needs congressional approval for any program that could "escalate this conflict" with Iran. Reid said Bush should be engaged in direct diplomacy with Iran and other countries in the region to avoid a widening conflict, rather than "sending battle carrier groups" to sit off the Iranian coast.
Last fall, 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.
The policy is based on the theory that Tehran will back down from its nuclear ambitions if the United States hits it hard in Iraq and elsewhere, creating a sense of vulnerability among Iranian leaders. But the policy has attracted some influential skeptics inside the Bush administration and the intelligence community who are concerned that Iran could respond with escalation. The director of the CIA, Gen. Michael V. Hayden, counseled the president to consider that Iran could undertake its own program to kill or kidnap U.S. personnel in Iraq or neighboring Afghanistan.
Bush said it is "not accurate" he wants to widen a confrontation with Iran. "We're going to continue to protect ourselves in Iraq and at the same time work to solve their problems with Iran diplomatically, and I believe we can succeed. The choice is the Iranian government's choice," he said at a news conference.
The president said his administration is already making good progress on the diplomatic front, citing a U.N. Security Council resolution that calls on Iran to halt much of its nuclear program and return to negotiations. Iran has rejected that.
Yesterday, the director of the U.N. inspection agency that is monitoring Iran's nuclear program said Tehran plans to significantly expand its nuclear program in the coming months to begin producing large quantities of uranium. Iranian officials say they intend to produce only low-enriched uranium suitable for fueling a nuclear energy program. But the same technology can also produce bomb-grade uranium. Bush said yesterday that the Iranian government plans to build nuclear weapons, though his administration has never offered proof.
In Tehran, the chairman of the parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, Alaeddin Boroujerdi, said Bush's policy amounts to "terrorist" action that violates international law.
"Such a measure illustrates the failure of the U.S.'s new strategy in Iraq, because it has had no effect in quelling unrests and restoring calm and order and has instead roused intensified reactions in Iraq," Boroujerdi told the Iranian Fars News Agency.
At a Pentagon news conference yesterday, Gates told reporters that U.S. troops were not "simply going to stand by and let people bring sophisticated IEDs into the country that can disable an Abrams tank and give them a free pass." Gates was referring to roadside bombs, or "improvised explosive devices," that U.S. officials have said are built with components brought into Iraq from Iran.
"But as we've said before, we think we can handle this inside the borders of Iraq, he said.
Gates did not discuss the program's rules of engagement but said that U.S. military targeting of Iranians or any foreign fighters is limited to those who pose a threat to U.S. troops, adding that such practice is not new. "Our forces are authorized to go after those who are trying to kill them," he said. "We are trying to uproot these networks that are planting IEDs that are causing 70 percent of our casualties," he said, adding that "if you are in Iraq and are trying to kill our troops, then you should consider yourself a target."
Gates said he thought yesterday's article in The Post contained "a number of inaccuracies," but he declined to offer examples.
Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the No. 2 U.S. commander in Iraq, said yesterday on ABC's "Good Morning America" that U.S. troops had "found some members of the Quds Force operating within Iraq," and, "We have found weapons within Iraq. . . . We found mortars. We have found detonation wire. So, it's clear . . . either through training or providing weapons systems, they are involved here in Iraq."
Two weeks ago, U.S. forces detained five Iranians during a raid on an Iranian government office in Kurdish northern Iraq. Officials said the office was linked to the Revolutionary Guard.
But Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, a Kurd, contended that the Iranians were working in an Iraq-government-approved liaison office and that the office was set up to become a diplomatic consulate. U.S. officials said they planned to release a report in the coming days detailing the activities of the detained Iranians and their ties to the violence in Iraq.
Bush said yesterday that the United States had no quarrel with the Iranian people, just with the leaders who "end up isolating their people and ends up denying the Iranian people their true place in the world."
In New York yesterday, the U.N. General Assembly adopted a resolution condemning the Iranian government's official denial of the Holocaust and condemning a conference in Tehran last month that questioned whether Nazis murdered millions of Jews. The resolution was drafted by the Bush administration and co-sponsored by more than 100 U.N. members.
Staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.

---------------------------------------------------------------

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/01/26/world/main2400710.shtml

(CBS/AP) The White House has reportedly given its approval for the U.S. military to kill or capture Iranian operatives in Iraq.

The Washington Post reports it's part of an aggressive new effort to reduce Tehran's influence in the region and get it to give up its nuclear program.
For more than a year, U.S. forces in Iraq have been catching Iranian agents, interviewing them and letting them go. The Post says the administration is now convinced that was ineffective because Iran paid no penalty for its mischief.
As one senior administration official told the Post, "There were no costs for the Iranians. They are hurting our mission in Iraq, and we were bending over backwards not to fight back."
It is unknown whether U.S. forces have killed any Iranian operatives to date. Officials told the newspaper that about 150 Iranian intelligence officers, along with members of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, are active inside Iraq, though there is no evidence that these Iranian operatives have directly attacked U.S. forces in Iraq, the officials said.
In a recent Senate hearing, CIA director Gen. Michael V. Hayden noted that for the past three years, Iran has offered Shiite militias weapons and intelligence training and said there was a "striking" amount of Iranian-supplied materiel used against U.S. troops.
"Iran seems to be conducting a foreign policy with a sense of dangerous triumphalism," Hayden said.
In addition to the stated goal of reducing violence in Iraq, the kill-or-capture order is aimed at reducing Iran's influence with Hamas and Hezbollah and among Shiites in western Afghanistan.
One senior official also told the Post that the Bush administration's plans contain five "theaters of interest" designed to target Iranian interests across the Middle East.
Meanwhile, the United States and Europe are showing concern over reports that Iran is on the verge of launching it's most powerful missile into space attached with a satellite.
In the latest edition of Aviation Week & Space Technology, an Iranian-built space launcher has been built and "will liftoff soon" with a satellite, according to Alaoddin Boroujerdi, the chairman of the Iranian parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission.
The U.S. believes Iran is using some derivation of its Shahab 3 missile, which, in its current form, can hit Israel, Saudi Arabia and southern Turkey from central Iran.
However, fears are that future upgrades in weapons technology will give Iran an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) that features a range of approximately 2,500 miles.
The magazine reports that Iran's latest missile has strong resemblances to North Korea's missile program and experts fear Iran will eventually build a clone of North Korea's Taepodong 2C/3, which was tested last July.
In November, an Israeli intelligence officer said in a report delivered to Congress that North Korea has shipped Iran 18 ballistic missiles with nuclear capabilities.
The report's author, Kenneth Katzman, wrote, "Largely with foreign help, Iran is becoming self-sufficient in the production of ballistic missiles."
The news of Iran's alleged attempt to launch a missile comes as U.N. officials said Friday that Iran plans to start installing thousands of centrifuges in an underground facility next month.
The move would pave the way to large-scale uranium enrichment, a potential way of making nuclear weapons.
The officials, who demanded anonymity because the information was confidential, emphasized that Iranian officials had not officially said the country would embark on the assembly of what will initially be 3,000 centrifuges at Natanz. But they said senior officials have informally told the International Atomic Energy Agency the work would start next month.
"Iran is becoming more confrontational each day despite divisions back in Tehran on this approach," said CBS News foreign affairs analyst Pamela Falk, "and the reaction to several of the new developments, including the purchase and testing of new missiles and defiance of the nuclear inspections program, has been for the U.S. to send aircraft carriers to the Persian Gulf, leading U.N. officials to fear a military strike."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Troops Authorized to Kill Iranian Operatives in Iraq
Administration Strategy Stirs Concern Among Some Officials

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/25/AR2007012502199_pf.html

By Dafna Linzer
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, January 26, 2007; A01

The Bush administration has authorized the U.S. military to kill or capture Iranian operatives inside Iraq as part of an aggressive new strategy to weaken Tehran's influence across the Middle East and compel it to give up its nuclear program, according to government and counterterrorism officials with direct knowledge of the effort.
For more than a year, U.S. forces in Iraq have secretly detained dozens of suspected Iranian agents, holding them for three to four days at a time. The "catch and release" policy was designed to avoid escalating tensions with Iran and yet intimidate its emissaries. U.S. forces collected DNA samples from some of the Iranians without their knowledge, subjected others to retina scans, and fingerprinted and photographed all of them before letting them go.
Last summer, however, senior administration officials decided that a more confrontational approach was necessary, as Iran's regional influence grew and U.S. efforts to isolate Tehran appeared to be failing. The country's nuclear work was advancing, U.S. allies were resisting robust sanctions against the Tehran government, and Iran was aggravating sectarian violence in Iraq.
"There were no costs for the Iranians," said one senior administration official. "They are hurting our mission in Iraq, and we were bending over backwards not to fight back."
Three officials said that about 150 Iranian intelligence officers, plus members of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Command, are believed to be active inside Iraq at any given time. There is no evidence the Iranians have directly attacked U.S. troops in Iraq, intelligence officials said.
But, for three years, the Iranians have operated an embedding program there, offering operational training, intelligence and weaponry to several Shiite militias connected to the Iraqi government, to the insurgency and to the violence against Sunni factions. Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the director of the CIA, told the Senate recently that the amount of Iranian-supplied materiel used against U.S. troops in Iraq "has been quite striking."
"Iran seems to be conducting a foreign policy with a sense of dangerous triumphalism," Hayden said.
The new "kill or capture" program was authorized by President Bush in a meeting of his most senior advisers last fall, along with other measures meant to curtail Iranian influence from Kabul to Beirut and, ultimately, to shake Iran's commitment to its nuclear efforts. Tehran insists that its nuclear program is peaceful, but the United States and other nations say it is aimed at developing weapons.
The administration's plans contain five "theaters of interest," as one senior official put it, with military, intelligence, political and diplomatic strategies designed to target Iranian interests across the Middle East.
The White House has authorized a widening of what is known inside the intelligence community as the "Blue Game Matrix" -- a list of approved operations that can be carried out against the Iranian-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon. And U.S. officials are preparing international sanctions against Tehran for holding several dozen al-Qaeda fighters who fled across the Afghan border in late 2001. They plan more aggressive moves to disrupt Tehran's funding of the radical Palestinian group Hamas and to undermine Iranian interests among Shiites in western Afghanistan.
In Iraq, U.S. troops now have the authority to target any member of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, as well as officers of its intelligence services believed to be working with Iraqi militias. The policy does not extend to Iranian civilians or diplomats. Though U.S. forces are not known to have used lethal force against any Iranian to date, Bush administration officials have been urging top military commanders to exercise the authority.
The wide-ranging plan has several influential skeptics in the intelligence community, at the State Department and at the Defense Department who said that they worry it could push the growing conflict between Tehran and Washington into the center of a chaotic Iraq war.
Senior administration officials said the policy is based on the theory that Tehran will back down from its nuclear ambitions if the United States hits it hard in Iraq and elsewhere, creating a sense of vulnerability among Iranian leaders. But if Iran responds with escalation, it has the means to put U.S. citizens and national interests at greater risk in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.
Officials said Hayden counseled the president and his advisers to consider a list of potential consequences, including the possibility that the Iranians might seek to retaliate by kidnapping or killing U.S. personnel in Iraq.
Two officials said that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, though a supporter of the strategy, is concerned about the potential for errors, as well as the ramifications of a military confrontation between U.S. and Iranian troops on the Iraqi battlefield.
In meetings with Bush's other senior advisers, officials said, Rice insisted that the defense secretary appoint a senior official to personally oversee the program to prevent it from expanding into a full-scale conflict. Rice got the oversight guarantees she sought, though it remains unclear whether senior Pentagon officials must approve targets on a case-by-case basis or whether the oversight is more general.
The departments of Defense and State referred all requests for comment on the Iran strategy to the National Security Council, which declined to address specific elements of the plan and would not comment on some intelligence matters.
But in response to questions about the "kill or capture" authorization, Gordon Johndroe, spokesman for the NSC, said: "The president has made clear for some time that we will take the steps necessary to protect Americans on the ground in Iraq and disrupt activity that could lead to their harm. Our forces have standing authority, consistent with the mandate of the U.N. Security Council."
Officials said U.S. and British special forces in Iraq, which will work together in some operations, are developing the program's rules of engagement to define the exact circumstances for using force. In his last few weeks as the top commander in Iraq, Army Gen. George W. Casey Jr. sought to help coordinate the program on the ground. One official said Casey had planned to designate Iran's Revolutionary Guard as a "hostile entity," a distinction within the military that would permit offensive action.
Casey's designated successor, Army Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus, told Congress in writing this week that a top priority will be "countering the threats posed by Iranian and Syrian meddling in Iraq, and the continued mission of dismantling terrorist networks and killing or capturing those who refuse to support a unified, stable Iraq."
Advocates of the new policy -- some of whom are in the NSC, the vice president's office, the Pentagon and the State Department -- said that only direct and aggressive efforts can shatter Iran's growing influence. A less confident Iran, with fewer cards, may be more willing to cut the kind of deal the Bush administration is hoping for on its nuclear program. "The Iranians respond to the international community only when they are under pressure, not when they are feeling strong," one official said.
With aspects of the plan also targeting Iran's influence in Lebanon, Afghanistan and the Palestinian territories, the policy goes beyond the threats Bush issued earlier this month to "interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria" into Iraq. It also marks a departure from years past when diplomacy appeared to be the sole method of pressuring Iran to reverse course on its nuclear program.
R. Nicholas Burns, the undersecretary of state for political affairs, said in an interview in late October that the United States knows that Iran "is providing support to Hezbollah and Hamas and supporting insurgent groups in Iraq that have posed a problem for our military forces." He added: "In addition to the nuclear issue, Iran's support for terrorism is high up on our agenda."
Burns, the top Foreign Service officer in the State Department, has been leading diplomatic efforts to increase international pressure on the Iranians. Over several months, the administration made available five political appointees for interviews, to discuss limited aspects of the policy, on the condition that they not be identified.
Officials who spoke in more detail and without permission -- including senior officials, career analysts and policymakers -- said their standing with the White House would be at risk if they were quoted by name.
The decision to use lethal force against Iranians inside Iraq began taking shape last summer, when Israel was at war with Hezbollah in Lebanon. Officials said a group of senior Bush administration officials who regularly attend the highest-level counterterrorism meetings agreed that the conflict provided an opening to portray Iran as a nuclear-ambitious link between al-Qaeda, Hezbollah and the death squads in Iraq.
Among those involved in the discussions, beginning in August, were deputy national security adviser Elliott Abrams, NSC counterterrorism adviser Juan Zarate, the head of the CIA's counterterrorism center, representatives from the Pentagon and the vice president's office, and outgoing State Department counterterrorism chief Henry A. Crumpton.
At the time, Bush publicly emphasized diplomacy as his preferred path for dealing with Iran. Standing before the U.N. General Assembly in New York on Sept. 19, Bush spoke directly to the Iranian people: "We look to the day when you can live in freedom, and America and Iran can be good friends and close partners in the cause of peace."
Two weeks later, Crumpton flew from Washington to U.S. Central Command headquarters in Tampa for a meeting with Gen. John P. Abizaid, the top U.S. commander for the Middle East. A principal reason for the visit, according to two officials with direct knowledge of the discussion, was to press Abizaid to prepare for an aggressive campaign against Iranian intelligence and military operatives inside Iraq.
Information gleaned through the "catch and release" policy expanded what was once a limited intelligence community database on Iranians in Iraq. It also helped to avert a crisis between the United States and the Iraqi government over whether U.S. troops should be holding Iranians, several officials said, and dampened the possibility of Iranians directly targeting U.S. personnel in retaliation.
But senior officials saw it as too timid.
"We were making no traction" with "catch and release," a senior counterterrorism official said in a recent interview, explaining that it had failed to halt Iranian activities in Iraq or worry the Tehran leadership. "Our goal is to change the dynamic with the Iranians, to change the way the Iranians perceive us and perceive themselves. They need to understand that they cannot be a party to endangering U.S. soldiers' lives and American interests, as they have before. That is going to end."
A senior intelligence officer was more wary of the ambitions of the strategy.
"This has little to do with Iraq. It's all about pushing Iran's buttons. It is purely political," the official said. The official expressed similar views about other new efforts aimed at Iran, suggesting that the United States is escalating toward an unnecessary conflict to shift attention away from Iraq and to blame Iran for the United States' increasing inability to stanch the violence there.
But some officials within the Bush administration say that targeting Iran's Revolutionary Guard Command, and specifically a Guard unit known as the Quds Force, should be as much a priority as fighting al-Qaeda in Iraq. The Quds Force is considered by Western intelligence to be directed by Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to support Iraqi militias, Hamas and Hezbollah.
In interviews, two senior administration officials separately compared the Tehran government to the Nazis and the Guard to the "SS." They also referred to Guard members as "terrorists." Such a formal designation could turn Iran's military into a target of what Bush calls a "war on terror," with its members potentially held as enemy combatants or in secret CIA detention.
Asked whether such a designation is imminent, Johndroe of the NSC said in a written response that the administration has "long been concerned about the activities of the IRGC and its components throughout the Middle East and beyond." He added: "The Iranian Revolutionary Guards Quds Force is a part of the Iranian state apparatus that supports and carries out these activities."
Staff writer Barton Gellman and staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.

------------------------------------------------------------------

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/washingtondc/la-fg-iraniraq23jan23,1,4419986,full.story

THE CONFLICT IN IRAQ: THE IRAN FACTOR
Scant evidence found of Iran-Iraq arms link
U.S. warnings of advanced weaponry crossing the border are overstated, critics say.
By Alexandra Zavis and Greg Miller, Times Staff Writers
January 23, 2007

BAQUBAH, IRAQ — If there is anywhere Iran could easily stir up trouble in Iraq, it would be in Diyala, a rugged province along the border between the two nations.

The combination of Sunni Arab militants believed to be affiliated with Al Qaeda and Shiite Muslim militiamen with ties to Iran has fueled waves of sectarian and political violence here. The province is bisected by long-traveled routes leading from Iran to Baghdad and Shiite holy cities farther south in Iraq.

But even here, evidence of Iranian involvement in Iraq's troubles is limited. U.S. troops have found mortars and antitank mines with Iranian markings dated 2006, said U.S. Army Col. David W. Sutherland, who oversees the province. But there has been little sign of more advanced weaponry crossing the border, and no Iranian agents have been found.

In his speech this month outlining the new U.S. strategy in Iraq, President Bush promised to "seek out and destroy" Iranian networks that he said were providing "advanced weaponry and training to our enemies." He is expected to strike a similar note in tonight's State of the Union speech.

For all the aggressive rhetoric, however, the Bush administration has provided scant evidence to support these claims. Nor have reporters traveling with U.S. troops seen extensive signs of Iranian involvement. During a recent sweep through a stronghold of Sunni insurgents here, a single Iranian machine gun turned up among dozens of arms caches U.S. troops uncovered. British officials have similarly accused Iran of meddling in Iraqi affairs, but say they have not found Iranian-made weapons in areas they patrol.

The lack of publicly disclosed evidence has led to questions about whether the administration is overstating its case. Some suggest Bush and his aides are pointing to Iran to deflect blame for U.S. setbacks in Iraq. Others suggest they are laying the foundation for a military strike against Iran.

Before invading Iraq, the administration warned repeatedly that Saddam Hussein was developing nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. Those statements proved wrong. The administration's charges about Iran sound uncomfortably familiar to some. "To be quite honest, I'm a little concerned that it's Iraq again," Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV, head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said last week, referring to the administration's comments on Iran.

*

Lowered credibility

The accusations of Iranian meddling "illustrate what may be one of our greatest problems," said Anthony Cordesman, a former Defense Department official and military expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

"We are still making arguments from authority without detail and explanation. We're making them in an America and in a world where we really don't have anything like the credibility we've had in the past."

Few doubt that Iran is seeking to extend its influence in Iraq. But the groups in Iraq that have received the most Iranian support are not those that have led attacks against U.S. forces. Instead, they are nominal U.S. allies.

The Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, one of the two largest parties in parliament, is believed to be the biggest beneficiary of Iranian help. The Shiite group was based in Iran during Hussein's reign, and Iran's Revolutionary Guard trained and equipped its Badr Brigade militia.

But the Supreme Council also has strong U.S. connections. Bush played host to the head of the party, Abdelaziz Hakim, at the White House in December, and administration officials have frequently cited Adel Abdul Mehdi, another party leader, as a person they would like to see as Iraq's prime minister.

The Islamic Dawa Party of Iraq's current prime minister, Nouri Maliki, also has strong ties to Iran.

Some U.S. officials have also suggested that Iran, a Shiite theocracy, has provided aid to the Sunni insurgents, who have led most of the attacks against U.S. forces. Private analysts and other U.S. officials doubt that. Evidence is stronger that the Iranians are supporting a Shiite group that has attacked U.S. forces, the Al Mahdi militia, which is loyal to radical cleric Muqtada Sadr.

Top U.S. intelligence officials have been making increasingly confident assertions about Iran.

"I've come to a much darker interpretation of Iranian actions in the past 12 to 18 months," CIA Director Michael V. Hayden said in recent congressional testimony. Previously, Tehran's priority was to maneuver for a stable Iraq dominated by its Shiite majority, but that attitude has changed, he said.

"There is a clear line of evidence that points out the Iranians want to punish the United States, hurt the United States in Iraq, tie down the United States in Iraq," he said.

One high-ranking intelligence official in Washington acknowledged a lack of "fidelity" in the intelligence on Iran's activities, saying reports are sometimes unclear because it is difficult to track weapons and personnel that might be flowing across the long and porous border.

But U.S. forces have picked up specially shaped charges used to make roadside bombs capable of penetrating advanced armor, he said, with markings that could be traced to Iran and dates that were recent. The markings have been found on the devices themselves or the crates in which they were smuggled into the country, he said.

"Two years ago we were debating whether this was really happening," the official said. "Now the debate is over."

*

Documents withheld

U.S. officials have declined to provide documentation of seized Iranian ordnance despite repeated requests. The U.S. military often releases photographs of other weapons finds.

British government officials, including Prime Minister Tony Blair, have also accused Iran of supplying advanced explosive devices to Iraq.

Blair said a year ago that the weapons bore the hallmarks of Iran or Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militia in Lebanon. But British officers stationed in Iraq at the time said they had seized no such weapons in the districts for which they had responsibility.

"We do have intelligence which suggests that weapons and ammunition are being smuggled in from Iran," Maj. David Gell, a spokesman for British forces in Basra, said last week. "We don't always manage to find any."

U.S. military officials in Diyala have had the same experience. No munitions or personnel have been seized at the border, officers said.

Sutherland, the U.S. colonel who oversees Diyala, believes that Tehran is prepared to work with any group, Shiite or Sunni, that can tie up U.S. forces. But State Department and intelligence officials have privately expressed doubts that Iranians are helping Sunnis.

Sunni insurgents in Diyala don't appear to need outside suppliers. They exploit massive weapons stashes containing materiel dating back to the Iran-Iraq war, when Hussein had a major military base in the area. U.S. military officials say they have found the type of shaped charges they attribute to Iran and Hezbollah in majority-Shiite parts of the province.

Outside military analysts have questioned how many of these sorts of weapons actually come from Iran. The technology used to make them is simple and widely known in the Middle East, they note. Iran is a likely source for some of the more sophisticated devices, but other countries could also be pitching in.

"A lot of rather sophisticated weapons have actually been released by Syria," said Peter Felstead, editor of the London-based Jane's Defense Weekly.

Others note that smugglers could be bringing weapons across the border from Iran without government approval.

*

'They are significant'

A second high-ranking U.S. intelligence official in Washington acknowledged that only a "small percentage" of explosions in Iraq could be linked to shaped charges coming from Iran.

"But in terms of American casualties, they are significant," he said, because they are much more lethal than standard roadside bombs.

A senior U.S. military intelligence official said coalition forces in Iraq had also found shaped charges "in the presence of Iranians captured in the country." He declined to elaborate but noted that U.S. operatives who raided an Iranian office in the Iraqi city of Irbil this month captured documents and computer drives he called a "treasure trove" on Iran's "networks, supply lines, sourcing and funding."

Five Iranians were taken into custody in the raid, prompting angry protests from the Iraqi government.

U.S. intelligence officials emphasized that Iran intentionally stops short of steps that would be seen as direct provocation and provide justification for a military response. For example, Iran has refrained from supplying Shiite militias with surface-to-air missiles and other weaponry that was part of Hezbollah's arsenal in its fight with Israel last summer, they said.

A high-ranking U.S. intelligence official called it a "careful calibration" that probably reflected disagreements within the Islamic regime. "I don't doubt that Iranian national security council meetings are very contentious," the official said.

*

zavis@latimes.com

greg.miller@latimes.com

Zavis reported from Baqubah and Miller from Washington. Times staff writers Peter Spiegel in Washington and Solomon Moore in Baghdad contributed to this report.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Ignore the Israel lobby's push for war with Iran:

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=12394

Smears for Fears
Wes Clark just got caught up in the rigged rules for discussing Israel-related issues in America.
By Matthew Yglesias
Web Exclusive: 01.23.07

Retired General Wesley Clark is, like me, concerned that the Bush administration is going to launch a war with Iran. Arianna Huffington spoke to him in early January and asked why he was so worried the administration was headed in this direction. According to Huffington's January 4 recounting of Clark's thoughts, he said this: "You just have to read what's in the Israeli press. The Jewish community is divided but there is so much pressure being channeled from the New York money people to the office seekers."

This, of course, is true. I'm Jewish and I don't think the United States should bomb Iran, but Thursday night I was talking to a Jewish friend and she does think the United States should bomb Iran. The Jewish community, in short, is divided on the issue. It's also true that most major American Jewish organizations cater to the views of extremely wealthy major donors whose political views are well to the right of the bulk of American Jews, one of the most liberal ethnic groups in the country. Furthermore, it's true that major Jewish organizations are trying to push the country into war. And, last, it's true that if you read the Israeli press you'll see that right-wing Israeli politicians are anticipating a military confrontation with Iran. (For example, here's an article about the timing of the selection of a new top dog in the Israeli Defense Forces; Benjamin Netanyahu is quoted as saying that the new leader "will have to straighten the army out, rebuild Israel's deterrence and prepare the defenses against threats, first and foremost, against Iran.")

Everything Clark said, in short, is true. What's more, everybody knows it's true. The worst that can truthfully be said about Clark is that he expressed himself in a slightly odd way. This, it seems clear, he did because it's a sensitive issue and he worried that if he spoke plainly he'd be accused of trafficking in anti-Semitism. So he spoke unclearly and, for his trouble, got … accused of trafficking in anti-Semitism.

James Taranto, who writes the hack "Best of the Web" column for the online version of The Wall Street Journal's hack editorial page, likened Clark's views on this to the notorious anti-Semitic forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Scott Johnson of the influential and moronic right-wing Power Line blog argued that "Clark's comments are not simply 'anti-Israel,'" and asked "[i]s it a only a matter only of parochial concern to American Jews that they are now to be stigmatized without consequence in the traditional disgusting terms -- terms that used to result in eviction from the precincts of polite society -- by a major figure in the Democratic Party?"

Needless to say, Clark did not stigmatize American Jews. Indeed, he went out of his way to note that the American Jewish community is divided on the issue. Michael Barone's sneering attack on Clark also managed, almost incidentally, to reveal Barone's own understanding that Clark's remarks are substantially correct. Barone observed that it's "interesting to see a Democratic presidential hopeful denounce 'the New York money people,' people whom Clark spent some time with in 2003-04."

And, indeed, it is interesting, for demonstrating the bizarre rules of the road in discussing America's Israel policy. If you're offering commentary that's supportive of America's soi-disant "pro-Israel" forces, as Barone was, it's considered perfectly acceptable to note, albeit elliptically, that said forces are influential in the Democratic Party in part because they contribute large sums of money to Democratic politicians who are willing to toe the line. If, by contrast, one observes this fact by way of criticizing the influence of "pro-Israel" forces, you're denounced as an anti-Semite.

Needless to say, the increasingly ridiculous Abe Foxman, head of the Anti-Defamation League, was swiftly located in order to ply his trademark tactic of accusing people of anti-Semitism that he knows perfectly well aren't anti-Semites. As The Jewish Week reported, "The ADL leader told Clark that he had 'bought into conspiratorial bigotry' that increasingly sees Israel, Jews and American Jewish organizations as the driving force behind U.S. involvement in Iraq and Iran." What's more, "Foxman said Clark’s comments are particularly worrisome because of the context, coming in the wake of," among other things, "a book by former U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter, who accused Israel of pushing for war with Iran."

The context, I would say, is worrisome. "Israel" is not a unitary actor, but clearly some Israelis are pushing for war with Iran. More to the point, many American Jewish organizations are pushing for war with Iran. And before Foxman comes to lock me up, he might want to check out his own outfit's website, complete with a section on "The Iranian Threat." Meanwhile, over on AIPAC's site we can learn about the "escalating threat" from Iran. A group called The Israel Project has an Iran Press Kit page, linking only to alarmist takes on the Iranian nuclear issue and to a hawks-only set of expert sources. (Shockingly, none of these organizations are especially concerned that Israel won't join the Non-Proliferation Treaty Framework.)

For another example, the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs gave Senator John McCain its "Scoop" Jackson Award in December; in his remarks accepting the award, McCain argued that "[t]he path to future success for Israel will not be an easy one, and there will be a number of difficult issues. Foremost on many minds, is, of course, Iran." He characterized "Tehran’s continued pursuit of nuclear weapons" as "an unacceptable risk" -- language clearly designed to lay the groundwork for war.

With this last bit, we not only see the accuracy of Clark's remark, but, once again, the stunning hypocrisy of the anti-anti-Semitism brigades. It's clear that McCain, just like Clark, sees American Jewish organizations as key players in the Iran-hawk movement in the United States, and also that he sees concern for Israeli security as motivating those groups. Nobody, however, is going to label McCain a Jew-hating conspiracy theorist -- because, of course, McCain wants to help these groups push the United States into a military confrontation with Iran. Thus, McCain gets an award, and Clark gets called an anti-Semite.

Since Clark would like to have a future in the politics game, he ended up backing down from his remarks, explaining he didn't mean what he said. Mission accomplished for those who smeared him. But would I ever suggest that Democrats have been unduly timid on the Iran issue because they fear crossing powerful "pro-Israel" institutions? Never. Only anti-Semites think stuff like that.

Matthew Yglesias is a Prospect staff writer.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

D.C. Notes: Wes Clark is Steamed & BORCHGRAVE:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2007/01/09/d-c-notes-wes-clark-is-steamed-borchgrave.php

JINSA/PNAC (Israel first) Neocon lobbyist Richard Perle: U.S. will attack Iran if it obtains nukes:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2007/01/22/jinsa-pnac-neocon-perle-bush-would-approve-iran-attack.php

Alpha · Posted: Mon Jan 29, 2007 6:33 am Post subject:

Sounds like similar rhetoric in the run up to the attack on Iraq!:

Cheney: U.S. carrier to Gulf sends "strong signal"

Sun Jan 28, 10:06 AM ET
By deploying a second aircraft carrier to the Gulf the United States has sent a "strong signal" that it is in the region to stay and working with allies to deal with an Iranian threat, Vice President Dick Cheney said.
He repeated the Bush administration's stance that the United States seeks to resolve the dispute over Iran's nuclear program through diplomatic means, but that all options are on the table.
"I think most of the nations in that part of the world believe their security is supported, if you will, by the United States. They want us to have a major presence there," Cheney said in an interview with Newsweek magazine, according to a transcript released by the White House on Sunday.
"When we -- as the president did, for example, recently -- deploy another aircraft carrier task force to the Gulf, that sends a very strong signal to everybody in the region that the United States is here to stay, that we clearly have significant capabilities, and that we are working with friends and allies as well as the international organizations to deal with the Iranian threat," Cheney said.
The United States suspects Iran's nuclear program is a cover for developing weapons and pressed the U.N. Security Council to impose sanctions against Tehran in December.
Iran recently issued conflicting signals on its nuclear program, with an Iranian nuclear official this weekend denying a statement by a parliamentarian that the country had begun installing 3,000 new atomic centrifuges for uranium enrichment.
The United States has also accused Iran of fueling instability in Iraq, and President George W. Bush on Friday warned Iranians that they would be stopped if they attacked U.S. or Iraqi forces inside Iraq.
Cheney, asked whether he could see a scenario in which there were air strikes on Iran, replied: "I'm not going to speculate about ... security action."
The United States was "doing what we can to try to resolve issues such as the nuclear question diplomatically through the United Nations, but we've also made it clear that we haven't taken any options off the table," he said.

Armageddon Imminent
By Nuking Iran?
Only immediate protest by members of Congress
and all concerned Americans may prevent it
By Dick Fojut
r.fojut@worldnet.att.net
1-28-7

In my opinion, many Americans have been misled by "Christian"-Zionist Ministers like Hagee and Robertson, men (mistakenly) devoted to the "State of Israel" - and obsessed to fulfill prophecies in the (disputed) "Book of Revelation." To do so, these supposed followers of the "Prince of Peace" want America (and Israel) to soon attack Iran with nukes to hasten their hoped for global "Armageddon." They speak into (apparent) believer Bush's "ears." As well as into the "ears" of too many in Congress.

(See first article below following my comments.)
http://www.alternet.org/story/46753
Cleverly manipulating those self-deceived "Christian"-Zionist leaders, amoral Dick Cheney, the Neo-(phoney)"conservatives" and influential Jewish-Zionists here in America and in Israel (whose military reportedly has SIX HUNDRED thermonuclear and atomic warheads), do not believe in the "Book of Revelation." They have a different future in mind... They want Iran (as well as Syria) physically smashed and dismembered - to establish eventual Zionist Israeli domination of (whatever will be left of) the Middle East.
Leading up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq (fully informed of, but totally ignoring the evidence provided by the Ritter and Blix led UN weapons inspection teams which verified Iraq NO longer possessed any WMD), ALL of the above named, KNOWINGLY conspired to deceive our Congress and the American public into falsely believing that Iraq remained an IMMINENT nuclear and biological missile threat to Israel, America, Britain and Iraq's Muslim neighbors! That has since been publicly exposed as a MONSTROUS LIE! The obscene and criminal bombing destruction and deaths of over 655,000 Iraqi civilians falsely "justified" by that lie, was totally unnecessary! The Cheney/Bush/Blair invasion and occupation of Iraq was and is a continuing genocide that never needed to happen!
But now, once more aided by America's complicit (largely Zionist owned or dominated, pro-Israel) major "news" media, especially the public opinion molding TV networks, those named above ARE LYING AGAIN - about Iran! And valid suspicions have been raised that the above named liars (and traitors) may also be setting up ANOTHER "FALSE FLAG" incident, another phoney "Gulf of Tonkin" (such as a treasonously contrived "missile attack" on an American carrier, falsely blamed on Iran?) to then "justify" a Cheney/Bush massive "retaliatory" nuclear strike on (an innocent) Iran. The attack-Iran "Christian"-Zionists speak into Bush's ear. But Cheney and the others named above, apparently "speak" THROUGH obedient Bush's mouth!
(See below following 2nd and 3rd articles about Iran.)
AS BUSH'S WAR STRATEGY SHIFTS TO IRAN, CHRISTIAN ZIONISTS GEAR UP FOR THE APOCALYPSE
Is Bush Pushing A Second War Or A Second Coming?
January 18, 2007 By Sarah Posner Excerpts only...
Christian Zionists are dancing the hora in San Antonio. Armageddon appears to be at hand.
As George W. Bush sets his sights on Iran, even Republicans are wondering how to constitutionally contain the trigger-happy king. But for an influential group of Christian fundamentalists -- White House allies that garner not only feel-good meetings with the President's liaisons to the "faith-based" community but also serious discussions with Bush's national security staff -- an attack on Iran is just what God ordered.
Biblical literalists, convened together through San Antonio megapastor John Hagee's Christians United for Israel (CUFI), are now seeing the fruits of their yearlong campaign to convince the Bush administration to attack Iran.

(Open below URL for full article)
http://www.alternet.org/story/46753
(The following 2nd article exposes the current lie now being used to generate public support for an attack on Iran and its supposedly "threatening" President )...
THE "WIPE ISRAEL OFF THE MAP" HOAX
What Ahmadinejad really said and why this broken record is just another ad slogan for war
Prison Planet/Jan. 26, 2007 - Paul Joseph Watson Excerpt only...
Barely a day goes by that one can avoid reading or hearing yet another Israeli, American or British warhawk regurgitate the broken record that Iran's President Ahmadinejad threatened to "wipe Israel off the map," framed in the ridiculous context that Israeli's are being targeted for a second holocaust. This baseless rallying call for conflict holds about as much credibility as Dick Cheney's assertion that Saddam Hussein was planning to light up American skies with mushroom clouds.
(Open URL for complete article)
http://www.infowars.com/articles/ww3/iran_wipe_israel_off_map_hoax_print.htm

(In the following, Paul Craig Roberts supports the above article with more details of what Armadinejad ACTUALLY said)

(Finally, it is a former Washington insider, respected Conservative Republican and columnist, Paul Craig Roberts, in the following 3rd article, who expertly sums up the preceding in his honest overview and frightening warning to alert the American people to understand WHY Iran - possessing NO nuclear weapons - is about to be bombed. Exactly like Iraq, it will be another needless, unjustified bombing strike that will benefit ONLY the Zionist-ruled, tiny - but nuclear weapons bloated - State of Israel to which our President and most in Congress have been slavishly obedient for many decades)...
MORE DECEPTION FROM THE WAR CRIMINAL
By Paul Craig Roberts Jan. 25, 07
http://www.ichblog.eu/content/view/112/2/
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.
Bush's state of the union address did not describe the deplorable state of the union. The speech's importance consists of Bush's plea to Congress to please let him fool them one more time in order that he can attack Iran and start a bigger war that Congress will have to support in order to support Israel.
That is all the president had to say.
The "surge" of US troops for Iraq is another deception. The surge's purpose has nothing to do with achieving victory in Iraq. Its purpose is to counter the pressure from the American public, Congress, and the US military to withdraw US troops from Iraq. Once a withdrawal begins, the neoconservative misadventure in the Middle East is at an end before its goals can be achieved. Delaying the withdrawal by proposing an escalation and provoking a debate gives Bush and Israel time to orchestrate an attack on Iran.
No one in Congress or print and TV media is prepared to call Bush on this transparent deception. Instead, critics focus on the fact that the surge cannot succeed. For example, in the Democratic response to Bush's address, Senator Jim Webb, who served as Secretary of the Navy under President Reagan, stressed the recklessness and cost of Bush's invasion of Iraq:
"The President took us into this war recklessly. He disregarded warnings from the national security adviser during the first Gulf War, the chief of staff of the army, two former commanding generals of the Central Command, whose jurisdiction includes Iraq, the director of operations on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and many, many others with great integrity and long experience in national security affairs. We are now, as a nation, held hostage to the predictable and predicted disarray that has followed."
Sen. Webb is the best that the Democrats have and with Ron Paul the best that Congress has. Yet, not even Webb can cut to the chase.
Consequently, while Congress wastes time with non-binding resolutions against the surge in Iraq, Bush proceeds to implement plans to start war with Iran.
I have said that the only hope of stopping Bush from initiating war with Iran is for the leadership of both parties in both houses of Congress to make unequivocally clear that Bush will be impeached if he attacks Iran without the approval of Congress. Even this might not be enough. The Bush Regime is capable of orchestrating an incident, such as an attack on a US aircraft carrier, that can be blamed on Iran and, in that way, sweep Congress along on a patriotic outburst against "Iranian aggression against US forces."
Many of the people who have come to oppose Bush's war in Iraq mistakenly believe that Bush is a good person who is trying to protect America, but that he is going about it in the wrong way and is too inflexible to learn from his mistakes. They have no clue as to the evil agenda that guides the Bush Regime.
The Bush Regime is the first neoconservative regime in US history. Bush hides the neoconservative agenda behind "the war on terror," which essentially is a hoax. The main purpose of the neoconservatives' "war on terror" it to eliminate any effective Muslim opposition to Israel's theft of Palestine and the Golan Heights.
To silence Muslim opposition to Israel's theft of Arab lands, the US must eliminate or intimidate Middle Eastern governments that are not under US control--Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah which governs southern Lebanon. The US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq have failed to establish US control, but they have left both countries in a destructive civil war. Israel's invasion of Lebanon appears to have renewed civil war in that country.
Bush is not going to be forthright about the neoconservative agenda, because he knows it is one that Congress and the American people must be manipulated and maneuvered into accepting. However, neoconservatives themselves are very forthright about their war plans.
Let's listen to their most recent pronouncements.
On January 23, former Republican Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, a leading neoconservative, told a conference in Herzliya, Israel, that the United States and Israel were in danger of nuclear attack from Iran. The crazed Gingrich, who is considering a run for the US presidency in 2008, said: "Our enemies are fully as determined as Nazi Germany, and more determined than the Soviets. Our enemies will kill us the first chance they get. There is no rational ability to deny that fact."
Gingrich says: "We don't have the right language, goals, structure, or operating speed, to defeat our enemies. My hope is that being this candid and direct, I could open a dialogue that will force people to come to grips with how serious this is, how real it is, how much we are threatened."
Who are "our enemies?" Why, Iran, of course.
Iran is such a dangerous determined enemy that "the threat of a nuclear Holocaust" hovers over the US and Israel. "Israel is in the greatest danger it has been in since 1967." The US could "lose two or three cities to nuclear weapons, or more than a million people to biological weapons. Freedom as we know it will disappear."
Another American presidential hopeful, Mitt Romney, told the Israeli audience that Islamic jihadism was "the nightmare of this century." Israel, Romney declared, "is facing a jihadist threat that runs through Tehran, to Damascus, to Gaza." Hezbollah, he declared, is not fighting for a Palestinian state but for the destruction of Israel.
The world has not experienced this level of warmongering since Hitler.
Also at the Israeli conference was US Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns, who added fuel to the fire by alleging without any evidence that "Iran is seeking a nuclear weapon, there's no doubt about it. There's no debate among experts. It's seeking a nuclear weapon at its plant at Nantz."
A truthful statement, which no one any longer expects from any member of the Bush Regime, would be that the weapons inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency have poured over Iran's nuclear program and have found no evidence of a weapons program. A number of experts, such as Gordon Prather, have fiercely disputed the propagandistic claims of an Iranian nuclear weapons program.
What concerns experts is that once Iran has succeeded with a nuclear energy program, it could go on, in the absence of inspections, to develop nuclear weapons in about 10 years. However, as a signatory nation to the non-proliferation treaty, Iran would undergo the inspections, as it was doing prior to the recent provocations orchestrated by the Bush Regime. In contrast, Israel has not signed the non-proliferation treaty and has a large number of nuclear weapons, the existence of which Israel has denied for years.
Burns told the Israeli conference that the US will not allow Iran to go nuclear. This is an extraordinary statement, because every signatory country to the non-proliferation treaty has the right to develop nuclear energy. Some people speculate that an oil-producing country doesn't need nuclear power. However, oil is Iran's only significant export. The less Iran uses its own oil, the greater its exports.
Burns told the Israelis that "We are committed to our alliance with Israel. We are committed to being Israel's strongest security partner. I can't remember a time when the relationship between our two countries was stronger than it is today."
Chief US neoconservative Richard Perle told the Israeli conference that President Bush would give the green light if US military involvement was needed for a successful strike on Iran. According to the Israeli press, "Perle hypothesized a nightmare scenario, saying: 'In possession of nuclear weapons, or even in possession of nuclear material, Iran is perfectly capable of using its terrorist networks to enable others to inflict grievous damage.'"
Former Israeli defense minister Shaul Mofaz, who met privately with Burns prior to their joint appearance at the Herzliya conference, said that 2007 would decide the future of the Middle East. Mofaz declared, "The year of 2007 is a year of decisiveness. Iran of 2007 has all the components to threaten us existentially, and the whole of the region."
Any expert or knowledgeable person who examines these statements sees nothing but unsupported assertions, paranoid speculations, fear- mongering and blatant lies. It is on this basis, and this basis alone, that the Bush Regime will initiate war with Iran.
Iran is being set up by the identical propaganda machine that set up Iraq with fearful imagery of "mushroom clouds over American cities" and nonexistent "weapons of mass destruction."
After years of blaming al-Qaeda for the Iraqi insurgency, the Bush Regime propagandists have suddenly switched gears and now are blaming Iran for the failure of the US occupation in Iraq and for the deaths of US troops. The Bush Regime recently arrested Iranian diplomats in northern Iraq and made charges so preposterous that the charges were even rejected by Bush's Kurdish and Iraqi allies. Powerful US naval attack fleets have been stationed off Iran's coast, and attack aircraft have been moved to Turkey and other locations on Iran's borders.
Meanwhile, Iran has done nothing.
Iran has refrained from arming and encouraging its Iraqi Shi'ite allies to join the insurgency against US troops. Iran could deliver the weapons that can knock out US tanks and helicopter gunships, thus eliminating the US military advantage from the conflict.
Neoconservative and Israeli propagandists have spread the lie that the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has declared Iran's intention "to wipe Israel off the map." This lie is today regularly repeated even by such formerly careful newspapers as the New York Times and London Times.
A number of experts have examined the speech by the Iranian president. What Ahmadinejad actually said was a direct quote from the deceased Ayatollah Khomeini: "The Imam said this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time." The experts explain that in the context of the text of the speech, what is being said is that peace in the Middle East requires regime change in Israel. In place of a Zionist regime hell bent on stealing more land from Muslims, Zionism will pass away and Israel will cease its aggressive policies and live at peace with its neighbors.
A great number of Western experts agree that the problem in the Middle East is neither Islamic jihad nor Israel per se, but Zionism, which keeps Israel on a land expansionist course at the expense of Arab peoples.
The failure of US policy in the Middle East is the failure to deter Israel from this Zionist policy. A large number of Israelis are opposed to this policy and recognize that Zionism is the cause of Israel's conflict with Arabs.
The real problem that Americans face is that the Zionist influence on US policy is so powerful that instead of dealing with the real cause of strife in the Middle East, the US is about to join Zionism in attempting to eliminate all Muslim opposition to Zionist expansion.
Bush's "war on terror" and Iran's alleged nuclear weapons are just propagandistic cover for the real agenda, which is to silence opponents of Zionist expansion.
The fanaticism of Zionists has been made clear by their ferocious attack on President Jimmy Carter, who stated in his current book both clearly and reasonably that the only path to peace in the Middle East is for Israel to accept a viable Palestinian state.
Carter has done more for peace between Israelis and Arabs than anyone. Moreover, Israel, as opposed to Zionism, has had no greater friend or stronger supporter than Carter. But because Carter pointed out Zionism's role in the conflict, America's most decent and truthful president was demonized.
The unjustified Zionist attack on Carter should tell everyone where the real problem lies.

Additional supporting information...

'NO PROOF' OF IRAN NUCLEAR ARMS PROGRAM SAYS SECRET CIA REPORT

BBC News 1-24-7
'No Proof' Of Iran Nuclear
Arms Program Says
Secret CIA Report
BBC News
1-24-7

The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has not found conclusive evidence that Iran is developing nuclear weapons, a US magazine has reported.
Veteran investigative reporter Seymour Hersh, writing in The New Yorker, cites a secret CIA report based on intelligence such as satellite images.
Correspondents say the alleged document appears to challenge Washington's views regarding Iranian nuclear intentions.
The article says the White House was dismissive about the CIA report.
The US and Europe say Iran is pursuing a clandestine nuclear weapons programme - a charge Iran has strongly denied.
'Hostile' response
The CIA assessment, according to unnamed officials quoted in the article, casts doubt on how far Iran has actually progressed to making a nuclear weapon.
"The White House is not going to dignify the work of an author who has viciously degraded our troops." --Dana Perino, White House spokeswoman
"The CIA found no conclusive evidence, as yet, of a secret Iranian nuclear weapons program running parallel to the civilian operations that Iran has declared to the International Atomic Energy Agency," Mr Hersh wrote.
It says the agency based its conclusions on technical intelligence, such as satellite photography and measurements from sensors planted by US and Israeli agents.
The article says: "A current senior intelligence official confirmed the existence of the CIA analysis, and told me that the White House had been hostile to it."
White House spokeswoman Dana Perino criticised the article, calling it an "error-filled" piece in a "series of inaccuracy-riddled articles about the Bush administration".
"The White House is not going to dignify the work of an author who has viciously degraded our troops, and whose articles consistently rely on outright falsehoods to justify his own radical views," she was quoted by AFP news agency as saying.
The BBC's Adam Brookes in Washington says if the New Yorker article is correct, it would suggest that the CIA is being more cautious than the Bush administration in evaluating whether or not Iran is on its way to building a bomb.
And he says, as with Iraq, it suggests political battles to come over how intelligence is used as a basis for American foreign policy.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6167304.st

The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has not found conclusive evidence that Iran is developing nuclear weapons, a US magazine has reported.
Veteran investigative reporter Seymour Hersh, writing in The New Yorker, cites a secret CIA report based on intelligence such as satellite images.
BUSH SPEECH TERROR CLAIM DEBUNKED A YEAR AGO

Just one of many State of the Union lies, following in the tradition of the 2003 yellowcake fraud, Bush commits an impeachable offense by knowingly lying to the American people

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Brit MP Galloway talks about coming attack on Iran:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2007/01/28/brit-mp-galloway-talks-about-coming-attack-on-iran.php

Alpha · Posted: Mon Jan 29, 2007 6:12 pm Post subject:

Don't tell me that the following (as well) doesn't seem similar to the rhetoric the 'JINSA/PNAC' crowd used in the run up to the attack on Iraq - no 'chicken little' here!:)

Bush warns Iran against action in Iraq

By TERENCE HUNT, AP White House Correspondent 47 minutes ago

Deeply distrustful of Iran, President Bush said Monday "we will respond firmly" if Tehran escalates its military actions in Iraq and threatens American forces or Iraqi citizens.
Bush's warning was the latest move in a bitter and more public standoff between the United States and Iran. The White House expressed skepticism about Iran's plans to greatly expand its economic and military ties with Iraq. The United States has accused Iran of supporting terrorism in Iraq and supplying weapons to kill American forces.
"If Iran escalates its military actions in Iraq to the detriment of our troops and - or innocent Iraqi people, we will respond firmly," Bush said in an interview with National Public Radio.
The president's comments reinforced earlier statements from the White House.
"If Iran wants to quit playing a destructive role in the affairs of Iraq and wants to play a constructive role, we would certainly welcome that," National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said. But, he said, "We've seen little evidence to date (of constructive activities) and frankly all we have seen is evidence to the contrary."
Sharply at odds over Iran's suspected nuclear weapons program, Washington and Tehran are arguing increasingly about Iraq. American troops in Iraq have been authorized to kill or capture Iranian agents deemed to be a threat. "If you're in Iraq and trying to kill our troops, then you should consider yourself a target," Defense Secretary Robert Gates said last week.
Iran's plans in Iraq were outlined by Iranian Ambassador Hassan Kazemi Qumi in an interview with The New York Times. He said Iran was prepared to offer Iraqi government forces training, equipment and advisers for what he called "the security fight," the newspaper reported. He said that in the economic area, Iran was ready to assume major responsibility for the reconstruction of Iraq.
"We have experience of reconstruction after war," the ambassador said, referring to the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. "We are ready to transfer this experience in terms of reconstruction to the Iraqis."
Johndroe said the Bush administration was looking at what the ambassador had to say.
The White House says there has been growing evidence over the last several months that Iran is supporting terrorists inside Iraq and is a major supplier of bombs and other weapons used to target U.S. forces. In recent weeks, U.S. forces have detained a number of Iranian agents in Iraq.
"It makes sense that if somebody is trying to harm our troops or stop us from achieving our goal, or killing innocent citizens in Iraq, that we will stop them," Bush said on Friday.

China seems to be fully aware of the PNAC agenda (even though PNAC is officially 'closed down' up at the AEI building six blocks up from the White House in D.C!) which was/is out to dominate space as well (Neil MacKay had the following piece about PNAC for the Sunday Herald in Scotland):

http://www.sundayherald.com/print27735

Bush planned Iraq 'regime change' before becoming President
By Neil Mackay

A SECRET blueprint for US global domination reveals that President Bush and his cabinet were planning a premeditated attack on Iraq to secure 'regime change' even before he took power in January 2001.The blueprint, uncovered by the Sunday Herald, for the creation of a 'global Pax Americana' was drawn up for Dick Cheney (now vice- president), Donald Rumsfeld (defence secretary), Paul Wolfowitz (Rumsfeld's deputy), George W Bush's younger brother Jeb and Lewis Libby (Cheney's chief of staff). The document, entitled Rebuilding America's Defences: Strategies, Forces And Resources For A New Century, was written in September 2000 by the neo-conservative think-tank Project for the New American Century (PNAC).The plan shows Bush's cabinet intended to take military control of the Gulf region whether or not Saddam Hussein was in power. It says: 'The United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.'The PNAC document supports a 'blueprint for maintaining global US pre-eminence, precluding the rise of a great power rival, and shaping the international security order in line with American principles and interests'.This 'American grand strategy' must be advanced for 'as far into the future as possible', the report says. It also calls for the US to 'fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theatre wars' as a 'core mission'. The report describes American armed forces abroad as 'the cavalry on the new American frontier'. The PNAC blueprint supports an earlier document written by Wolfowitz and Libby that said the US must 'discourage advanced industrial nations from challenging our leadership or even aspiring to a larger regional or global role'.The PNAC report also:l refers to key allies such as the UK as 'the most effective and efficient means of exercising American global leadership';l describes peace-keeping missions as 'demanding American political leadership rather than that of the United Nations';l reveals worries in the administration that Europe could rival the USA;l says 'even should Saddam pass from the scene' bases in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait will remain permanently -- despite domestic opposition in the Gulf regimes to the stationing of US troops -- as 'Iran may well prove as large a threat to US interests as Iraq has';l spotlights China for 'regime change' saying 'it is time to increase the presence of American forces in southeast Asia'. This, it says, may lead to 'American and allied power providing the spur to the process of democratisation in China'; l calls for the creation of 'US Space Forces', to dominate space, and the total control of cyberspace to prevent 'enemies' using the internet against the US;l hints that, despite threatening war against Iraq for developing weapons of mass destruction, the US may consider developing biological weapons -- which the nation has banned -- in decades to come. It says: 'New methods of attack -- electronic, 'non-lethal', biological -- will be more widely available ... combat likely will take place in new dimensions, in space, cyberspace, and perhaps the world of microbes ... advanced forms of biological warfare that can 'target' specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool';l and pinpoints North Korea, Libya, Syria and Iran as dangerous regimes and says their existence justifies the creation of a 'world-wide command-and-control system'.Tam Dalyell, the Labour MP, father of the House of Commons and one of the leading rebel voices against war with Iraq, said: 'This is garbage from right-wing think-tanks stuffed with chicken-hawks -- men who have never seen the horror of war but are in love with the idea of war. Men like Cheney, who were draft-dodgers in the Vietnam war.'This is a blueprint for US world domination -- a new world order of their making. These are the thought processes of fantasist Americans who want to control the world. I am appalled that a British Labour Prime Minister should have got into bed with a crew which has this moral standing.'Web report: Iraq

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: Commentary: China 's shot in the dark
Date: Monday, January 29, 2007

Commentary: China 's shot in the dark
By ARNAUD DE BORCHGRAVE, UPI Editor at Large
WASHINGTON , Jan. 29 (UPI) -- China is making geopolitical hay while the sun isn't shining for America .
Chinese leaders have seen President Bush's approval ratings continue a downward slide all over the world, according to the BBC's latest universal survey. More important, previous public opinion polls showed China with a better image than America in friendly European countries -- with the notable exception of Poland . The rest of the world has watched the defection of some of President Bush's Congressional supporters. China 's topsiders have heard from their close ally president Musharraf -- "a major non-NATO ally" -- he doesn't think the United States can avoid what the world will perceive as a defeat in Iraq . And perception trumps reality the world over.
The global newspaper Financial Times wrote, "As authority drains from Mr. Bush, so Washington is losing its capacity to determine outcomes elsewhere. Iran is the principal beneficiary."
A defector from Musharraf's camp has informed U.S. authorities the Pakistani leader's "agonizing reappraisal" about the future of Afghanistan stems from his perception the United States cannot pull a victory rabbit out of the Iraqi hat. Hence, his perception neither the United States nor NATO can muster what it takes to complete their mission in Afghanistan . Hence, in turn, Musharraf's decision to authorize his all-powerful Inter-Services Intelligence agency to assist Taliban "moderates" in their bid to reconquer power in Kabul . ISI greatly assisted the original victory of Taliban in 1996.
Assessing the American scene as conveyed by CNN, FOX, BBC and al-Jazeera, Chinese leaders can be forgiven if they have concluded the American Century -- the 20th -- may not be renewed in the 21st. While the American body politic has been almost totally immersed in and absorbed by Iraq and Afghanistan , China 's Hu Jintao's upcoming trip to Africa is the third to the continent by a top Chinese leader in a year.
Last November, China demonstrated its growing global clout by inviting 48 African heads of state and government to a summit in Beijing where they were wined and dined in a style unmatched by their former French, British and Portuguese colonial masters. China has been buying up their production of raw materials years in advance. Pledges have been made to double aid to Africa , train 15,000 professionals and grant 4,000 scholarships.
Vertiginous double-digit yearly growth for the fourth consecutive year has put China on track to leapfrog Germany as the world's third-largest economy. Its foreign currency reserves are accumulating at the rate of $30 million per hour and recently topped the $1 trillion mark -- about 70 percent of that in U.S. paper. It is outspending Japan on technology R&D. China is preening with self-confidence.
As Ford posts a record $12.7 billion loss, China's "Chery" (which started with machines and engine technology purchased from Ford Europe for $25 million), in alliance with China's "Visionary Vehicles," is getting ready to invade the U.S. market with five different models in 2008, all designed by Pininfarina (known for Ferrari and Lamborghini designs). The Las Vegas Sands Casino, with 800 gaming tables, is now the world's largest -- not in Nevada but in Macau , China .
To offset America 's enormous strategic military superiority, the Chinese military concluded in the 1990s information warfare -- or cyberwarfare -- could give China an "asymmetric" advantage over the United States . In 1998, the PLA newspaper Jiefangjun Bao said priority should be given "to learning how to launch an electronic attack on an enemy ... to ensure electromagnetic control in an area and at a time favorable to us."
How to take down the computer-driven sinews of a modern industrialized state quickly became a top priority for the major powers and Israel . Since then the United States has more than matched China's arsenal of cyberweapons -- from ultra sophisticated logic bombs, to Trojan horses, worms, viruses and denial of service decoys.
The 1990-91 Desert Shield and Desert Storm and the 2003 invasion of Iraq (when 50 military-specific satellites and numerous commercial birds were used) showed the Chinese how utterly dependent the United States had become on "satcoms." In 1998, the failure of a single satellite disabled 80 percent of the pagers in the United States .
Unmanned aircraft like the Predator achieve pinpoint bombing accuracy over the Pak-Afghan border while flown by a pilot/bombardier in a simulated cockpit thousands of miles away in Washington . Signals from Global Positioning System's satellites guide precision weapons to their targets in the same role played by a rifle's gunsight.
Modern battlespace's eyes and ears are in orbit and vulnerable. The space equivalents of bullets and shells -- kinetic energy weapons -- to destroy or damage a target in space is the next phase of modern warfare. The 2001 Congress-mandated Commission to Assess U.S. National Security Space Management said the United States "is an attractive candidate for a space Pearl Harbor -- or a surprise attack on U.S. space assets aimed at crippling U.S. war-fighting and other capabilities."
Chinese strategists view U.S. dependence on space as an asymmetric vulnerability while Chinese scientists are known to be working on ASAT (anti-satellite weapons, such as kinetic kill vehicles). Last week, China decided the time had come to demonstrate the fragility of the U.S. military dependency on communications satellites.
Without warning, Jan. 11, China fired a missile aimed at one of its own aging communications satellites. With pinpoint accuracy, the missile pulverized the Feng Yun 1-C 500 miles above earth, scattering thousands of tiny fragments that could easily puncture the metal skin of other satellites in orbit. The former Soviet Union did it first in 1971, followed by the United States in 1985, before Congress banned further tests lest they imperiled one of the several hundred satellites, many from other nations.
Space as a sanctuary free from armed conflict will most probably come to an end over the next 20 years. Speaking in flawless English at the World Economic Forum in Davos last week, one-star general Yao Yunzhu, who directs China 's Asia-Pacific Office at the Academy of Military Science in Beijing , predicted: "Outer space is going to be weaponized in our lifetime." She is 52. If there's going to be "a space superpower," she said, "it will have company" -- China .
China also has -- untested -- the ultimate weapon to silence an enemy: the E-bomb, or electromagnetic pulse. In the nosecone of an ICBM, or even MRBM, set to explode at an altitude of 75 miles above the east coast of the United States, EMPs can knock out all communications (except small handheld radios) from Maine to Florida and from Manhattan to the Mississippi River.
Anti-satellite artillery and the EMP threat would be powerful equalizers if it ever came to Sino-American hostilities over Taiwan . Following disengagement from Iraq , U.S. defense priorities are likely to remain focused on combating terrorism while Europe's defense agenda will become increasingly unsupportive of U.S. policies. China is eyeing an emerging geopolitical vacuum with interest. And it has no intention to play the game of nations by U.S. rules.

Alpha

'JINSA John' Bolton for regime change in Tehran (AFP)

Mon Jan 29, 9:27 AM ET

Negotiations with Tehran over Iran's nuclear programme have failed and the only long-term option is regime change, former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton has said.
"We have to recognise it: negotiations have failed. Time is not on our side. I am not sure this view is shared in London, Berlin or Paris. But that is a mistake," Bolton told Le Monde newspaper Monday.
"The only response is to isolate (the Iranians) internationally as well as politically and economically. In the long term, in the I hope not very long term, the only real solution is regime change," he said.
Asked if this was the policy of the US administration, he said: "No. Regime change is not part of their working framework."
On the issue of Iraq, Bolton -- a key supporter of the 2003 invasion -- said that he "continued to think that the basic decision to overthrow Saddam Hussein was the right one."
"Retrospectively we should have transferred authority to the Iraqis more quickly," he said.
Asked about President George W. Bush's plans to send in troop reinforcements to stem the violence in Iraq, he said it was the US's "last effort."
"If the Iraqis cannot straighten the situation, that's their fault," Bolton said.

Alpha

http://rightweb.irc-online.org/rw/3945

Expanding the War to Iran: Another “Urban Legend?”

Leon Hadar | January 26, 2007

IRC Right Web rightweb.irc-online.org

Rejecting the notion that the United States was planning to attack Iran and Syria, White House Spokesman Tony Snow called it a myth or an “urban legend.” “I want to address [a] kind of a rumor, an urban legend that's going around,” Snow told reporters at a White House briefing two days after President George W. Bush vowed to go after Iranian terrorist networks involved in Iraq violence. “What the president talked about in his speech on Iraq strategy is defending American forces within Iraq,” Snow insisted.

In his January 11 televised speech on U.S. policy in Iraq, Bush had accused Tehran and Damascus of fueling the insurgency in Iraq and expressed disagreement with proposals, including from the Iraq Study Group (ISG), to negotiate with both countries as part of an effort to reach peace and stability in Iraq. He said: “We will disrupt the attacks on our forces. We'll interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria. And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq.” Bush also announced that he would dispatch another aircraft carrier battle group and deploy Patriot antimissile batteries in the Persian Gulf.

Generally speaking, an urban legend is a widely circulated, folklorish story—often based on exaggerated or distorted fact—that is believed to be true by many who repeat it.

So, let's see. Many reports circulated in Washington and elsewhere in 2002 and early 2003 that, notwithstanding Bush's stated commitment to deal with Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction (WMD) through diplomatic means, the White House was already considering plans to militarily oust Saddam Hussein. It seems that Bush et al. would characterize such “pre-invasion preparation” speculation as urban legend. After all, Bush and his advisers denied the reports—much in the same way they are challenging the current reports on the possibility of U.S. preparations to attack Iran.

I suppose that when it comes to Washington, DC, something that is urban legend-esque ceases to be a legend only after we read one of Bob Woodward's post-mortems in which we end up discovering that those who had been accused of “spreading rumors” were actually telling the truth. We might then learn that the press secretary who had dismissed these facts as nothing more than “rumors” was probably just out of the loop. (“Out of the loop” is what “insiders” call a government official who doesn't have access to information about what the Decider and his Vice are really planning.)

As a journalist who covered Washington in the months leading up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003, I recall the many “urban legends” that were circulating at that time. These included rumors about how Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld were pushing for a war with Iraq; about how their aides were pressuring the intelligence agencies to come up with “estimates” to help exaggerate the Iraqi WMD threat and Baghdad's alleged ties to al-Qaida; about how the Americans and the British were secretly drawing up a strategy for a military confrontation with Iraq while pledging to continue to pursue diplomacy; and about how some of the leading Iraqi exiles lobbying for the “liberation” of Iraq, like Ahmed Chalabi, were untrustworthy characters.

I read some of these reports in the press; others reached me through the grapevine. They were all immediately denied by the White House press officer. Yet after the war had been raging, most of these “rumors” proved to be based on fact. In a way, any political analyst familiar with the way Washington works and the way decisions are made here—who could read between the lines of media reports and official statements, and who would deconstruct the modus operandi and body language of Bush and his aides—had no choice but to conclude that war with Iraq was inevitable. In that case, the conventional wisdom got it right.

So it's not surprising that journalists and pundits who continue to follow their professional instincts are experiencing a certain sense of déjà vu all over again as they begin to wonder these days whether Bush and his aides are planning to expand the current war in Iraq to Iran (and Syria). The initial source of this “urban legend” was Bush's infamous “Axis of Evil” speech, in which he lumped Iran together with Iraq and North Korea as deserving U.S. punishment. The speech was followed by various pledges, including public statements, press leaks, and even the commitment of U.S. financial resources to “export” democracy to Iran. And in the aftermath of ousting Saddam from power in Baghdad, there were even a few hints here and there about “regime change” in Tehran. Interestingly, the administration denied press reports about Iranian attempts to negotiate a diplomatic deal with Washington over Iraq, Lebanon, and Israel/Palestine.

Finally, at the center of the U.S. anti-Iran campaign was the effort to end Iranian plans to develop nuclear weapons—allegations based on questionable intelligence estimates from Washington and Jerusalem—either through diplomatic means or, the efforts implied, otherwise.

For a while, the conventional wisdom in Washington was that against the backdrop of the ensuing mess in Iraq, the neocons were losing influence, the “realists” were gaining power, and that the Bush administration was going to move toward some sort of diplomatic “engagement” with the Iranians along the lines proposed by the ISG, other respected foreign policy experts, and leading Democrats.

But after Bush and Cheney politely rejected the ISG recommendations, and after signs that Bush and Cheney were getting ready to “do something” about Iran, the conventional wisdom concluded that the White House has now embraced further military escalation in the Persian Gulf.

The Israelis, led by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, have been playing to the hands of U.S. warriors by suggesting that an Iranian nuclear bomb would pose an “existential” threat akin to the European Holocaust and that if U.S. diplomatic and/or military power failed, Israel would have no choice but to “take care of the problem.” The warnings were buttressed through a series of public statements, including a visit by Olmert to Washington, and leaks to the press, including a recent British newspaper report that Israel could use tactical nuclear weapons to destroy Iran's nuclear military sites.

At the same time, the Saudis have been warning that a nuclear Iran would help transform Tehran into a hegemonic power in the Persian Gulf and provide it with an opportunity to lead an alliance of Shiite Mideast factions, from Iran to Israel/Palestine through Lebanon, in a way that would threaten Saudi Arabia and other pro-U.S. Arab-Sunni regimes. The sense of alarm perpetuated by the Saudis was reinforced through press leaks suggesting that the members of the hawkish wing of the Saudi royal family, led by former Saudi Ambassador to Washington Prince Bandar bin Sultan, were gaining strength, and that the Israelis and the Saudis, backed by Washington, have been conducting secret talks to coordinate the anti-Iran strategy.

Indeed, according to Israeli press reports, Olmert and Prince Sultan have met to discuss Iran and related issues. The meeting and other signs of coordination on Iran between Washington, Jerusalem, and Riyadh have raised the possibility that the Bush administration was trying to draw the outlines of a new strategic consensus involving it, Israel, and the pro-U.S. Arab-Sunni regimes (Saudi Arabia and the other Arab Gulf states, and Egypt and Jordan). These reports recalled a similar “strategic consensus” that evolved in the 1980s during the Reagan administration, when the Americans, Israelis, and Saudis—and, yes, then-U.S. partner, Saddam Hussein's Iraq—were cooperating in dealing with both the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and with the challenge from revolutionary Iran. And anyone who knows how to assess the balance of power in Washington will tell you that when the Americans are joined by the Saudis and the Israelis and their powerful supporters in Washington in a coordinated effort to harm you, run fast for cover. Both the Soviets fighting against Osama bin Laden and his mujahideen allies (assisted by Washington) in Afghanistan and the Iranians attacked by Saddam's Iraqi military (assisted by Washington) learned that lesson in the 1980s.

In addition to the pressure exerted by the Saudis and Israelis on Washington, President Bush in his January 11 speech blamed the Iranians for targeting U.S. troops in Iraq and threatened to use U.S. military power to disrupt such actions. The next day Bush announced that he was sending an aircraft carrier to visit Iran's neighborhood, and the military ordered U.S. troops to raid an Iranian consulate in the Iraqi Kurdish city of Irbil. Such actions could lead even a low -level intelligence analyst to see “signals” coming out of the White House aimed at Iran.

Moreover, the decision by the Bush administration to appoint Adm. William Fallon to oversee U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan has raised many red flags among observers in Washington. Why choose a navy admiral to lead two ground wars in the Middle East and South Asia, unless you regard that as a preparatory step for a strike on Iran's nuclear military sites ? If that happened, Iran would retaliate by attacking oil platforms and tankers, closing the S trait of Hormuz, and perhaps hitting oil infrastructure in Saudi Arabia; the U.S. Navy would probably play a key role in protecting the oil flowing from the Persian Gulf.

Many members of Congress have also been reading the signals, and they are worried that the Bush administration may be making the conditions for another war in the Middle East. During testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice insisted that the administration had no plans to cross Iraq's borders into Iran to attack supporters of the Iraqi insurgency and militias. But Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) compared Bush's strategy to former President Richard Nixon's escalation of the Vietnam War. “You cannot sit here today, not because you are dishonest or don't understand—once you get to hot pursuit, no one can say we won't engage across border,” he said. “Some of us remember 1970 and Cambodia, and our government lied to us and said we didn't cross the border. When you set in motion the kind of policy the president is talking about here, it is very, very dangerous.”

Other Democratic and Republican lawmakers expressed similar concerns that the rising tensions with Iran could ignite a full-blown war and demanded that the White House consult Congress before going to war with Iran. But Bush-Cheney and their neocon advisers may have found a way to overcome the threat of congressional and Democratic opposition, and it has to do with the potential Israeli role in a crisis with Iran. If Israel decides to attack Iran's nuclear sites, many of the same lawmakers would probably applaud the move, a reflection of their pro-Israeli disposition. After all, can anyone imagine presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) bashing the Israelis on the eve of the primaries or the general election? But any retaliation from an Israeli attack on Iran would probably necessitate a U.S. response, which Congress would have no choice to support. It is quite likely that if Iran also decided to unleash its Hezbollah allies in Lebanon and encouraged them to attack Israel, the Israelis would respond by invading Syria and forcing out Bashar al Assad—another “regime change” that might benefit the interests of U.S. allies in Lebanon. And of course, the Bush administration would then dismiss the notion that the strike by a client state received a green (or at least a yellow) light from the White House as another “urban legend.” (We'd probably have to wait for Bob Woodward's next volume to learn that while U.S. lawmakers were whining, the green light was flashing as the Americans, Israelis, and Saudis were readying for a war with Iran.)

But it's also possible that such a book would not conclude with a neoconservative-scripted, happy ending in which the Bush administration celebrates the triumph of Pax Americana. Bush, Cheney, and their neoconservative aides have already tried to use Israel's strategic services, when they gave Olmert a green light to attack Hezbollah infrastructure in Lebanon in summer 2006, hoping that devastating the partner of Iran and Syria would serve as a blow to Tehran.

But the best-laid plans of mice and neocons often go awry. Hezbollah resisted the Israeli invasion of South Lebanon and emerged with a political victory in the aftermath of war, providing Iran and Syria with a win. Similarly, an Israeli strike against Iran could fail and/or result in thousands of civilian casualties. The Shiite-led government in Iraq could be forced to ally with the Iranians and demand the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the country, while anti-U.S. sentiments in the Middle East and the Muslim world would skyrocket. Other possible consequences could include a dramatic increase in energy prices, especially if Venezuela decides to join an oil embargo; demonstrations by outraged citizens in major European (not to mention U.S.) cities; and most importantly, growing pressure from the European Union, Russia, and China on Washington to convene an international conference on the Middle East.

While the United States and Israel could emerge victorious from the military campaign (not unlike the British, French, and Israelis after the 1956 Suez Campaign against Egypt), they could also find themselves totally isolated in the international community, facing enormous diplomatic and economic pressure to reverse their policies. That is what happens when history transforms an urban legend into a tragedy.

Leon Hadar, a Washington-based journalist and contributor to Right Web (rightweb.irc-online.org), is author most recently of Sandstorm: Policy Failure in the Middle East (2006). He blogs at globalparadigms.blogspot.com.

Alpha

Senators warn against war with Iran

By ANNE GEARAN, AP Diplomatic Writer 41 minutes ago

Republican and Democratic senators warned Tuesday against a drift toward war with an emboldened Iran and suggested the Bush administration was missing a chance to engage its longtime adversary in potentially helpful talks over next-door Iraq.
"What I think many of us are concerned about is that we stumble into active hostilities with Iran without having aggressively pursued diplomatic approaches, without the American people understanding exactly what's taking place," Sen. Barack Obama (news, bio, voting record), D-Ill., told John Negroponte, who is in line to become the nation's No. 2 diplomat as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's deputy.
Obama, a candidate for president in 2008, warned during the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing that senators of both parties will demand "clarity and transparency in terms of U.S. policy so that we don't repeat some of the mistakes that have been made in the past," a reference to the faulty intelligence underlying the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
Sen. Chuck Hagel (news, bio, voting record), R-Neb., a possible presidential candidate, asked Negroponte if he thinks the United States is edging toward a military confrontation with Tehran. In response, Negroponte repeated President Bush's oft-stated preference for diplomacy, although he later added, "We don't rule out other possibilities."
Separately, the Navy admiral poised to lead American forces in the Middle East said Iran wants to limit America's influence in the region.
"They have not been helpful in Iraq," Adm. William Fallon told the Senate Armed Services Committee. "It seems to me that in the region, as they grow their military capabilities, we're going to have to pay close attention to what they do and what they may bring to the table."
The Bush administration has increased rhetorical, diplomatic, military and economic pressure on Iran over the past few months, in response to Iran's alleged deadly help for extremists fighting U.S. troops in Iraq and the long-running dispute over Iran's nuclear program.
Bush said Tuesday the United States "will deal with it" if Iran escalates military action inside Iraq and endangers American forces. But, in an interview with ABC News, Bush emphasized this talk signals no intention of invading Iran itself.
A day earlier, the president acknowledged skepticism concerning U.S. intelligence about Iran, because Washington was wrong in accusing Iraq of harboring weapons of mass destruction before the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. "I'm like a lot of Americans that say, 'Well, if it wasn't right in Iraq, how do you know it's right in Iran,'" the president said.
Washington accuses Iran of arming and training Shiite Muslim extremists in Iraq. U.S. troops have responded by arresting Iranian diplomats in Iraq, and the White House has said Bush signed an order allowing U.S. troops to kill or capture Iranians inside Iraq.
The United States also accuses Iran of secretly developing atomic weapons — an allegation Tehran denies. Iran's refusal to suspend uranium enrichment lead the U.N. Security Council to impose limited economic sanctions.
Senators including Hagel, George Voinovich (news, bio, voting record), R-Ohio, and Joseph R. Biden Jr., D-Del., sounded frustrated with the administration's decision not to engage Iran and fellow outcast Syria in efforts to reduce sectarian violence in Iraq.
Negroponte, a career diplomat who is leaving a higher-ranked job as the nation's top intelligence official, gave only a mild endorsement of the administration's diplomatic hands-off policy toward Damascus and Tehran.
Negroponte would lead the department's Iraq policy if confirmed, as expected. He said Syria is letting 40 to 75 foreign fighters cross its border into Iraq each month and repeated the charge that Iran is providing lethal help to insurgents fighting U.S. forces in Iraq. Iran and Syria are not helping promote stability and peace in Iraq and understand what the United States and other nation expect of them.
"I would never want to say never with respect to initiating a high-level dialogue with either of these two countries, but that's the position, as I understand it, at this time," Negroponte said.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is expected to approve Negroponte quickly for a job vacant since July.

Alpha · Posted: Sun Feb 04, 2007 4:35 pm Post subject:

Four steps towards calming the chaos in Iraq
By Zbigniew Brzezinsky

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/03dd3a7a-b230-11db-a79f-0000779e2340.html

Published: February 1 2007 21:16 | Last updated: February 1 2007 21:16
It is time for the White House to come to terms with two central realities: the war in Iraq is a historic, strategic and moral calamity; and only a strategy that is historically relevant rather than reminiscent of colonial tutelage can provide the framework for a tolerable resolution of both the war and intensifying regional tensions.

If the US stays bogged down in Iraq, the final destination on this downhill track is likely to be head-on conflict with Iran and with the broader world of Islam. A plausible scenario for a military collision with Iran involves Iraqi failure to meet US benchmarks; followed by US accusations of Iranian responsibility for the failure; then by some provocation in Iraq or a terrorist act in the US blamed on Iran. This could culminate in “defensive” US military action against Iran that plunges a lonely America into a deepening quagmire eventually encompassing Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

A mythical historical narrative to justify the case for such a protracted war is already being articulated. Initially justified by false claims about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the war is now being redefined as the “decisive ideological struggle” of our time, reminiscent of the earlier collisions with Nazism and Stalinism.

This simplistic and demagogic narrative overlooks the fact that Nazism was based on the military power of the most industrially advanced European state; and that Stalinism was able to mobilise not only the resources of the Soviet Union but also had worldwide appeal through its Marxist doctrine. To argue that America is already at war in the region with a wider Islamic threat, of which Iran is the epicentre, is to promote a self-fulfilling prophecy.

It is obvious by now that the US national interest calls for a significant change of direction. There is a consensus in favour of change: US public opinion now holds that the war was a mistake; that a regional political process should be explored; and that an Israeli-Palestinian accommodation is essential to the needed policy alteration. It is noteworthy that a number of leading Republicans have voiced profound reservations regarding the administration’s policy. One need only invoke here the expressed views of the late President Gerald Ford, former secretary of state James Baker, former national security adviser Brent Scowcroft and several leading Republican senators: John Warner, Chuck Hagel and Gordon Smith among others.

The quest for a political solution to the growing chaos in Iraq should involve four steps.

First, the US should reaffirm unambiguously its determination to leave Iraq in a reasonably short period of time. Such a declaration is needed to allay fears in the Middle East of a new and enduring American imperial hegemony. That perception should be discredited at the highest level, perhaps by a joint resolution in the Congress.

Second, the US should announce it is undertaking talks with all Iraqi leaders – including those who do not reside in the fortress area in Baghdad known as the “Green Zone” – jointly to set and announce a deadline for full US military disengagement. In the meantime, the US should avoid escalation.

Third, the US should issue jointly with appropriate Iraqi leaders, or let the Iraqi leaders issue, an invitation to all Iraq’s neighbours (and perhaps some other Muslim countries) to engage in dialogue about how to enhance stability in Iraq in conjunction with US military disengagement, and to participate eventually in a conference on regional stability. At some point wider consultations could involve other powers with a stake in the region’s stability, such as the European Union, China, Japan, India and Russia.

Fourth, the US should concurrently activate a credible effort to reach, finally, an Israeli-Palestinian peace, making clear in the process what the basic parameters of such a final accommodation should involve. Without such a settlement, regional nationalist and fundamentalist passions will ultimately doom any Arab regime perceived as supportive of US regional hegemony.

After the second world war, the US prevailed in the defence of democracy in Europe because it pursued a long-term strategy of uniting its friends and dividing its enemies, of soberly deterring aggression without initiating hostilities, all the while exploring the possibility of negotiated arrangements. Today, America’s global leadership is being tested in the Middle East. A similarly wise strategy of genuinely constructive engagement is now urgently needed. It is time for the Congress to assert itself.

The writer is former national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ask the expert: US policy in the Middle East
Published: January 31 2007 17:07 | Last updated: January 31 2007 17:07

http://www.ft.com

The US should negotiate a date for leaving the war-torn country, writes Zbigniew Brzezinski, former national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter, in an op-ed in Friday’s the Financial Times. “If the US stays bogged down in Iraq, the final destination on this downhill track is likely to be head-on conflict with Iran and with the broader world of Islam,” he writes.
Two months ago, in the wake of the Baker-Hamilton Study Group report on US policy options in Iraq, Mr Brzezinski answered FT.com readers’ questions on US policy in the Middle East in a live debate.
Now, after he gave testimony to US Congress on Thursday, you have another chance to ask the expert.
Is US policy in Iraq on a downhill track? If America doesn’t change its course, is it likely to lead to head-on conflict with Iran and much of the world of Islam?
Mr Brzezinski answers your questions.
............................................................................................................................................
The creation of a Jihad (in order to destabilise Afghanistan under Soviet occupation from 1979) was essentially your policy. On hindsight was that a wise decision given that those religious fanatics are now the basis of Al-qaeda? Your 1979 anti-Soviet views were your celebrated raison d’etre. How have your views mellowed on any future Russian threat today?
Richard Bond, London, UK
Zbigniew Brzezinski: The jihad in Afghanistan was the consequence both of the Soviet invasion and of the ruthless Soviet destruction of Afghan society, on a scale which is simply not even remotely comparable to what has been transpiring in Iraq. Our support for the Afghans has created a situation in which the majority of the Afghans still view us favourably.
That makes a great deal of difference. Nonetheless, it is also a fact that the West ignored the Afghan problem in the wake of the Soviet withdrawal and that helped to nurture the Taliban which then in the later 90s developed links with the jihadist terrorists.
............................................................................................................................................
Do you foresee a time when the US will shift its policies away from subsidising Israel - or at very least be more equitable in its dealings with the Palestinians and Israelis? I am proud of former president Carter for the courage to raise the issue in his latest book.
Russ Crone, Sweden
Zbigniew Brzezinski: The best outcome would be a dedicated effort by the West to push the Israelis and the Palestinians toward a peaceful accommodation. But that requires the West, and especially the United States, to put on the table a reasonably detailed plan for the actual peace treaty that the West would then press both the Israelis and the Palestinians to accept.
Failing that, the prospects for the future are, sad to say, likely to be the ones outlined by President Carter.
............................................................................................................................................
1) Will the US policy on Iran gain enough international support in justifying a potential military conflict? 2) Do you believe the increased trade and financial sanctions help or hinder this process?
Neek Alyani, London, UK & Tehran, Iran
Zbigniew Brzezinski: 1) No. 2) They hinder because they are premised on a demand for one-sided Iranian concessions as a precondition for negotiations.
............................................................................................................................................
What do you think would happen, near term and long term, geopolitically and economically if there were a phased US troop withdrawal from Iraq over the next six months?
Michael Kokesh, San Francisco, US
Zbigniew Brzezinski:The answer depends almost entirely on whether a political context for a US military disengagement is created by the US actions that I recommend in my article.
............................................................................................................................................
What, in your analysis, is the reason for all the sabre-rattling about Iran? Is it all really about oil, or does the US have some special agenda? It’s all pretty alarming, given the misery that now prevails on all sides in Iraq.
Richard Boyle, San Francisco, US
Zbigniew Brzezinski: “I’s”: An imperial obsession; Iraq-frustration; Israel-security.
............................................................................................................................................
A ‘defeat’ in Iraq for the US, however that is defined, is always presented in apocalyptic language. I am not convinced that the result would be as destabilising as most commentators assume. Could you please comment on what a post-US presence in Iraq might mean assuming that the civil war now brewing comes to boil.
Paul Summerville, Victoria, British Columbia
Zbigniew Brzezinski: A civil war can only be resolved by an internal victory or an internal accommodation. The problem is that the US in now a party to the civil war, an intentionally exacerbating it.
A US disengagement will not produce instant peace and initially it may even produce intensified violence. But a US involvement in the civil war both intensifies and perpetuates that civil war.
............................................................................................................................................
The current US administration perceives Lebanon’s Hamas, Syria’s Baath Party, Iran’s Islamic Republic and the sectarian killings in Iraq as one big problem, whereas each issue has inflamed due to different reasons, which needs specific solutions rather than bundling them together. Do you agree with my remarks, and what alternative would the Democrats put on the table, rather than merely pulling US troops out of Iraq?
Ali Dicleli, Manchester, UK
Zbigniew Brzezinski: I agree that the problems you mention are distinct. As to what my views are, I think it is evident from what I wrote.
............................................................................................................................................
Assuming that all diplomatic efforts to prevent Iran from running toward nuclear capabilities fail, what should the US and Israel should do? And in the light of the current radical Iranian leadership, can the US, Israel, and the Gulf States stand such a strategic threat?
Maurizio Veneziani, Rome, Italy
Zbigniew Brzezinski: We have at least several years to resolve that problem by constructive and patient negotiations. Exacerbating the problem by threats, saber-rattling, all conveying a sense of impatience, is simply counterproductive and dangerous.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007

Alpha · Posted: Mon Feb 05, 2007 8:53 am Post subject:

Analysis: Bush's Iran stance echoes Iraq
By TOM RAUM, Associated Press Writer1 hour, 35 minutes ago

President Bush's tough new stance on Iran and his military buildup in the Persian Gulf recall some of the drumbeats that preceded the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
As then, the Bush administration is making allegations about Iran without providing proof.
It is suggesting Iran is sending weapons to Iraq, yet offering no evidence the supplies can be traced to Tehran. There are whispers, too, that Iranian intelligence agents were behind the recent abduction and execution of five U.S. soldiers.
Iran is the "axis of evil" country whose nuclear ambitions must be stopped. Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is now Bush's primary Mideast nemesis, replacing the late Saddam Hussein.
Bush's efforts to rally public support behind his harder line on Iran have many lawmakers and some from the intelligence and defense world wondering if it is a prelude to military activity.
"We are not responsibly in the region if we don't deal with them," said Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va. "And the situation that we have right now where we continue to talk only about the military side — again, it's half a strategy," he told "Fox News Sunday."
Bush insists he has no plans to invade Iran, only to protect U.S. troops in Iraq.
But in recent days:
_Bush raised the U.S. naval presence in the Persian Gulf to its highest level since 2003 by ordering a second aircraft carrier strike group to the region.
_The administration confirmed that Bush has authorized the military to kill or capture Iranian agents who are plotting attacks on U.S. forces.
_The administration has armed Iran's Arab neighbors with Patriot missiles. The Pentagon halted sales of spare parts from the its recently retired F-14 fighter jet fleet because of concerns they could be transferred to Iran.
Administration critics suggest the White House is exaggerating Tehran's ties to attacks inside Iraq to justify a possible future military assault — just as it manipulated prewar intelligence to build its case for its 2003 invasion of Iraq, they claim.
"He again is convinced that he's on the side of right, fighting against the forces of evil, expressing this somewhat oversimplified view of the world he has," said Michael O'Hanlon, a foreign policy analyst for the Brookings Institution and an adviser to the bipartisan Iraq Study Group. "He's doing what he thinks is right to show resoluteness."
Bush's saber-rattling — rather than reaching out to Iran and Syria diplomatically as recommended by the Iraq Study group and many in Congress — is a risky strategy. Many national security professionals suggest this approach could lead to wider conflict.
If conditions continue to deteriorate in Iraq, "the final destination on this downhill track is likely to be a head-on conflict with Iran and with much of the world of Islam at large," Zbigniew Brezinski, President Carter's national security adviser, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Bush is betting he can help prop up the shaky government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and stop a supply line of weapons and fighters into Iraq.
It's a big bet.
Iran has denied accusations it is supplying weapons to Shiite militias in Iraq. But an official assessment of Iraq by U.S. intelligence agencies said Iran was providing lethal support to select Shiite groups.
Still, the National Intelligence Estimate released Friday said "outside actors" such as Iran and Syria are "not likely to be a major driver of violence or the prospects for stability" in Iraq.
Stephen Hadley, Bush's national security adviser, said the declassified public document "does not adequately reflect" the degree of concern in nearby Sunni nations about Shiite-run Iran's meddling in Iraq. He disputed suggestions that Bush has overemphasized Iran's role.
In his Iraq speech to the nation last month, Bush said the U.S. would "seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced training and weaponry to our enemies in Iraq," citing Iran and Syria.
Critics of Bush's harder line on Iran fall into two camps: those who worry his recent strong talk might lead to a military conflict and those who claim he should have gotten tough earlier.
Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards, for instance, has criticized what he suggests is previous indifference to the Iranian threat.
"In order to ensure Iran never gets nuclear weapons, all options must remain on the table," Edwards says in a hint at possible military action. The vice presidential nominee in 2004 has called for withdrawing troops from Iraq.
For now, time appears to favor Iran, says Anthony Cordesman, an analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Even if the United States and Iraq's Shiite-led government can bring stability, "Iran must now feel it can outwait the U.S., exploit U.S. unpopularity in many Shiite areas, and has every reason to be opportunistic.
"Iran wins to some degree even if it does not exploit the situation. A Shiite-dominated Iraq is going to need Iranian help and support for years to come."
___
EDITOR'S NOTE — Tom Raum has covered national and international affairs for The Associated Press since 1973.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16924881/

OLBERMANN: It has been a haunting undertone to the new year; at moments the start of 2007 has sounded like the end of 2002, or the start of 2003. It‘s been as if you could just substitute one letter, an N for a Q. And all that President Bush once said before he took us to war in Iraq war being recycled as what he‘s been now saying about Iran.
Our third story on the COUNTDOWN, your ears and your instincts are not deceiving you. It feels that way because it is literally, almost word for word, the truth. We‘ll play you the tapes in a moment.
The hard news details of the day first. Both Iraqi and U.S. officials continuing to suspect Iranian involvement in the January 20th attack in Karbala that claimed the lives of five Americans, on which more to come. But last night Mr. Bush used words, ostensibly intended to assuage concerns that he is trying to provoke a clash with Iran.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Some are trying to take my words and say, well, what he is really trying to do is go and invade Iran. Nobody‘s talking about that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
OLBERMANN: In fact some people are talking like that, specifically the very same conservative think tanks which pushed for the Iraq war as part of an aggressive U.S. policy of regional transformation throughout the Middle East. So if Mr. Bush‘s words fail to convince, it may be because he used similar language, very similar language in 2002, at a time when critics suspected he had already decided to invade Iraq. Consider the similarities between the phrases Mr. Bush uses now about Iran and the ones he used in 2002 about Iraq.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BUSH: The Iraqi people cannot flourish under a dictator that oppresses them—threatens them.
Our struggle is not with the Iranian people. As a matter of fact, we want them to flourish.
Iraq is land rich in culture and resources and talent.
And the Iranian people are proud people, and they‘ve got a great history and a great tradition.
If we fail to act in the face of danger, the people of Iraq will continue to live in brutal submission. The regime will remain unstable. The region will remain unstable, with little hope of freedom and isolated from the progress of our times.
One of the things that the Iranian government is doing is they‘ve begun to isolate their nation, to the harm of the Iranian people.
Hopefully this can be done peacefully.
I believe we can solve our problems peacefully.
All options are on the table.
All options are on the table.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
OLBERMANN: But it‘s not mere rhetoric that echoes down to us from 2002. Strategically, diplomatically, Mr. Bush is pursuing the same course now that he did then, disengage from discussion, marshal international condemnation, convince the world that the enemy in question aids and abets anti-American terrorism now, and that it poses a grave potential threat in the future.
In 2003, when Mr. Bush still exhibited thorough optimism about Iraq, he spoke quite openly about what would come next.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BUSH: We support the advance of freedom in the Middle East because it is our founding principal and because it is in our national interest. The Middle East presents many obstacles to the advance of freedom and I understand that this transformation will be difficult. The way forward in the Middle East is not a mystery. It is a matter of will and vision and action.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
OLBERMANN: But the logic has since become inverted. Back then American success in Iraq was supposed to lead to success in Iran. Now we are told that we must succeed with Iran to ensure our success in Iraq. But even standing on its figurative head, the administration‘s conclusion remains inviolate; something must be done about Iran.
Let‘s bring in the National Security Council‘s former senior director for Middle East affairs, Flynt Leverett, now a senior fellow at the New America Foundation. Great thanks, once again, for your time sir.
FLYNT LEVERETT, NEW AMERICA FOUNDATION: Thanks for having me back.
OLBERMANN: The accusations are well known, but does it shock you to hear just how close the president‘s rhetoric about Iran is compared to his past rhetoric about Iraq?
LEVERETT: No, because in many ways the rhetoric in the run-up to the war on Iraq worked. The president singled Iraq out to justify military action there on three particular issues, Iraq‘s links to terrorism, including what were alleged to be direct links to al Qaeda, its weapons of mass destruction capabilities, and it‘s regional meddling, that was making the region unstable.
And if you look at the rhetoric on Iran right now, Iran is being singled out for basically the same things, its links to terrorism. The president basically, in the State of the Union Addressee, equated Iran as a Shia version of al Qaeda. Of course, there is the nuclear issue and concern about the Iran‘s weapons of mass destruction ambitions. And then the president is accusing Iran of regional meddling, being the principal source of instability in the region, much as he did with Iraq in the run up to the invasion of Iraq in 2005.
OLBERMANN: Focusing in about the Karabala raid, attackers disguised as Americans. They were wielding American-style M-4‘s and they had stun grenades that were used only by U.S. forces. Reportedly they were able to monitor Iraqi communications. They got through Iraqi checkpoints. Obviously that‘s Iran, right?
LEVERETT: Well, I think it‘s very clear that Iraqi militias and Sunni insurgents in Iraq have been getting better. They have had the benefit of daily live ammunition training, courtesy of the U.S. military, the best military in the world. And it is not surprising, I think, that they would be getting better, more capable, more sophisticated in their tactics. That does not prove that Iran was responsible for this raid.
Now, Iran has certainly done bad things in the region. It has been a bad actor. It‘s possible they‘re linked to this raid, but there has been no hard evidence put on the table of that. I think it‘s important to keep in mind, though, that if at some point there is some hard evidence that linked Iran to this, keep in mind the context. The president of the United States has accused Iran of fomenting attacks on U.S. forces. He is building up American military forces there, and he‘s ordered the capture or killing of any Iranian that is found in Iraq.
And there are five Iranians who were detained out of a diplomatic compound in Irbil last week. There is a kind of symmetry between five Iranians detained by U.S. forces and the five American soldiers who were unfortunately killed in this raid.
OLBERMANN: Is there anything, in sum, to the president‘s premise that it is Iran attacking us by proxy in Iraq, and if so, how does this jibe with the facts that 99 percent of all attacks on U.S. troops occur in areas controlled by the Sunni militias, which are largely funded not by Iran, which is Shia, but private Sunnis in U.S. allied states like Saudi Arabia?
LEVERETT: Well, that‘s right; the Sunni insurgents have been a much bigger problem, in terms of inflicting casualties on U.S. forces than the Shia militias have been. But at this point I don‘t think this is really about a detached analysis of on the ground reality in Iraq. It is about making a case to the American people and to the international community on how bad Iran is, so that the conditions are there, should the president take a decision down the road to use military force against Iran. He has prepared the way, rhetorically.
OLBERMANN: Flynt Leverett, the former member of the National Security Council, now senior fellow at the New American Foundation, our great thanks for joining us again.
LEVERETT: Thank you very much.
OLBERMANN: Forget the manufacturing of a threat from Iran. We‘ve got a real terror problem on our own shores from the Cartoon Network. It shut down Boston today. A movie promo shut down Boston. Do we blame it on the ads or on paranoia. And they‘ve arrested somebody?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: Commentary: Deciphering wall writing
Date: Thursday, February 1, 2007

Commentary: Deciphering wall writing
By ARNAUD DE BORCHGRAVE, UPI Editor at Large
WASHINGTON , Feb. 1 (UPI) -- Afghan President Hamid Karzai has been reading the handwriting on several walls. He has known for some time Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf was a tad disingenuous when he kept giving him his word that Pakistan wasn't providing aid and comfort and assistance to Taliban guerrillas on the Pak side of their common border. Now he knows better.
What Karzai hadn't realized until recently was why Musharraf was saying one thing to his American and Afghan interlocutors and doing precisely the opposite. His need to placate his own pro-Taliban extremists, who govern two of Pakistan 's four provinces, was only half the story.
The president general's Inter-Services Intelligence agency, which has long nurtured close relations with its opposite numbers in Iran, its western neighbor, reported Tehran's intelligence apparatus and Revolutionary Guards' clandestine service, were the real victors of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The Pak assessment is widely shared by Jordan , Egypt and Saudi Arabia -- and the Baker Hamilton Iraq Study Group.
Musharraf also knows how much nuclear knowhow Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan 's nuclear arsenal, had passed on to Iran over the past 20 years. Two years ago, Iranian officials conceded to the International Atomic Energy Agency that as early as 1987 A.Q. Khan, the world's first nuclear black marketeer and Pakistan 's national hero, offered the Iranian mullahs a centrifuge enrichment "starter kit." Pakistan also has a defense pact with Iran .
For Musharraf, his own intelligence reports from Iraq were not hieroglyphics. Iran , not the United States , would be the dominant foreign influence after the bulk of U.S. forces are withdrawn before the 2008 presidential campaign. Musharraf also reads, hears and sees on TV news the unseemly split in President Bush's Congressional ranks over a troop surge in Baghdad . Also challenged is the president's authority as commander in chief to enlarge the battlespace.
Musharraf and Karzai have also read the highlights of the Brookings Institution's latest Iraqi assessment and recommendations: The U.S. must draw up emergency plans to deal with an all-out Iraqi civil war that would kill hundreds of thousands, create millions of refugees and could spill over into a regional catastrophe, disrupting oil supplies and setting up a direct confrontation between Washington and Iran.
Ending an all-out civil war, says Brookings' alarmist document, would require a force of 450,000 -- thrice the present U.S. deployment even after the 21,500-strong surge ordered by President Bush.
The administration has long been in denial about what was happening off stage as Army and Marines blitzed their way to victory in April 2003. No sooner dissolved by U.S. occupation authorities than Saddam Hussein's banned Baath party was replaced by tens of thousands of Iraqis who had sought refuge in Iran during the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-88. Organized by Iranian intelligence agents and Revolutionary Guards, these pro-Iranian Iraqis quickly took over police stations and mayors' offices in many provinces while world attention was riveted on Baghdad .
In Basra , Iraq 's second largest city, the currency of choice is the Iranian toman, not the Iraqi dinar. U.S. convoys driving north from Kuwait now pay a 40 percent surcharge to Shiite militias and Iraqi police in the south who are affiliated with Iran 's Revolutionary Guard operators now based in Iraq , says a former CIA field officer in cell phone contact with the region.
The Shiite-dominated Iraqi political establishment cleaves close to Tehran . Iraqi ministers and parliamentarians visit Tehran frequently, meetings that go largely unreported, except in the Iraqi media. Pakistani media have also taken notice. Musharraf and other moderate heads of state in the Middle East point out that president Bush's pledge not to invade Iran does not exclude air strikes against nuclear installations.
The Central Command's new chief Adm. William J. Fallon, whose responsibilities include the Middle East, Pakistan and Afghanistan , told the Senate Iran is maneuvering to deny U.S. access to the Persian Gulf while "destabilizing" the entire region. Outgoing Director of National Intelligence and incoming Deputy Secretary of State John D. Negroponte says Iran 's influence is growing across the region "in ways that go beyond the menace of its nuclear program." And "Busharraf," as his Pak detractors call him, knows if U.S. bombs strike Iran , he could no longer afford to be seen as a "major non-NATO ally" of the Bush administration.
Such air strikes, which knowledgeable Washington-based observers expect before summer, would trigger yet another Middle Eastern upheaval. This, in turn, would discourage NATO's European allies from pursuing their operations in Afghanistan , leaving the United States alone to hold the fort against resurgent Taliban guerrillas. The Europeans have also dug in against U.S. pressure to isolate Iran financially and commercially.
All this didn't go unnoticed by an anxious President Hamid Karzai. Shortly after he met with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi last week, Karzai called for peace talks with Taliban -- catching one and all by surprise. The U.S. ambassador in Kabul quickly said Karzai didn't really mean what he said. But Karzai knows he can't fight city hall -- in this case Pakistan coupled with Taliban and what looks like an Iranian victory in Iraq .
Surprisingly, Karzai's new look appeasement merited only a tiny, one graph foreign news brief in the New York Times. Of all the major newspapers, only the Financial Times caught the significance of the geopolitical wind shift. It came after the U.S. pledged to pony up $10.6 billion (after already spending $14 billion) and the European Union $3.7 billion in additional aid to the Karzai government, amounts that are bound to be trimmed by national legislative branches. Consultants' fees so far: $1.6 billion.
Karzai himself is overwhelmed with corruption wherever he looks, including his own cabinet -- if not a minister, the deputy minister. Officials sold thousands of cars and trucks and at least half the equipment earmarked for police use. Millions in reconstruction money are diverted to the wrong pockets. The opium poppy's harvest of over 6,000 tons that supplies 95 percent of Europe 's heroin consumption has crushed any chance of effective democratic governance. And Karzai knows some of his formerly loyal tribal leaders have already made deals with Taliban.
NATO -- a transatlantic alliance -- is gambling its future in Afghanistan . The prestigious London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies' latest report minced no words: success or failure in a country where everyone from Alexander the Great to the British empire to the Soviet empire met defeat will determine whether NATO lives -- or withers.

Alpha

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2007/01/31/europeans-fear-us-attack-on-iran-as-nuclear-row-intensifies.php

February 4, 2007
U.S. hell-bent for Iran war
http://www.edmontonsun.com/Comment/2007/02/04/pf-3522960.html

By ERIC MARGOLIS, TORONTO SUN
TORONTO -- The Bush-Cheney administration seems hell-bent on provoking war with Iran , and the U.S.-Iran confrontation is getting very dangerous. The heaviest concentration of U.S. naval strike forces since the 2003 war against Iraq is concentrating off Iran .
In a disturbing replay of that conflict, CIA drones and U.S. Air Force recon aircraft - along with U.S. and British Special Forces - are overflying Iran and probing its nuclear and military installations. The CIA and Britain 's MI6 are stirring unrest among Iran 's Kurds and Azerbaijanis, and arming Iranian Marxist and royalist exiles.
A belligerent U.S. President George Bush ordered U.S. forces in Iraq to "kill" Iranian agents or diplomats who appear threatening.
U.S. troops in northern Iraq broke into an Iranian liaison office and arrested its military staff. Bush unblushingly warns Iran , not to "meddle" in neighbouring Iraq
Pentagon sources accused Iran of smuggling weapons and explosives to "Iraqi insurgents" - though the "insurgents" are, in fact, Shia militiamen allied to the U.S.-installed Baghdad regime. Half of the 21,000 additional U.S. troops headed to Iraq are being positioned to cover the Iranian border and block an Iranian threat to the main U.S. Kuwait-Baghdad supply line.
New contingents of U.S. Air Force personnel and warplanes are arriving at key forward air bases in Bulgaria and Romania that link the U.S. to the Mideast and Central Asia . U.S. bases in Britain , Germany , Diego Garcia, the Persian Gulf, Central Asia, and Pakistan are reported on heightened alert. Turkey is being pressed to allow U.S. and Israeli strike aircraft to use its air space to attack northern Iran
The Pentagon's latest strike plan against Iran includes over 2,300 "high value" targets such as its dispersed nuclear infrastructure and, worryingly, operating reactors, air and naval bases, ports, telecommunications, air defences, military factories, energy networks, and government buildings.
Iran's water and sewage systems, bridges, food storage, and bomb shelters could also be targeted, as Iraq 's were in 2001.
The U.S. Treasury has mounted a highly effective campaign to strangle Iran financially, seriously hurting its foreign banking connections, retarding industrial growth and energy production, and impeding foreign investment.
The Bush administration and close ally Israel have sharply intensified their war of words against Iran , claiming, implausibly, Iran poses a nuclear threat to the entire world.
Politicians in Israel are in dangerous emotional overdrive and are making open threats to attack Iran They claim Iran is a new Nazi Germany and Israel faces a second Holocaust - in spite of its powerful triad of nuclear forces that can survive any surprise attack.
Though UN inspectors find no evidence Iran is producing nuclear weapons, Tehran , like Saddam's Iraq , is being told to prove an impossible negative - that it has no nuclear weapons.
With disturbing deja vu, the U.S. Congress and media are swallowing the administration's torrent of unproven allegations against Iran precisely the way they lapped up its grotesque lies about Iraq
Intelligence analysts would conclude either: Washington is trying to bluff Tehran to abandon its entirely legal but worrisome civilian nuclear power program and thus claim a major victory after so many defeats; or the cornered Bush-Cheney administration is trying to provoke an air and naval war against Iran as a last desperate, ideologically driven assault against the Muslim world, and divert attention from its Iraq debacle.
Amid growing war fever, last week France 's President Jacques Chirac privately observed that even if Iran had a few nuclear weapons for self-defence, "it is not very dangerous."
Iran would be obliterated by U.S. and Israeli nuclear counterstrikes if it ever used its nukes against Israel , noted Chirac, and is unlikely to commit national suicide.
After his comments became public, Chirac retracted them when Washington 's French-haters went apoplectic. But, as he did before Bush's 2003 war against Iraq , Chirac spoke with logic and good sense.

Coming War with Iran for Israel:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2007/01/25/coming-war-with-iran-for-israel.php

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Margolis is a friend of the USS Liberty cause for justice as well:

Archives > April 29, 2001
'THE USS LIBERTY:' AMERICA 'S MOST SHAMEFUL SECRET
http://www.ericmargolis.com/archives/2001/04/the_uss_liberty.php
NEW YORK - On the fourth day of the 1967 Arab Israeli War, the intelligence ship ‘USS Liberty’ was steaming slowly in international waters, 14 miles off the Sinai Peninsula . Israeli armored forces were racing deep into Sinai in hot pursuit of the retreating Egyptian army.
‘ Liberty ,’ a World War II freighter, had been converted into an intelligence vessel by the top-secret US National Security Agency, and packed with the latest signals and electronic interception equipment. The ship bristled with antennas and electronic ‘ears’ including TRSSCOMM, a system that delivered real-time intercepts to Washington by bouncing a stream of microwaves off the moon.
‘ Liberty ’ had been rushed to Sinai to monitor communications of the belligerents in the Third Arab Israeli War: Israel and her foes, Egypt , Syria , and Jordan .
At 0800 hrs, 8 June, 1967, eight Israeli recon flights flew over ‘ Liberty ,’ which was flying a large American flag. At 1400 hrs, waves of low-flying Israeli Mystere and Mirage-III fighter-bombers repeatedly attacked the American vessel with rockets, napalm, and cannon. The air attacks lasted 20 minutes, concentrating on the ship’s electronic antennas and dishes. The ‘ Liberty ’ was left afire, listing sharply. Eight of her crew lay dead, a hundred seriously wounded, including the captain, Commander William McGonagle.
At 1424 hrs, three Israeli torpedo boats attacked, raking the burning ‘ Liberty ’ with 20mm and 40mm shells. At 1431hrs an Israeli torpedo hit the ‘ Liberty ’ midship, precisely where the signals intelligence systems were located. Twenty-five more Americans died.
Israeli gunboats circled the wounded ‘ Liberty ,’ firing at crewmen trying to fight the fires. At 1515, the crew were ordered to abandon ship. The Israeli warships closed and poured machine gun fire into the crowded life rafts, sinking two. As American sailors were being massacred in cold blood, a rescue mission by US Sixth Fleet carrier aircraft was mysteriously aborted on orders from the White House.
An hour after the attack, Israeli warships and planes returned. Commander McGonagle gave the order. ‘prepare to repel borders.’ But the Israelis, probably fearful of intervention by the US Sixth Fleet, departed. ‘ Liberty ’ was left shattered but still defiant, her flag flying.
The Israeli attacks killed 34 US seamen and wounded 171 out of a crew of 297, the worst loss of American naval personnel from hostile action since World War II.
Less than an hour after the attack, Israel told Washington its forces had committed a ‘tragic error.’ Later, Israel claimed it had mistaken ‘ Liberty ’ for an ancient Egyptian horse transport. US Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, and Joint Chiefs of Staff head, Admiral Thomas Moorer, insisted the Israeli attack was deliberate and designed to sink ‘ Liberty .’ So did three CIA reports; one asserted Israel ’s Defense Minister, Gen. Moshe Dayan, had personally ordered the attack.
In contrast to American outrage over North Korea’s assault on the intelligence ship ‘Pueblo,’ Iraq’s mistaken missile strike on the USS ‘Stark,’ last fall’s bombing of the USS ‘Cole’ in Aden, and the recent US-China air incident, the savaging of ‘Liberty’ was quickly hushed up by President Lyndon Johnson and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara.
The White House and Congress immediately accepted Israel ’s explanation and let the matter drop. Israel later paid a token reparation of US $6 million. There were reports two Israeli pilots who had refused to attack ‘ Liberty ’ were jailed for 18 years.
Surviving ‘ Liberty ’ crew members would not be silenced. They kept demanding an open inquiry and tried to tell their story of deliberate attack to the media. Israel’s government worked behind the scenes to thwart these efforts, going so far as having American pro-Israel groups accuse ‘Liberty’s’ survivors of being ‘anti-Semites’ and ‘Israel-haters.’ Major TV networks cancelled interviews with the crew. A book about the ‘ Liberty ’ by crewman James Ennes’ was dropped from distribution. The Israel lobby branded him ‘an Arab propagandist.’
The attack on ‘ Liberty ’ was fading into obscurity until last week, when intelligence expert James Bamford came out with ‘Body of Secrets,’ his latest book about the National Security Agency. In a stunning revelation, Bamford writes that unknown to Israel, a US Navy EC-121 intelligence aircraft was flying high overhead the ‘Liberty,’ electronically recorded the attack. The US aircraft crew provides evidence that the Israeli pilots knew full well that they were attacking a US Navy ship flying the American flag.
Why did Israel try to sink a naval vessel of its benefactor and ally? Most likely because ‘Liberty’s’ intercepts flatly contradicted Israel’s claim, made at the war’s beginning on 5 June, that Egypt had attacked Israel, and that Israel’s massive air assault on three Arab nations was in retaliation. In fact, Israel began the war by a devastating, Pearl-Harbor style surprise attack that caught the Arabs in bed and destroyed their entire air forces.
Israel was also preparing to attack Syria to seize its strategic Golan Heights . Washington warned Israel not to invade Syria , which had remained inactive while Israel fought Egypt . Bamford says Israel ’s offensive against Syria was abruptly postponed when ‘ Liberty ’ appeared off Sinai, then launched once it was knocked out of action. Israel ’s claim that Syria had attacked it could have been disproved by ‘ Liberty .’
Most significant, ‘Liberty’s’ intercepts may have shown that Israel seized upon sharply rising Arab-Israeli tensions in May-June 1967 to launch a long-planned war to invade and annex the West Bank, Jerusalem, Golan and Sinai.
Far more shocking was Washington ’s response. Writes Bamford: ‘Despite the overwhelming evidence that Israel attacked the ship and killed American servicemen deliberately, the Johnson Administration and Congress covered up the entire incident.’ Why?
Domestic politics. Johnson, a man never noted for high moral values, preferred to cover up the attack rather than anger a key constituency and major financial backer of the Democratic Party. Congress was even less eager to touch this ‘third rail’ issue.
Commander McGonagle was quietly awarded the Medal of Honor for his and his men’s heroism - not in the White House, as is usual, but in an obscure ceremony at the Washington Navy Yard. Crew member’s graves were inscribed, ‘died in the Eastern Mediterranean ..’ as if they had be killed by disease, rather than hostile action.
A member of President Johnson’s staff believed there was a more complex reason for the cover-up: Johnson offered Jewish liberals unconditional backing of Israel , and a cover-up of the ‘ Liberty ’ attack, in exchange for the liberal toning down their strident criticism of his policies in the then raging Vietnam War.
Israel, which claims it fought a war of self defense in 1967 and had no prior territorial ambitions, will be much displeased by Bamford’s revelations. Those who believe Israel illegally occupies the West Bank and Golan will be emboldened.
Much more important, the US government’s long, disgraceful cover-up of the premeditated attack on ‘ Liberty ’ has now burst into the open and demands full-scale investigation. After 34 years, the voices of ‘ Liberty ’s’ dead and wounded seamen must finally be heard.
Posted by Eric Margolis on April 29, 2001 08:51 PM

------------------------------------------------------------------------

EX-OFFICER ALLEGES COVER-UP IN PROBE OF SPY SHIP ATTACK
By James W. Crawley
San Diego Union -Tribune Staff Writer
2-17-4
Ward Boston is an unassuming octogenarian who resides in a gated community on Coronado 's Silver Strand.
A retired Navy captain, he hardly attracts attention in a town full of active-duty and retired sailors.
Yet Boston is in the maelstrom of a nearly 37-year-old controversy surrounding Israel 's deadly attack on the Navy's spy ship Liberty during the Six-Day War with Egypt , Syria and Jordan . The June 1967 attack killed 34 Americans and wounded 171.
Last October, Boston broke decades of silence and declared that the Navy admiral who investigated the incident had been ordered by President Lyndon Johnson and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara to conclude it was a case of mistaken identity, despite evidence to the contrary.
As the chief counsel for the Navy's court of inquiry, Boston had an insider's view.
"I didn't speak up earlier because I was told not to," Boston said in an interview.
His revelation, repeated last month before a State Department conference about the Six-Day War, has rekindled a smoldering debate over how it happened and whether the United States and Israel covered up the truth.
Anti-Israel factions portray Boston 's words ? true to his legal background, memorialized in two affidavits but rarely spoken to an audience larger than one person ? as proof of Israel 's guilt.
Israel's supporters, including a federal bankruptcy judge who researched the attack and wrote a book on it, say Boston is lying. Some pin an anti-Semitic badge on his lapel.
On Web pages and through e-mail, an electronic brawl is raging over Boston 's disclosures among his admirers and detractors.
But, for the men who survived the attack, Boston 's comments endorse views smelted in cordite, blood and smoke.
"We feel we've been vindicated," said James Ennes, the Liberty 's officer of the deck the day of the attack, which left him severely wounded.
"We've been saying for 37 years that the court of inquiry was a fraud, that it was corrupted, that it ignored evidence and made findings not supported by the evidence," said Ennes, whose book about the incident claims it was a deliberate Israeli attack.
Boston's cover-up allegation is "enormously significant," said author James Bamford, who has written several books about the super-secret National Security Agency, which analyzed radio intercepts from Liberty and other U.S. surveillance ships.
"It's equivalent to former Supreme Court (Chief) Justice Earl Warren coming out and saying 'the Warren Commission report on (the) Kennedy (assassination) ? everything we said was not what we believed, but we were pressured to say it,' " Bamford said.
"It puts an enormous shadow over everything that was in the (Navy) report," he said.
Even with Boston 's affidavits and some newly released documents presented at the State Department conference, no consensus was reached on whether the attack was deliberate, accidental or the result of negligence.
---
The Liberty was a Navy spy ship, plain and simple.
Like its ill-fated sister vessel Pueblo, which was captured by North Korea six months later, the Liberty was festooned with antennas and its cargo holds were converted into top-secret locked compartments lined with receivers where petty officers eavesdropped on other nations' militaries.
During the Six-Day War, the Liberty loitered off the Sinai Peninsula, listening to Israel 's lightning victory over Egypt .
On the afternoon of June 8, 1967, Israeli jets strafed the ship. Hours later, Israeli torpedo boats attacked. By the evening, 34 U.S. sailors were dead and 171 injured.
Israel said the attack was a terrible mistake caused by the misidentification of the Liberty as an Egyptian vessel. Investigations followed, including the Navy's court of inquiry.
That's when Ward Boston's involvement began.
---
If Hollywood had discovered Boston , he could have been the real-life prototype for Cmdr. Harmon Rabb, one of the leads on the television show "JAG."
In the Pacific during World War II, Boston flew harrowing photo-reconnaissance missions over Tokyo and Iwo Jima in Navy Hellcat fighters, sometimes making three passes over a single target ? once to take pre-bombing pictures, then joining other planes in attacking the target and, finally, a post-attack pass to photograph the damage.
After the war, Boston went to law school, passed the bar and entered private practice. Meanwhile, he continued to fly Navy fighters as a reservist, including its first jet, the FH-1 Phantom.
In the late 1940s, he joined the FBI and was assigned to field offices in San Francisco and Los Angeles . During the Korean War, he rejoined the Navy, this time as a JAG officer.
By June 1967, Boston was legal officer for then-Rear Adm. Isaac Kidd Jr. when the flag officer was assigned to head the hastily convened inquiry into the Liberty attack.
Unable to interview hospitalized sailors and Israeli military and civilian officials, the investigative panel was given just a week to examine the battered ship, interview survivors and collect radio intercepts and other information.
Boston said it was obvious then who was responsible.
"There's no way in the world that it was an accident," Boston said.
In his affidavits and a recent interview, Boston recounted how he and Kidd discussed their conclusions about the survivors' testimony.
"(Kidd) referred to the Israelis as 'murderous bastards,' " Boston said.
After Kidd delivered the panel's report to Washington officials, Boston said the admiral told him, "they aren't interested in the facts or what happened. It's a political issue. They want to cover it up." Then Kidd admonished Boston to keep silent.
Boston said Kidd told him privately that orders came from Johnson and McNamara to find the incident was a mistake and not a deliberate act.
There is no documentation to support Boston 's account.
Kidd died in 1999 at 79 after a career topped by command of the Atlantic Fleet. He never spoke of a cover-up.
The late '60s was the height of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union . The Soviets were backing the Arab nations; the United States was allied with Israel . U.S. troops were fully engaged in Vietnam and the United States was fearful of growing Soviet influence, especially in the oil-rich Mideast .
Those who claim the attack was no accident argue that Israel wanted to stop the Liberty from snooping on its military during the war.
Boston kept quiet too, until the 2002 publication of "The Liberty Incident," by Judge Jay Cristol, provoked him.
Cristol's book, based on more than 10 years of research and hundreds of interviews and the collection of thousands of documents, argued that Israeli pilots, sailors and top military officials, in the heat of combat and the fog of war, were unaware the Liberty was a U.S. ship, mistaking it for an Egyptian vessel.
The two men spoke twice during the 1990s while Cristol researched his book, but Boston said recently that he only discussed his career and did not reveal details of the inquiry.
"It is Cristol's insidious attempt to whitewash the facts that has pushed me to speak out," Boston said in a Jan. 8 affidavit, read by Bamford at the State Department conference last month. Boston did not attend the conference.
Boston's affidavit was passed to Bamford by a friend who believes that Israel is responsible for the attack on the Liberty .
The judge, during a recent telephone interview, discounted Boston 's contention that Johnson and McNamara covered up Israel complicity.
"I think those (accusations) are kind of nonsense," Cristol said.
Cristol ? also a former Navy pilot and JAG officer ? said Boston 's comments show that he either lied in 1967 by knowingly filing a false report or that his memory has changed with age.
Referring to Cristol, Boston said, "I'm not going to get into a spitting contest with a skunk."
He also rejected suggestions that he is anti-Semitic, while acknowledging some sympathy for the plight of Palestinian refugees.
As he splits his day between local organizations and daily visits to the gym to loosen up arthritic joints, Boston remains largely oblivious to the electronic cacophony of e-mail and Internet chat that makes him out to be either a patriot or a patsy for anti-Israel factions.
That's because Boston doesn't have a computer. Friends print out and pass along Internet postings mentioning him or his statements.
"I'm a dinosaur," he said. "I use a pencil with an eraser and a typewriter."
James W. Crawley: (619) 542-4559; jim.crawley@uniontrib.com
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/military/20040217-9999-1n17liberty.html

Alpha

Forwarded:

Mr. Margolis,

Thank you for your excellent article included below about the coming war with Iran as I wanted to also let you know (in case you don't already know) about the Kuwait media report which conveys that the attack on Iran will take place by this coming April (before Tony Blair leaves office if the Lord Levy scandal doesn't pressure him to depart earlier - scroll down to this Kuwait media report at the following URL if interested further):

Europeans fear US attack on Iran as nuclear row intensifies :

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2007/01/31/europeans-fear-us-attack-on-iran-as-nuclear-row-intensifies.php

February 4, 2007
U.S. hell-bent for Iran war
http://www.edmontonsun.com/Comment/2007/02/04/pf-3522960.html

By ERIC MARGOLIS, TORONTO SUN
TORONTO -- The Bush-Cheney administration seems hell-bent on provoking war with Iran , and the U.S.-Iran confrontation is getting very dangerous. The heaviest concentration of U.S. naval strike forces since the 2003 war against Iraq is concentrating off Iran .
In a disturbing replay of that conflict, CIA drones and U.S. Air Force recon aircraft - along with U.S. and British Special Forces - are overflying Iran and probing its nuclear and military installations. The CIA and Britain 's MI6 are stirring unrest among Iran 's Kurds and Azerbaijanis, and arming Iranian Marxist and royalist exiles.
A belligerent U.S. President George Bush ordered U.S. forces in Iraq to "kill" Iranian agents or diplomats who appear threatening.
U.S. troops in northern Iraq broke into an Iranian liaison office and arrested its military staff. Bush unblushingly warns Iran , not to "meddle" in neighbouring Iraq
Pentagon sources accused Iran of smuggling weapons and explosives to "Iraqi insurgents" - though the "insurgents" are, in fact, Shia militiamen allied to the U.S.-installed Baghdad regime. Half of the 21,000 additional U.S. troops headed to Iraq are being positioned to cover the Iranian border and block an Iranian threat to the main U.S. Kuwait-Baghdad supply line.
New contingents of U.S. Air Force personnel and warplanes are arriving at key forward air bases in Bulgaria and Romania that link the U.S. to the Mideast and Central Asia . U.S. bases in Britain , Germany , Diego Garcia, the Persian Gulf, Central Asia, and Pakistan are reported on heightened alert. Turkey is being pressed to allow U.S. and Israeli strike aircraft to use its air space to attack northern Iran
The Pentagon's latest strike plan against Iran includes over 2,300 "high value" targets such as its dispersed nuclear infrastructure and, worryingly, operating reactors, air and naval bases, ports, telecommunications, air defences, military factories, energy networks, and government buildings.
Iran's water and sewage systems, bridges, food storage, and bomb shelters could also be targeted, as Iraq 's were in 2001.
The U.S. Treasury has mounted a highly effective campaign to strangle Iran financially, seriously hurting its foreign banking connections, retarding industrial growth and energy production, and impeding foreign investment.
The Bush administration and close ally Israel have sharply intensified their war of words against Iran , claiming, implausibly, Iran poses a nuclear threat to the entire world.
Politicians in Israel are in dangerous emotional overdrive and are making open threats to attack Iran They claim Iran is a new Nazi Germany and Israel faces a second Holocaust - in spite of its powerful triad of nuclear forces that can survive any surprise attack.
Though UN inspectors find no evidence Iran is producing nuclear weapons, Tehran , like Saddam's Iraq , is being told to prove an impossible negative - that it has no nuclear weapons.
With disturbing deja vu, the U.S. Congress and media are swallowing the administration's torrent of unproven allegations against Iran precisely the way they lapped up its grotesque lies about Iraq
Intelligence analysts would conclude either: Washington is trying to bluff Tehran to abandon its entirely legal but worrisome civilian nuclear power program and thus claim a major victory after so many defeats; or the cornered Bush-Cheney administration is trying to provoke an air and naval war against Iran as a last desperate, ideologically driven assault against the Muslim world, and divert attention from its Iraq debacle.
Amid growing war fever, last week France 's President Jacques Chirac privately observed that even if Iran had a few nuclear weapons for self-defence, "it is not very dangerous."
Iran would be obliterated by U.S. and Israeli nuclear counterstrikes if it ever used its nukes against Israel , noted Chirac, and is unlikely to commit national suicide.
After his comments became public, Chirac retracted them when Washington 's French-haters went apoplectic. But, as he did before Bush's 2003 war against Iraq , Chirac spoke with logic and good sense.

Coming War with Iran for Israel:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2007/01/25/coming-war-with-iran-for-israel.php

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Margolis is a friend of the USS Liberty cause for justice as well:

Archives > April 29, 2001
'THE USS LIBERTY:' AMERICA 'S MOST SHAMEFUL SECRET
http://www.ericmargolis.com/archives/2001/04/the_uss_liberty.php
NEW YORK - On the fourth day of the 1967 Arab Israeli War, the intelligence ship ‘USS Liberty’ was steaming slowly in international waters, 14 miles off the Sinai Peninsula . Israeli armored forces were racing deep into Sinai in hot pursuit of the retreating Egyptian army.
‘ Liberty ,’ a World War II freighter, had been converted into an intelligence vessel by the top-secret US National Security Agency, and packed with the latest signals and electronic interception equipment. The ship bristled with antennas and electronic ‘ears’ including TRSSCOMM, a system that delivered real-time intercepts to Washington by bouncing a stream of microwaves off the moon.
‘ Liberty ’ had been rushed to Sinai to monitor communications of the belligerents in the Third Arab Israeli War: Israel and her foes, Egypt , Syria , and Jordan .
At 0800 hrs, 8 June, 1967, eight Israeli recon flights flew over ‘ Liberty ,’ which was flying a large American flag. At 1400 hrs, waves of low-flying Israeli Mystere and Mirage-III fighter-bombers repeatedly attacked the American vessel with rockets, napalm, and cannon. The air attacks lasted 20 minutes, concentrating on the ship’s electronic antennas and dishes. The ‘ Liberty ’ was left afire, listing sharply. Eight of her crew lay dead, a hundred seriously wounded, including the captain, Commander William McGonagle.
At 1424 hrs, three Israeli torpedo boats attacked, raking the burning ‘ Liberty ’ with 20mm and 40mm shells. At 1431hrs an Israeli torpedo hit the ‘ Liberty ’ midship, precisely where the signals intelligence systems were located. Twenty-five more Americans died.
Israeli gunboats circled the wounded ‘ Liberty ,’ firing at crewmen trying to fight the fires. At 1515, the crew were ordered to abandon ship. The Israeli warships closed and poured machine gun fire into the crowded life rafts, sinking two. As American sailors were being massacred in cold blood, a rescue mission by US Sixth Fleet carrier aircraft was mysteriously aborted on orders from the White House.
An hour after the attack, Israeli warships and planes returned. Commander McGonagle gave the order. ‘prepare to repel borders.’ But the Israelis, probably fearful of intervention by the US Sixth Fleet, departed. ‘ Liberty ’ was left shattered but still defiant, her flag flying.
The Israeli attacks killed 34 US seamen and wounded 171 out of a crew of 297, the worst loss of American naval personnel from hostile action since World War II.
Less than an hour after the attack, Israel told Washington its forces had committed a ‘tragic error.’ Later, Israel claimed it had mistaken ‘ Liberty ’ for an ancient Egyptian horse transport. US Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, and Joint Chiefs of Staff head, Admiral Thomas Moorer, insisted the Israeli attack was deliberate and designed to sink ‘ Liberty .’ So did three CIA reports; one asserted Israel ’s Defense Minister, Gen. Moshe Dayan, had personally ordered the attack.
In contrast to American outrage over North Korea’s assault on the intelligence ship ‘Pueblo,’ Iraq’s mistaken missile strike on the USS ‘Stark,’ last fall’s bombing of the USS ‘Cole’ in Aden, and the recent US-China air incident, the savaging of ‘Liberty’ was quickly hushed up by President Lyndon Johnson and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara.
The White House and Congress immediately accepted Israel ’s explanation and let the matter drop. Israel later paid a token reparation of US $6 million. There were reports two Israeli pilots who had refused to attack ‘ Liberty ’ were jailed for 18 years.
Surviving ‘ Liberty ’ crew members would not be silenced. They kept demanding an open inquiry and tried to tell their story of deliberate attack to the media. Israel’s government worked behind the scenes to thwart these efforts, going so far as having American pro-Israel groups accuse ‘Liberty’s’ survivors of being ‘anti-Semites’ and ‘Israel-haters.’ Major TV networks cancelled interviews with the crew. A book about the ‘ Liberty ’ by crewman James Ennes’ was dropped from distribution. The Israel lobby branded him ‘an Arab propagandist.’
The attack on ‘ Liberty ’ was fading into obscurity until last week, when intelligence expert James Bamford came out with ‘Body of Secrets,’ his latest book about the National Security Agency. In a stunning revelation, Bamford writes that unknown to Israel, a US Navy EC-121 intelligence aircraft was flying high overhead the ‘Liberty,’ electronically recorded the attack. The US aircraft crew provides evidence that the Israeli pilots knew full well that they were attacking a US Navy ship flying the American flag.
Why did Israel try to sink a naval vessel of its benefactor and ally? Most likely because ‘Liberty’s’ intercepts flatly contradicted Israel’s claim, made at the war’s beginning on 5 June, that Egypt had attacked Israel, and that Israel’s massive air assault on three Arab nations was in retaliation. In fact, Israel began the war by a devastating, Pearl-Harbor style surprise attack that caught the Arabs in bed and destroyed their entire air forces.
Israel was also preparing to attack Syria to seize its strategic Golan Heights . Washington warned Israel not to invade Syria , which had remained inactive while Israel fought Egypt . Bamford says Israel ’s offensive against Syria was abruptly postponed when ‘ Liberty ’ appeared off Sinai, then launched once it was knocked out of action. Israel ’s claim that Syria had attacked it could have been disproved by ‘ Liberty .’
Most significant, ‘Liberty’s’ intercepts may have shown that Israel seized upon sharply rising Arab-Israeli tensions in May-June 1967 to launch a long-planned war to invade and annex the West Bank, Jerusalem, Golan and Sinai.
Far more shocking was Washington ’s response. Writes Bamford: ‘Despite the overwhelming evidence that Israel attacked the ship and killed American servicemen deliberately, the Johnson Administration and Congress covered up the entire incident.’ Why?
Domestic politics. Johnson, a man never noted for high moral values, preferred to cover up the attack rather than anger a key constituency and major financial backer of the Democratic Party. Congress was even less eager to touch this ‘third rail’ issue.
Commander McGonagle was quietly awarded the Medal of Honor for his and his men’s heroism - not in the White House, as is usual, but in an obscure ceremony at the Washington Navy Yard. Crew member’s graves were inscribed, ‘died in the Eastern Mediterranean ..’ as if they had be killed by disease, rather than hostile action.
A member of President Johnson’s staff believed there was a more complex reason for the cover-up: Johnson offered Jewish liberals unconditional backing of Israel , and a cover-up of the ‘ Liberty ’ attack, in exchange for the liberal toning down their strident criticism of his policies in the then raging Vietnam War.
Israel, which claims it fought a war of self defense in 1967 and had no prior territorial ambitions, will be much displeased by Bamford’s revelations. Those who believe Israel illegally occupies the West Bank and Golan will be emboldened.
Much more important, the US government’s long, disgraceful cover-up of the premeditated attack on ‘ Liberty ’ has now burst into the open and demands full-scale investigation. After 34 years, the voices of ‘ Liberty ’s’ dead and wounded seamen must finally be heard.
Posted by Eric Margolis on April 29, 2001 08:51 PM

------------------------------------------------------------------------

EX-OFFICER ALLEGES COVER-UP IN PROBE OF SPY SHIP ATTACK
By James W. Crawley
San Diego Union -Tribune Staff Writer
2-17-4
Ward Boston is an unassuming octogenarian who resides in a gated community on Coronado 's Silver Strand.
A retired Navy captain, he hardly attracts attention in a town full of active-duty and retired sailors.
Yet Boston is in the maelstrom of a nearly 37-year-old controversy surrounding Israel 's deadly attack on the Navy's spy ship Liberty during the Six-Day War with Egypt , Syria and Jordan . The June 1967 attack killed 34 Americans and wounded 171.
Last October, Boston broke decades of silence and declared that the Navy admiral who investigated the incident had been ordered by President Lyndon Johnson and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara to conclude it was a case of mistaken identity, despite evidence to the contrary.
As the chief counsel for the Navy's court of inquiry, Boston had an insider's view.
"I didn't speak up earlier because I was told not to," Boston said in an interview.
His revelation, repeated last month before a State Department conference about the Six-Day War, has rekindled a smoldering debate over how it happened and whether the United States and Israel covered up the truth.
Anti-Israel factions portray Boston 's words ? true to his legal background, memorialized in two affidavits but rarely spoken to an audience larger than one person ? as proof of Israel 's guilt.
Israel's supporters, including a federal bankruptcy judge who researched the attack and wrote a book on it, say Boston is lying. Some pin an anti-Semitic badge on his lapel.
On Web pages and through e-mail, an electronic brawl is raging over Boston 's disclosures among his admirers and detractors.
But, for the men who survived the attack, Boston 's comments endorse views smelted in cordite, blood and smoke.
"We feel we've been vindicated," said James Ennes, the Liberty 's officer of the deck the day of the attack, which left him severely wounded.
"We've been saying for 37 years that the court of inquiry was a fraud, that it was corrupted, that it ignored evidence and made findings not supported by the evidence," said Ennes, whose book about the incident claims it was a deliberate Israeli attack.
Boston's cover-up allegation is "enormously significant," said author James Bamford, who has written several books about the super-secret National Security Agency, which analyzed radio intercepts from Liberty and other U.S. surveillance ships.
"It's equivalent to former Supreme Court (Chief) Justice Earl Warren coming out and saying 'the Warren Commission report on (the) Kennedy (assassination) ? everything we said was not what we believed, but we were pressured to say it,' " Bamford said.
"It puts an enormous shadow over everything that was in the (Navy) report," he said.
Even with Boston 's affidavits and some newly released documents presented at the State Department conference, no consensus was reached on whether the attack was deliberate, accidental or the result of negligence.
---
The Liberty was a Navy spy ship, plain and simple.
Like its ill-fated sister vessel Pueblo, which was captured by North Korea six months later, the Liberty was festooned with antennas and its cargo holds were converted into top-secret locked compartments lined with receivers where petty officers eavesdropped on other nations' militaries.
During the Six-Day War, the Liberty loitered off the Sinai Peninsula, listening to Israel 's lightning victory over Egypt .
On the afternoon of June 8, 1967, Israeli jets strafed the ship. Hours later, Israeli torpedo boats attacked. By the evening, 34 U.S. sailors were dead and 171 injured.
Israel said the attack was a terrible mistake caused by the misidentification of the Liberty as an Egyptian vessel. Investigations followed, including the Navy's court of inquiry.
That's when Ward Boston's involvement began.
---
If Hollywood had discovered Boston , he could have been the real-life prototype for Cmdr. Harmon Rabb, one of the leads on the television show "JAG."
In the Pacific during World War II, Boston flew harrowing photo-reconnaissance missions over Tokyo and Iwo Jima in Navy Hellcat fighters, sometimes making three passes over a single target ? once to take pre-bombing pictures, then joining other planes in attacking the target and, finally, a post-attack pass to photograph the damage.
After the war, Boston went to law school, passed the bar and entered private practice. Meanwhile, he continued to fly Navy fighters as a reservist, including its first jet, the FH-1 Phantom.
In the late 1940s, he joined the FBI and was assigned to field offices in San Francisco and Los Angeles . During the Korean War, he rejoined the Navy, this time as a JAG officer.
By June 1967, Boston was legal officer for then-Rear Adm. Isaac Kidd Jr. when the flag officer was assigned to head the hastily convened inquiry into the Liberty attack.
Unable to interview hospitalized sailors and Israeli military and civilian officials, the investigative panel was given just a week to examine the battered ship, interview survivors and collect radio intercepts and other information.
Boston said it was obvious then who was responsible.
"There's no way in the world that it was an accident," Boston said.
In his affidavits and a recent interview, Boston recounted how he and Kidd discussed their conclusions about the survivors' testimony.
"(Kidd) referred to the Israelis as 'murderous bastards,' " Boston said.
After Kidd delivered the panel's report to Washington officials, Boston said the admiral told him, "they aren't interested in the facts or what happened. It's a political issue. They want to cover it up." Then Kidd admonished Boston to keep silent.
Boston said Kidd told him privately that orders came from Johnson and McNamara to find the incident was a mistake and not a deliberate act.
There is no documentation to support Boston 's account.
Kidd died in 1999 at 79 after a career topped by command of the Atlantic Fleet. He never spoke of a cover-up.
The late '60s was the height of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union . The Soviets were backing the Arab nations; the United States was allied with Israel . U.S. troops were fully engaged in Vietnam and the United States was fearful of growing Soviet influence, especially in the oil-rich Mideast .
Those who claim the attack was no accident argue that Israel wanted to stop the Liberty from snooping on its military during the war.
Boston kept quiet too, until the 2002 publication of "The Liberty Incident," by Judge Jay Cristol, provoked him.
Cristol's book, based on more than 10 years of research and hundreds of interviews and the collection of thousands of documents, argued that Israeli pilots, sailors and top military officials, in the heat of combat and the fog of war, were unaware the Liberty was a U.S. ship, mistaking it for an Egyptian vessel.
The two men spoke twice during the 1990s while Cristol researched his book, but Boston said recently that he only discussed his career and did not reveal details of the inquiry.
"It is Cristol's insidious attempt to whitewash the facts that has pushed me to speak out," Boston said in a Jan. 8 affidavit, read by Bamford at the State Department conference last month. Boston did not attend the conference.
Boston's affidavit was passed to Bamford by a friend who believes that Israel is responsible for the attack on the Liberty .
The judge, during a recent telephone interview, discounted Boston 's contention that Johnson and McNamara covered up Israel complicity.
"I think those (accusations) are kind of nonsense," Cristol said.
Cristol ? also a former Navy pilot and JAG officer ? said Boston 's comments show that he either lied in 1967 by knowingly filing a false report or that his memory has changed with age.
Referring to Cristol, Boston said, "I'm not going to get into a spitting contest with a skunk."
He also rejected suggestions that he is anti-Semitic, while acknowledging some sympathy for the plight of Palestinian refugees.
As he splits his day between local organizations and daily visits to the gym to loosen up arthritic joints, Boston remains largely oblivious to the electronic cacophony of e-mail and Internet chat that makes him out to be either a patriot or a patsy for anti-Israel factions.
That's because Boston doesn't have a computer. Friends print out and pass along Internet postings mentioning him or his statements.
"I'm a dinosaur," he said. "I use a pencil with an eraser and a typewriter."
James W. Crawley: (619) 542-4559; jim.crawley@uniontrib.com
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/military/20040217-9999-1n17liberty.html

War Without End

The global war against terror, news about the illegal invasion of Iraq, the corporate puppet presidents, the war criminal Tony Blair, September 11th 2001, the USS Liberty and New World Order crimes against humanity.

Coming War with Iran for Israel