| Author | Message | | Alpha | | Posted: Tue May 20, 2008 12:07 pm Post subject: President Bush intends to attack Iran in coming months |
| US President George W. Bush intends to attack Iran in the upcoming months, before the end of his term, Army Radio quoted officials in Jerusalem as saying Tuesday.
http://groups.google.com/group/us.politics/browse_thread/thread/0f0ea5e805ebe9b6#
Here is a tiny URL for the above one:
http://tinyurl.com/3q4th9
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1210668683139&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Here is a tiny URL for the above one:
http://tinyurl.com/65y2mk
US President George W. Bush intends to attack Iran in the upcoming months, before the end of his term, Army Radio quoted officials in Jerusalem as saying Tuesday.
A US Navy aircraft carrier.
Photo: AP
Slideshow: Pictures of the week The official claimed that a senior member of the president's entourage said during a closed meeting that Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney were of the opinion that military action was called for.
However, the official continued, "the hesitancy of Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice" was preventing the administration from deciding to launch such an attack on the Islamic Republic.
The report said that according to assessments in Israel, recent turmoil in Lebanon, where Hizbullah de facto established control of the country, was advancing an American attack.
Bush, the officials said, opined that Hizbullah's show of strength was evidence of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's crowing influence. They said that according to Bush, "the disease must be treated - not its symptoms."
In an address to the Knesset during his visit here last week, Bush said that "the president of Iran dreams of returning the Middle East to the Middle Ages."
US President George W. Bush during his Knesset address.
Photo: AP
"America stands with you in firmly opposing Iran's nuclear weapons ambitions," Bush said. "Permitting the world's leading sponsor of terror to possess the world's deadliest weapon would be an unforgivable betrayal of future generations. For the sake of peace, the world must not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon."
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Bush 'Plans Iran Air Strike by August'
By Muhammad Cohen
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19991.htm
28/05/08 "Asia Times" -- - NEW YORK - The George W Bush administration plans to launch an air strike against Iran within the next two months, an informed source tells Asia Times Online, echoing other reports that have surfaced in the media in the United States recently.
Two key US senators briefed on the attack planned to go public with their opposition to the move, according to the source, but their projected New York Times op-ed piece has yet to appear.
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Threat of NeoCon War on Iran for Israel Zionist Agenda (click on the picture at the following URL):
http://neoconzionistthreat.blogspot.com/2008/05/threat-of-neocon-war-on-iran-for-israel.html
Here is a tiny URL for the above one:
http://tinyurl.com/3w2ok7
McCain: Iraq pull-out would harm Israel
(McCain and what he said about how the US can't pull out of Iraq because it would harm Israel - so he is on record that American soldiers/marines have been dying in Iraq for Israel!):
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2008/06/03/mccain-iraq-pull-out-would-harm-israel.php
Looks like Press TV even covered that question for Hedges via that youtube linked after the following:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2008/06/03/hedges-it-s-insane-to-attack-iran-devastating-consequences.php
Waging war on Iran 'insane'
http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=58483§ionid=351020104
Tue, 03 Jun 2008 08:40:47
President George W. Bush's vision to wage war on Iran is 'insane' and 'incomprehensible', prominent journalist Christopher Hedges says.
During a Q&A at the recent 2008 Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, Hedges said political analysts in American and Middle Eastern affairs could not justify the Bush Administration's plans to attack Iran.
"It is so insane to attack Iran. It is almost incomprehensible for those of us who come out of Middle East," said Hedges, who spent seven years in the region, mostly as the Middle East Bureau Chief for The New York Times.
In spite of a Dec 3 National Intelligence Estimate conceding with 'high confidence' that Iran is not conducting a nuclear weapons program, the Bush administration insists that 'all options' - including the use of military force - are on the table to counter 'Iran's threat' to Israel and the Middle East.
"The consequences would be devastating and so counterproductive to us, and everyone who lives in Middle East," Hedges continued.
"The intelligence estimate (on Iran) was an effort by our 16 intelligence agencies to speak out with one voice against a war in Iran in a way they didn't in the lead-up to war in Iraq," the Pulitzer prize-winning reporter added.
However, pointing to the resignation of Admiral Fallon, Hedges stated that the NIE report on Iran's nuclear program had not persuaded the administration to 'count out' a military option against the country.
His remarks came amid reports that the US president is drawing up plans to launch an air strike against Iran 'within two months'.
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Hedges: It's Insane to Attack Iran, Devastating Consequences
See video:
http://neoconzionistthreat.blogspot.com/2008/05/hedges-its-insane-to-attack-iran.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIlyj6D5qmk&feature=PlayList&p=E99D8873F5892DD5&index=0&playnext=1
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http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JF03Ak01.html
THE ROVING EYE
And the winner is ... the Israel lobby
By Pepe Escobar
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Bob Barr: Attacking Iran Highly Irresponsible & Detrimental
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qf-b_A8GbE0&feature=PlayList&p=388C1D4E40B6C0F6&index=0&playnext=1
http://tinyurl.com/5bbsnm
http://neoconzionistthreat.blogspot.com/2008/05/bob-barr-attacking-iran-highly.html
http://tinyurl.com/6p6ca9
Bob Barr Blog: We rush to War in Iran at our own peril:
http://bobbarrblog.blogspot.com/2007/10/we-rush-to-war-in-iran-at-our-own-peril.html
http://tinyurl.com/5m3hps
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Lobbying for Armageddon
http://www.israelenews.com/view.asp?ID=2068
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Wouldn't they have to get approval by Congress of such a thing, or is the
Constitution a dead letter in the US, and the US President able to order
the US military to attack anyone he wants any time he wants?
And if the President does order an un-Constitutional attack which is
carried out by the Department of Defense and the military, shouldn't he
and the other executive branch officers involved, both civilian and
military, be turned over to the victims of that attack for trial by a
military tribunal for their lawless aggression, or at least to the World
Court, as evidence of good-faith rejection of such executive coup d'etat
in and by the United States?
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Why aren't we talking about this?
Iran War, Real Fear Petraeus Beating War Drums for Attack:
http://neoconzionistthreat.blogspot.com/2008/04/why-arent-we-talking-about-this.html
Here is a tiny URL for the above one:
http://tinyurl.com/3vue6c
AIPAC Pushing US to War with Iran for Israel:
http://neoconzionistthreat.blogspot.com/2007/10/re-aipac-is-pushing-us-to-war-with-iran.html
Here is a tiny URL for the above one:
http://tinyurl.com/22br9u
----------------------------------------------------------------------
http://NEOCONZIONISTTHREAT.BLOGSPOT.COM
McCain, NeoCons, the Israel Lobby Ron Paul Weekly Standard
http://johnmccainforum.com/forum/showthread.php?p=5135#post5135
Here is a tiny URL for the above one:
http://tinyurl.com/3kq48b
http://NOMOREWARFORISRAEL.BLOGSPOT.COM
Last edited by Alpha on Tue Jun 03, 2008 12:49 pm; edited 6 times in total | |  | | Alpha | | Posted: Wed May 21, 2008 12:10 am Post subject: |
| Newsmax: Report: U.S. Will Attack Iran
Here is the latest on the coming war with Iran which will be for Israel as well (just as Iraq was in accordance with the 'A Clean Break' agenda - scroll down to the 'A Clean Break' post at http://NEOCONZIONISTTHREAT.BLOGSPOT.COM):
http://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/Report_US_to_Attack_iran/2008/05/20/97545.html
Newsmax.com
Report: U.S. Will Attack Iran
Tuesday, May 20, 2008 12:40 PM
By: Newsmax Staff
Israel’s Army Radio is reporting that President Bush intends to launch a military strike against Iran before the end of his term.
The Army Radio, a network operated by the Israeli Defense Forces, quoted a government source in Jerusalem. The source disclosed that a senior official close to Bush said in a closed meeting that Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney believed military action against Iran was now called for.
Bush concluded a trip to Israel last week, where he said, "The objective of the United States must be to . . . support our strongest ally and friend in the Middle East.”
The Radio report, which was quoted by the Jerusalem Post, disclosed that the recent turmoil in Lebanon, where the Iranian-backed group Hezbollah had seized virtual control of the country, was encouraging an American attack.
Hezbollah’s aggression in Lebanon is seen as evidence of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s growing influence, and the U.S. official said that in Bush’s view, “the disease must be treated, not its symptoms,” according to the Post.
The White House on Tuesday denied the Army Radio report, saying in a statement: “As the president has said, no president of the United States should ever take options off the table, but our preference and our actions for dealing with this matter remain through peaceful diplomatic means. Nothing has changed in that regard.”
However, numerous signs point to a U.S. strike on Iran in the near future:
A leading member of America’s Jewish community told Newsmax in April that a military strike on Iran was likely and that Vice President Cheney’s March trip through the Middle East came in preparation for the U.S. attack.
The Air Force recently declared the B-2 bomber fleet — a critical weapons system in any U.S. attack on Iran — as airworthy again. The Air Force had halted B-2 flights after a February crash in Guam. As Newsmax reported, the Air Force has refitted its stealth bombers to carry 30,000-pound “bunker buster” bombs, needed to destroy Iran’s hardened nuclear facilities.
A second U.S. aircraft carrier, the USS Abraham Lincoln, joined the carrier USS Harry S. Truman in the Persian Gulf in May, carrying far more weaponry and ammunition than on previous deployments.
Israel is gearing up for war. In April, it conducted its largest homeland military exercises ever. The Jewish-American source said Israel is “preparing for heavy casualties,” expecting to be the target of Iranian retribution following the U.S. attack.
Saudi Arabia is taking steps to prepare for possible radioactive contamination from U.S. destruction of Iran’s nuclear facilities. The Saudi government reportedly approved nuclear fallout preparations a day after Cheney met with the kingdom’s highest-ranking officials.
The USS Ross, an Aegis-class destroyer, has taken up station off the coast of Lebanon. Military observers speculate it is there to help defend Israel from missile attacks.
Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at a recent Pentagon briefing that the Iranians are systematically importing and training Shiite militia fighters, who slip back across the Iraqi border to kill American troops.
And Israeli intelligence has predicted that Iran will acquire its first nuclear device in 2009, much earlier than previous U.S. estimates.
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http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/may2008/iran-m21.shtml
Israeli press reports US pledge of war on Iran—is Bush preparing an October Surprise?
By Bill Van Auken
21 May 2008
An Israeli press report that US President George W. Bush intends to launch a military attack on Iran before he leaves office at the beginning of next year prompted a heated denial from the White House Tuesday.
The article, which appeared in Tuesday’s Jerusalem Post, cited a report on Israeli Army Radio, quoting Israeli officials who had met with Bush and his delegation during their visit to Israel last week.
“A senior member of the president’s entourage said during a closed meeting that Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney were of the opinion that military action was called for,” the article quoted an Israel official as saying.
The report cited the US official as stating that “the hesitancy of Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice” had delayed a decision on military action against Iran.
The recent crisis in Lebanon and the evident ease with which the Iranian-backed Hezbollah movement seized control of Beirut, according to the report, had placed a US attack on the Islamic Republic back on the front burner.
Bush expressed the opinion that “the disease must be treated, not the symptoms,” according to the Israeli officials.
The White House denial—issued within hours of the story appearing on the Jerusalem Post’s web site—was notably harsh in its tone. “An article in today’s Jerusalem Post about the president’s position on Iran that quotes unnamed sources—quoting unnamed sources—is not worth the paper it’s written on,” read the statement.
Later on Tuesday, however, Bush’s spokesperson Dana Perino was pressed by several reporters, who expressed skepticism in regard to the denial. “Do the President and the Vice President feel that an attack is called for—whether someone said that in Israel, or not?” asked one.
Dana Perino refused to answer, reiterating the official position that Washington is working to resolve its confrontation with Iran “diplomatically” but that it would not take any “options off the table.”
In reality, the Jerusalem Post story is hardly the only indication that the Bush administration is preparing for a military attack on Iran.
Ample physical evidence exists in the stepped up US military deployments in the region, with the Navy once again having two aircraft carrier battle groups—the USS Lincoln and the USS Harry S. Truman—within striking distance of Iran.
Meanwhile, the flagship of the 6th Fleet, the USS Mount Whitney, has been deployed off the coast of Lebanon, in what the Navy has described as an “unscheduled mission.” The ship is the Navy’s most advanced command, control and intelligence vessel, capable of coordinating a major attack over a wide region. It joined the USS Cole, a missile destroyer, already there.
In Washington, Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, appeared before a Senate committee Tuesday to reiterate the Pentagon’s unsubstantiated charges that Iran is responsible for violence in Iraq. The lack of a US military response thus far, he stressed, “does not signal lack of resolve or capability to defend ourselves against threats.”
In his speech before the Israeli Knesset last week, Bush placed Iran at the center of his pledge of unconditional support for Israel. “America stands with you in firmly opposing Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions,” he said. “Permitting the world’s leading sponsor of terror to possess the world’s deadliest weapons would be an unforgivable betrayal of future generations. For the sake of peace, the world must not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon.”
After Bush’s visit, a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told the press that Olmert and Bush had agreed on the need for “tangible action” to thwart Iran’s supposed drive to develop a nuclear weapon.
“We are on the same page. We both see the threat.... And we both understand that tangible action is required to prevent the Iranians from moving forward on a nuclear weapon,” Olmert spokesman Mark Regev told the Israeli daily Ha’aretz.
Referring to diplomatic efforts to exert pressure on Iran, Regev added, “It is clearly not sufficient, and it’s clear that additional steps will have to be taken.”
Even as the US and Israel stepped up the drumbeat about an alleged Iranian nuclear threat, Mohammad El-Baradei, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) spoke before a World Economic Forum session in Egypt Monday, declaring that the UN nuclear watchdog agency has no evidence that Iran is building a bomb.
Well before the story appeared in the Jerusalem Post, Ha’aretz reported that “Iran’s nuclear program has held center stage” in the talks between Bush and Olmert. Israeli officials, the paper reported, presented Bush with intelligence data that supposedly contradicted the National Intelligence Estimate produced by US spy agencies last year, which concluded that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003.
“Will this be enough to alter the position of the administration on the possibility of a US strike of the nuclear installations in Iran? It is not clear,” the paper reported. It added, however, that the Israeli government is insisting that Iran is approaching the “point of no return,” and immediate action is required.
As for Bush, it commented, the closer he “comes to the end of his tenure, he is certainly thinking about the legacy of his presidency, beyond the contentious war in Iraq.”
The suggestion being made is that one way to change the subject from the disastrous legacy embodied in the continuing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is the launching of yet another act of military aggression, one which would undoubtedly throw the entire region into chaos.
One clue to the political thinking within the top echelons of the Bush administration came in the form of an audiotape. The tape was part of the material the Pentagon turned over recently to the New York Times in response to a Freedom of Information Act request for its article exposing the Defense Department’s relationship to a group of retired officers who regularly appeared on television news, promoting the administration’s line on Iraq.
The tape was of a December 2006 luncheon meeting between then Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and a group of these “military analysts”—referred to by the Pentagon itself as “message force multipliers.”
The mood at the meeting was clearly one of dismay and even anger over the results of the 2006 midterm election, in which a wave of popular antiwar sentiment delivered control of both houses of Congress to the Democrats.
Retired Marine Lt. Gen. Michael Delong is heard noting to Rumsfeld that with the new political configuration on Capitol Hill, “you’re not going to have a lot of sympathetic ears up there until it [a terrorist attack] happens.”
Rumsfeld agreed, responding: “We haven’t had an attack in five years. The perception of the threat is so low in this society that it’s not surprising that the behavior pattern reflects a low threat assessment ... The correction for that, I suppose, is an attack. And when that happens, then everyone gets energized for another [inaudible] and it’s a shame we don’t have the maturity to recognize the seriousness of the threats...the lethality, the carnage, that can be imposed on our society is so real and so present and so serious that you’d think we’d be able to understand it...”
The “correction” for the failure of the American people to support the war in Iraq and the global eruption of American militarism under the mantle of the “war on terrorism” is, in Rumsfeld’s view, another “attack,” along the lines of September 11, 2001. Clearly, the conception is that another round of “lethality” and “carnage” would serve to stun the public and create conditions for the administration to impose its political will by extraordinary means.
Certainly, one means of making such an attack all the more likely would be the launching of a military strike against Iran.
The reports from Israel and the military buildup in the region raise an obvious question: With the approach of the 2008 elections, are elements within the Bush administration preparing an “October Surprise” in the form of an unprovoked attack on Iran?
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Israel asks US to impose naval blockade on Iran:
http://iraqwar.mirror-world.ru/article/165053
Former Chief UN Weapons Inspector Hans Blix on the US Rush to War in Iraq, the Threat of an Attack on Iran, and the Need for a Global Nuclear Ban to Avoid Further Catastrophe
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/5/21/former_chief_un_weapons_inspector_hans
Democrat: Bush war on Iran 'likely' :
http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=56867§ionid=351020101
Arnaud de Borchgrave on McClellan, Neocons & Clean Break
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2008/05/30/arnaud-de-borchgrave-on-mcclellan-neocons-clean-break.php
Fischer: US, Israel will attack Iran
http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=58040§ionid=351020604
Bush gearing up to wage war on Iran
http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=57625§ionid=351020104
Petraeus: Strike Iran as 'last resort' :
http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=56869§ionid=351020101
US wants Iran military option on table
http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=56495§ionid=351020104
Carter: US Should be Talking to Iran:
http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=57340§ionid=3510203
ElBaradei: Iran not after bomb
http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=56533§ionid=351020104
Additional at the following URL for John McCain supporters!:
McCain, NeoCons, the Israel Lobby Ron Paul Weekly Standard
http://johnmccainforum.com/forum/showthread.php?p=5135#post5135
Here is a tiny URL for the above one:
http://tinyurl.com/3kq48b
http://NOMOREWARFORISRAEL.BLOGSPOT.COM
Last edited by Alpha on Sat May 31, 2008 5:52 am; edited 4 times in total | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Wed May 21, 2008 8:54 am Post subject: An Appeal to Admiral Fallon on Iran |
| An Appeal to Admiral Fallon on Iran
By Ray McGovern
May 19, 2008
http://consortiumnews.com/2008/051908b.html
consortiumnews.com
An Appeal to Admiral Fallon on Iran
By Ray McGovern
May 19, 2008
Dear Admiral Fallon,
I have not been able to find out how to reach you directly, so I drafted this letter in the hope it will be brought to your attention.
First, thank you for honoring the oath we commissioned officers take to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States from all enemies, foreign and domestic. At the same time, you have let it be known that you do not intend to speak, on or off the record, about Iran.
But our oath has no expiration date. While you are acutely aware of the dangers of attacking Iran, you seem to be allowing an inbred reluctance to challenge the commander in chief to trump that oath, and to prevent you from letting the American people know of the catastrophe about to befall us if, as seems likely, our country attacks Iran.
Two years ago I lectured at the Naval Academy in Annapolis. I found it highly disturbing that, when asked about the oath they took upon entering the academy, several of the “Mids” thought it was to the commander in chief.
This brought to my mind the photos of German generals and admirals (as well as top church leaders and jurists) swearing personal oaths to Hitler. Not our tradition, and yet …
I was aghast that only the third Mid I called on got it right – that the oath is to protect and defend the Constitution, not the president.
Attack Iran and Trash the Constitution
No doubt you are very clear that an attack on Iran would be a flagrant violation of our Constitution, which stipulates that treaties ratified by the Senate become the supreme law of the land; that the United Nations Charter – which the Senate ratified on July 28, 1945, by a vote of 89 to 2 – expressly forbids attacks on other countries unless they pose an imminent danger; that there is no provision allowing some other kind of “pre-emptive” or “preventive” attack against a nation that poses no imminent danger; and that Iran poses no such danger to the United States or its allies.
You may be forgiven for thinking: Isn’t 41 years of service enough; isn’t resigning in order to remove myself from a chain of command that threatened to make me a war criminal for attacking Iran; isn’t making my active opposition known by talking to journalists – isn’t all that enough?
With respect, sir, no, that’s not enough.
The stakes here are extremely high and with the integrity you have shown goes still further responsibility. Sadly, the vast majority of your general officer colleagues have, for whatever reason, ducked that responsibility. You are pretty much it.
In their lust for attacking Iran, administration officials will do their best to marginalize you. And, as prominent a person as you are, the corporate media will do the same.
Indeed, there are clear signs the media have been given their marching orders to support attacking Iran.
At CIA I used to analyze the Soviet press, so you will understand when I refer to the Washington Post and the New York Times as the White House’s Pravda and Izvestiya.
Sadly, it is as easy as during the days of the controlled Soviet press to follow the U.S. government’s evolving line with a daily reading. In a word, our newspapers are revving up for war on Iran, and have been for some time.
In some respects the manipulation and suppression of information in the present lead-up to an attack on Iran is even more flagrant and all encompassing than in early 2003 before the invasion of Iraq.
It seems entirely possible that you are unaware of this, precisely because the media have put the wraps on it, so let me adduce a striking example of what is afoot here.
The example has to do with the studied, if disingenuous, effort over recent months to blame all the troubles in southern Iraq on the “malignant” influence of Iran.
But Not for Fiasco
Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman, Adm. Mike Mullen, told reporters on April 25 that Gen. David Petraeus would be giving a briefing “in the next couple of weeks” that would provide detailed evidence of “just how far Iran is reaching into Iraq to foment instability.”
Petraeus’s staff alerted U.S. media to a major news event in which captured Iranian arms in Karbala would be displayed and then destroyed.
Small problem. When American munitions experts went to Karbala to inspect the alleged cache of Iranian weapons they found nothing that could be credibly linked to Iran.
News to you? That’s because this highly embarrassing episode went virtually unreported in the media – like the proverbial tree falling in the forest with no corporate media to hear it crash.
So Mullen and Petraeus live, uninhibited and unembarrassed, to keep searching for Iranian weapons so the media can then tell a story more supportive to efforts to blacken Iran. A fiasco is only a fiasco if folks know about it.
The suppression of this episode is the most significant aspect, in my view, and a telling indicator of how difficult it is to get honest reporting on these subjects.
Meanwhile, it was announced that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had formed his own Cabinet committee to investigate U.S. claims and attempt to “find tangible information and not information based on speculation.”
Dissing the Intelligence Estimate
Top officials from the president on down have been dismissing the dramatically new conclusion of the National Intelligence Estimate released on Dec. 3, 2007, a judgment concurred in by the 16 intelligence units of our government, that Iran had stopped the weapons-related part of its nuclear program in mid-2003.
Always willing to do his part, the malleable CIA chief, Michael Hayden, on April 30 publicly offered his “personal opinion” that Iran is building a nuclear weapon – the National Intelligence Estimate notwithstanding.
For good measure, Hayden added: “It is my opinion, it is the policy of the Iranian government, approved to the highest level of that government, to facilitate the killing of Americans in Iraq. … Just make sure there’s clarity on that.”
I don’t need to tell you about the Haydens and other smartly saluting generals in Washington.
Let me suggest that you have a serious conversation with Gen. Anthony Zinni, one of your predecessor CENTOM commanders (1997 to 2000).
As you know better than I, this Marine general is also an officer with unusual integrity. But placed into circumstances virtually identical to those you now face, he could not find his voice.
He missed his chance to interrupt the juggernaut to war in Iraq; you might ask him how he feels about that now, and what he would advise in current circumstances.
Zinni happened to be one of the honorees at the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention on Aug. 26, 2002, at which Vice President Dick Cheney delivered the exceedingly alarmist speech, unsupported by our best intelligence, about the nuclear threat and other perils awaiting us at the hands of Saddam Hussein.
That speech not only launched the seven-month public campaign against Iraq leading up to the war, but set the terms of reference for the Oct. 1, 2002 National Intelligence Estimate fabricated – yes, fabricated – to convince Congress to approve war on Iraq.
Gen. Zinni later shared publicly that, as he listened to Cheney, he was shocked to hear a depiction of intelligence that did not square with what he knew. Although Zinni had retired two years earlier, his role as consultant had required him to stay up to date on intelligence relating to the Middle East.
One Sunday morning three and a half years after Cheney’s speech, Zinni told “Meet the Press”: “There was no solid proof that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. … I heard a case being made to go to war.”
Gen. Zinni had as good a chance as anyone to stop an unnecessary war – not a “pre-emptive war,” since there was nothing to pre-empt – and Zinni knew it. No, what he and any likeminded officials could have stopped was a war of aggression, defined at the post-WWII Nuremberg Tribunal as the “supreme international crime.”
Sure, Zinni would have had to stick his neck out. He may have had to speak out alone, since most senior officials, like then-CIA Director George Tenet, lacked courage and integrity.
In his memoir published a year ago, Tenet says Cheney did not follow the usual practice of clearing his Aug. 26, 2002 speech with the CIA; that much of what Cheney said took him completely by surprise; and that Tenet “had the impression that the president wasn’t any more aware of what his number-two was going to say to the VFW until he said it.”
It is a bit difficult to believe that Cheney’s shameless speech took Tenet completely by surprise.
We know from the Downing Street Minutes, vouched for by the UK as authentic, that Tenet told his British counterpart on July 20, 2002, that the president had decided to make war on Iraq for regime change and that “the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy”
Encore: Iran
Admiral Fallon, you know that to be the case also with respect to the “intelligence” being conjured up to “justify” war with Iran. And no one knows better than you that your departure from the chain of command has turned it over completely to the smartly saluting sycophants.
No doubt you have long since taken the measure, for example, of Defense Secretary Robert Gates. So have I.
I was one of his first branch chiefs when he was a young, disruptively ambitious CIA analyst. When Ronald Reagan’s CIA Director William Casey sought someone to shape CIA analysis to accord with his own conviction that the Soviet Union would never change, Gates leaped at the chance.
After Casey died, Gates admitted to the Washington Post’s Walter Pincus that he (Gates) watched Casey on “issue after issue sit in meetings and present intelligence framed in terms of the policy he wanted pursued.” Gates’ entire subsequent career showed that he learned well at Casey’s knee.
So it should come as no surprise that, despite the unanimous judgment of the 16 U.S. intelligence agencies that Iran stopped the weapons related aspects of its nuclear program, Gates is now saying that Iran is hell-bent on acquiring nuclear weapons.
Some of his earlier statements were more ambiguous, but Gates recently took advantage of the opportunity to bend with the prevailing winds and leave no doubt as to his loyalty.
In an interview on events in the Middle East with a New York Times reporter on April 11, Gates was asked whether he was on the same page as the president. Gates replied, “Same line, same word.”
I imagine you are no more surprised than I. Bottom line: Gates will salute smartly if Cheney persuades the president to let the Air Force and Navy loose on Iran.
You know the probable consequences; you need to let the rest of the American people know.
A Gutsy Precedent
Can you, Admiral Fallon, be completely alone? Can it be that you are the only general officer to resign on principle?
And, of equal importance, is there no other general officer, active or retired, who has taken the risk of speaking out in an attempt to inform Americans about President George W. Bush’s bellicose fixation with Iran. Thankfully, there is.
Gen. Brent Scowcroft, who was national security adviser to President George H.W. Bush, took the prestigious job of Chairman, President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board when asked to by the younger Bush.
From that catbird seat, Scowcroft could watch the unfolding of U.S. policy in the Middle East. Over decades dealing with the press, Scowcroft had honed a reputation of quintessential discretion. All the more striking what he decided he had to do.
In an interview with London’s Financial Times in mid-October 2004 Scowcroft was harshly critical of the president, charging that Bush had been “mesmerized” by then Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
“Sharon just has him wrapped around his little finger,” Scowcroft said. “He has been nothing but trouble.”
Needless to say, Scowcroft was given his walking papers and told never to darken the White House doorstep again.
There is ample evidence that Sharon’s successors believe they have a commitment from President Bush to “take care of Iran” before he leaves office, and that the president has done nothing to disabuse them of that notion – no matter the consequences.
On May 18, speaking at the World Economic Forum at Sharm el Sheikh, Bush threw in a gratuitous reference to “Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions.” He said:
“To allow the world’s leading sponsor of terror to gain the world’s deadliest weapon would be an unforgivable betrayal of future generations. For the sake of peace, the world must not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon.”
Pre-briefing the press, Bush’s national security adviser Stephen Hadley identified Iran as one of the dominant themes of the trip, adding repeatedly that Iran “is very much behind” all the woes afflicting the Middle East, from Lebanon to Gaza to Iraq to Afghanistan.
The Rhetoric is Ripening
In the coming weeks, at least until U.S. forces can find some real Iranian weapons in Iraq, the rhetoric is likely to focus on what I call the Big Lie – the claim that Iran’s president has threatened to “wipe Israel off the map.”
In that controversial speech in 2005, Ahmadinejad was actually quoting from something the Ayatollah Khomeini had said in the early 1980s. Khomeini was expressing a hope that a regime treating the Palestinians so unjustly would be replaced by another more equitable one.
A distinction without a difference? I think not. Words matter.
As you may already know (but the American people don’t), the literal translation from Farsi of what Ahmadinejad said is, “The regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the pages of time.”
Contrary to what the administration would have us all believe, the Iranian president was not threatening to nuke Israel, push it into the sea, or wipe it off the map.
President Bush is way out in front on this issue, and this comes through with particular clarity when he ad-libs answers to questions.
On Oct. 17, 2007, long after he had been briefed on the key intelligence finding that Iran had stopped the nuclear weapons-related part of its nuclear development program, the president spoke as though, well, “mesmerized.” He said:
“But this – we got a leader in Iran who has announced he wants to destroy Israel. So I’ve told people that if you’re interested in avoiding World War III, it seems you ought to be interested in preventing them from have (sic) the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon. I take the threat of Iran with a nuclear weapon very seriously.”
Some contend that Bush does not really believe his rhetoric. I rather think he does, for the Israelis seem to have his good ear, with the tin one aimed at U.S. intelligence he has repeatedly disparaged.
But, frankly, which would be worse: that Bush believes Iran to be an existential threat to Israel and thus requires U.S. military action? Or that it’s just rhetoric to “justify” U.S. action to “take care of” Iran for Israel?
What you can do, Admiral Fallon, is speak authoritatively about what is likely to happen – to U.S. forces in Iraq, for example – if Bush orders your successors to begin bombing and missile attacks on Iran.
And you could readily update Scowcroft’s remarks, by drawing on what you observed of the Keystone Cops efforts of White House ideologues, like Iran-Contra convict Elliot Abrams, to overturn by force the ascendancy of Hamas in 2006-07 and Hezbollah more recently. (Abrams pled guilty to two misdemeanor counts of misleading Congress, but was pardoned by President George H.W. Bush on Dec. 24, 1992.)
It is easy to understand why no professional military officer would wish to be in the position of taking orders originating from the likes of Abrams.
If you weigh in as your (non-expiring) oath to protect and defend the Constitution dictates, you might conceivably prompt other sober heads to speak out.
And, in the end, if profound ignorance and ideology – supported by the corporate press and by both political parties intimidated by the Israel lobby – lead to an attack on Iran, and the Iranians enter southern Iraq and take thousands of our troops hostage, you will be able to look in the mirror and say at least you tried.
You will not have to live with the remorse of not knowing what might have been, had you been able to shake your reluctance to speak out.
There is a large Tar Baby out there – Iran. You may remember that as Brer Rabbit got more and more stuck, Brer Fox, he lay low.
A “Fox” Fallon, still pledged to defend the Constitution of the United States, cannot lie low—not now.
Lead.
Respectfully,
Ray McGovern; Steering Group; Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)
Ray McGovern, a veteran Army intelligence officer and then CIA analyst for 27 years, now works with Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington.
To comment at Consortiumblog, click here.
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Fallon: I was pressured for months:
http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=58325§ionid=3510203
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May 31, 2008The Saturday Profile
Push for New Direction Leads to Sudden Dead End for a 40-Year Naval Career
By ELAINE SCIOLINOFLORENCE, Italy
HIS friends call him Fox,
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/31/world/middleeast/31fallon.html?_r=1&sq=fallon&st=nyt&oref=slogin&scp=1&pagewanted=print
May 31, 2008
The Saturday Profile
Push for New Direction Leads to Sudden Dead End for a 40-Year Naval Career
By ELAINE SCIOLINO
FLORENCE, Italy
HIS friends call him Fox, and for years William J. Fallon was considered one of America’s most successful four-star admirals, serving most recently as the commander of military operations in the territory stretching from the Horn of Africa across Central Asia.
Now, the 63-year-old former aviator is struggling with reinvention, nudged into early retirement in March after a 40-year naval career because of his blunt talk that left the perception he was disloyal to his commander in chief.
Breaking his silence since his departure in an hourlong interview, Admiral Fallon said he had felt the pressure building for several months. He had, after all, taken public positions favoring diplomacy over force in Iran, troop withdrawals from Iraq that were greater than officially planned and more high-level attention to Afghanistan.
But the catalyst for his departure was not a policy disagreement with the White House, he said; it was an article in Esquire magazine this year that portrayed him as the man standing between President Bush and war against Iran.
If the admiral’s comments had been kept behind the closed doors of the White House and the Pentagon, he might have survived. The problem was that in the highly hierarchical world of the military, in which the cardinal rule is to salute — not break ranks with — the president, his dissent was simply too public.
The admiral claims not to have been misquoted, but to have been misunderstood.
“There was a huge perception that I was publicly at odds with the president, which was not true,” he said. “I had serious concerns that my subordinates — my soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines — had that perception. It put me in a difficult position. I felt very uncomfortable.”
But he acknowledged that he had shaken Central Command headquarters in Tampa, Fla., after he arrived in March 2007, both by making crystal clear that he, and not the battlefield commanders, was in charge and by making changes that rankled people in and out of the military.
His management style was criticized; his on-the-record comments about policy raised eyebrows.
Some of the issues were petty: the injection of ceremonial Navy traditions to a gritty command never before headed by an admiral, including the designation of the command’s main stairwell as off limits to all but generals and admirals, and the creation of a private dining room where office space had been.
Others were more substantive, like an ambitious job-reduction effort aimed at slashing the command’s staff of 3,400 and assigning his own people to review others’ decisions.
“I wanted us to get focused on Iraq and Afghanistan at a high level, not just rubber-stamping every request, or whatever that was coming out of Baghdad,” he said. Acknowledging a streak of impatience, he added, “This was not the time to be sitting around clinking teacups.”
He was not helped by the fact that he was a Navy man with overall responsibility over two wars involving American ground troops, and a commander with a reputation for liberal leanings in a hawkish administration.
AS commander of the Pacific Command between 2005 and 2007, he had been criticized by conservatives for cozying up to China at a time when the country was rapidly modernizing its armed forces.
During his one-year tenure as head of the Central Command, he proposed a navy-to-navy relationship with Iran as a way to begin a sustained dialogue with the country after nearly three decades without diplomatic relations, Bush administration officials said, speaking anonymously according to normal diplomatic rules.
The proposal was not revolutionary; other commanders had floated such an idea before. But it was quickly rejected by the White House as rewarding Tehran, the officials said.
Admiral Fallon declined to discuss the initiative, although he acknowledges that he favors dialogue and patience, not war, with Iran, and that the Navy could provide a way to begin the process.
“In the conduct of daily business, we routinely have excellent communications with the Iranian Navy,” he said. “When the conditions are right, it might be a reasonable way of interaction — to build on existing maritime communications.”
Even now, he defends his public statements on Iran that stress diplomacy over the use of force. “People tend to look at things in black and white — we’re going to love Iran or attack Iran,” he said. “That is a very simplistic way to approach a complex problem.”
He said he found it impossible to convince people that stories about disputes with David H. Petraeus, the four-star Army general who was the top commander in Iraq and replaced him at the Central Command when he retired, were overblown. “He’s a smart guy,” Admiral Fallon said.
But then he acknowledged that there had been differences, and he did not contradict reports that at one point General Petraeus had wanted as many troops on the ground in Iraq as possible, while he had favored substantial reductions.
“Did we agree on everything? No,” he said of their relationship. “Did he want everything? Yes. And that’s just the way it is. But we talked just about every day.” He added, “He’s an Army guy, a bit more rigid, less risk.”
As the operational commander with day-to-day responsibilities for Iraq, General Petraeus enjoyed a direct line of communication with the White House, which Admiral Fallon, the strategic overseer, did not. So there was also the pecking-order problem.
The admiral’s departure from the military was so abrupt that he veers between the present and the past in discussing his old job.
“I was Petraeus’s boss,” he said. “I asked a lot of questions, which is my nature. And the answers better match up with what I have seen.”
Asked about a Washington newspaper column that said he had been squeezed out because he was “rigid” and “overbearing,” he replied: “I don’t tolerate fools. I challenge every briefing and pitch. If people present me with only one solution to the problem, I’m the type to reject it immediately.”
This is, he said, “a no-nonsense business. I’m not getting paid to be a nice guy.”
ADMIRAL Fallon started his military career through the Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps, which he joined to pay his way through Villanova University. He flew combat missions in Vietnam, commanded a carrier air wing in the Persian Gulf war in 1991 and later led the naval battle group supporting NATO operations in Bosnia. Along the way, he developed diplomatic skills, taking the unusual step in 2001, for example, of apologizing to Japan and to the relatives of those killed in the accidental sinking of a Japanese fishing trawler by an American submarine.
The rawness of his transition into private life was revealed in his public coming out as the keynote speaker at a terrorism conference hosted by New York University’s Center on Law and Security in Florence last week.
He admitted that he finally understood the indecision of his daughters over what to wear and the challenge of deciding what personal effects to move to a new home in the Washington area after keeping most things in storage for 20 years.
“I have to confess to — how should I put this — a bit of uncertainty in my own future, because until a few weeks ago I had things pretty orderly in front of me,” he said. But those in the audience who said they were expecting insider-tells-all revelations about the terrorist threat came away disappointed.
In the interview, he declined to directly criticize current policies, although he urged the next administration to focus more on strategic planning. “We need to have a well-thought-out game plan for engagement in the world that we adjust regularly and that has some system of checks and balances built into it,” he said.
He is thinking about writing a book, but jokes that such a project could pose a challenge. In his Catholic high school in Camden, N.J., he opted for third-year Latin instead of typing. So he may have to learn how to type.
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AIPAC is Pushing US to War with Iran (for Israel):
http://neoconzionistthreat.blogspot.com/2007/10/re-aipac-is-pushing-us-to-war-with-iran.html
Here is a tiny URL for the above one:
http://tinyurl.com/24mkej
President Bush intends to attack Iran in coming months
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2008/05/20/president-bush-intends-to-attack-iran-in-coming-months.php
Here is a tiny URL for the above one:
http://tinyurl.com/6mq7o3
Why aren't we talking about this?
Iran War, Real Fear Petraeus Beating War Drums for Attack
http://neoconzionistthreat.blogspot.com/2008/04/why-arent-we-talking-about-this.html
Here is a tiny URL for the above one:
http://tinyurl.com/3vue6c
Additional posts on all three pages (thus far) of:
http://NEOCONZIONISTTHREAT.BLOGSPOT.COM
Read the UPI article at the beginning of the following URL:
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
Here is a tiny URL for the above one:
http://tinyurl.com/3wxev8
Even Colin Powell has conveyed (in Washington Post correspondent Karen DeYoung's bio book about him) that the 'JINSA crowd' was/is control of the Pentagon (via JINSA associated Dick Cheney of course!):
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
Here is a tiny URL for the above one:
http://tinyurl.com/2b6p5k
http://NOMOREWARFORISRAEL.BLOGSPOT.COM
Last edited by Alpha on Mon Jun 02, 2008 2:38 am; edited 1 time in total | | | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Fri May 23, 2008 1:48 am Post subject: |
| May 20, 2008
PJB: Bush Plays the Hitler Card
posted by Linda
by Patrick J. Buchanan
“A little learning is a dangerous thing,” wrote Alexander Pope.
Daily, our 43rd president testifies to Pope’s point.
Addressing the Knesset on the 60th anniversary of Israel’s birth, Bush said those who say we should negotiate with Iran or Hamas are like the fools who said we should negotiate with Adolf Hitler.
“As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared, ‘Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.’ We have an obligation to call this what it is — the false comfort of appeasement. …”
Again, Bush has made a hash of history.
Appeasement is the name given to what Neville Chamberlain did at Munich in September 1938. Rather than fight Germany in another great war — to keep 3.5 million Germans under a Czech rule they despised — he agreed to their peaceful transfer to German rule. With these Germans went the lands their ancestors had lived upon for centuries, German Bohemia, or the Sudetenland.
Chamberlain’s negotiated deal with Hitler averted a European war — at the expense of the Czech nation. That was appeasement.
German tanks, however, did not roll into Poland until a year later, Sept. 1, 1939. Why did the tanks roll? Because Poland refused to negotiate over Danzig, a Baltic port of 350,000 that was 95 percent German and had been taken from Germany at the Paris peace conference of 1919, in violation of Wilson’s 14 Points and his principle of self-determination.
Hitler had not wanted war with Poland. He had wanted an alliance with Poland in his anti-Comintern pact against Joseph Stalin.
But the Poles refused to negotiate. Why? Because they were a proud, defiant, heroic people and because Neville Chamberlain had insanely given an unsolicited war guarantee to Poland. If Hitler invaded, Chamberlain told the Poles, Britain would declare war on Germany.
From March to August 1939, Hitler tried to negotiate Danzig. But the Poles, confident in their British war guarantee, refused. So, Hitler cut his deal with Stalin, and the two invaded and divided Poland.
The cost of the war that came of a refusal to negotiate Danzig was millions of Polish dead, the Katyn massacre, Treblinka, Sobibor, Auschwitz, the annihilation of the Home Army in the Warsaw uprising of 1944, and 50 years of Nazi and Stalinist occupation, barbarism and terror.
In that same speech to the Knesset, Bush dismissed the idea we could ever successfully negotiate with Hamas, Hezbollah or Iran:
“Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them that they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before.”
But did not Ronald Reagan’s negotiations with the Evil Empire, as he rebuilt America’s military might, bear fruit in a reversal of Moscow’s imperial policy and an end to the Cold War?
Richard Nixon went to China and toasted the greatest mass murderer of them all, Mao Zedong, when Maoists were conducting a nationwide purge: the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Yet, Nixon ended a quarter century of implacable U.S.-Chinese hostility. Was Nixon’s trip to China useless?
Three years after Nikita Khrushchev drowned the Hungarian revolution in blood, Ike had him up to Camp David. John Kennedy ended the most dangerous confrontation of the Cold War, the Cuban missile crisis, by negotiating with that same Butcher of Budapest.
Were Ike, JFK and Nixon all deluded fools? For the dictators they negotiated with — Khrushchev and Mao — were far greater mass murderers and enemies of America than is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Bush’s father negotiated with Syria’s Hafez al-Assad, the Butcher of Hama, and made him an American ally in the Gulf War.
Was President Bush’s father a deluded fool?
The president’s own diplomats negotiated an end to the nuclear program of Col. Gadhafi, who was responsible for the air massacre of American school kids over Lockerbie.
Bush’s own diplomats are negotiating with Kim Jong-il’s North Korea, a state sponsor of terror. Ambassador Ryan Crocker is negotiating with Iranians in Baghdad. Egypt is negotiating on behalf of Israel with Hamas to retrieve a captured Israeli soldier. Are they all deluded fools?
Bush refused to talk to Yasser Arafat because he was a terrorist. But four Israeli prime ministers negotiated with Arafat. Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin shared a Nobel Prize with him. “Bibi” Netanyahu ceded Hebron to him. Ehud Olmert offered him 95 percent of the West Bank.
Were all four Israeli leaders deluded fools?
True, the Chamberlain-Hitler summit at Munich proved a disaster, as did the FDR-Churchill-Stalin summits at Tehran and Yalta, and the JFK-Khrushchev summit in Vienna. But JFK’s diplomacy in the missile crisis may have averted a nuclear war. And Eisenhower, Nixon, Gerald Ford and Reagan all met with foreign dictators with blood on their hands, without loss to America, and sometimes with impressive gains.
What has Bush’s refusal to talk to Hamas, Hezbollah, Damascus and Tehran done to make either Israel or America more secure?
http://buchanan.org/blog/?p=993 | | | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Fri May 23, 2008 11:02 pm Post subject: |
| Bombing Iran: The Clamor Persists
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1808811,00.html?xid=rss-world
By MASSIMO CALABRESI/WASHINGTON
Listening to the questions asked of Gen. David Petraeus in the Senate Thursday, you might think the U.S. was headed for a new war in the Gulf. Senators from both sides of the aisle spent as much time asking him about Iran as they did about Iraq and Afghanistan. Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut grilled Petraeus on Iran's anti-U.S. activities in the region. Sen. Daniel Akaka of Hawaii plaintively asked about the utility of negotiations with Iran. And Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia pressed Petraeus on what he meant by the need to "counter malign Iranian influence" and the "consequences for its illegitimate influence in the region."
The general, whose confirmation as head of U.S. Central Command was stake in the hearing, did his best to pacify the men and women who held his appointment in their hands, emphasizing his support for "the three rounds of negotiations that have taken place" between Iran, Iraq and the U.S. in Baghdad over security issues. But the Senators' questions how how persistent the concern is on Capitol Hill that President Bush could be secretly planning a military strike against Iran.
In theory, the idea of a war with Iran should be a non-starter in a nation whose war-weary public has no appetite for further military adventures in the Middle East, no matter how determined Iran may be to get a nuclear weapon or to arm and train anti-U.S. forces in Iraq. Republican candidates on Capitol Hill, already facing their worst electoral prospects in a generation, are equally disinclined to support military action against Iran. Even Bush's own cabinet officials, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates have been repeatedly cool to the idea in public.
But those expressing caution and skepticism in Washington are not the only voices the commander in chief of U.S. armed forces is hearing. In Israel, from which President Bush recently returned, one doesn't have to go far to find deep, existential concern. "A military option is not a good option," for dealing with Iran's nuclear weapons ambitions, a senior Israeli official told TIME on the sidelines of one of Bush's meetings, "But there's only one thing worse than that, which is Iran going nuclear." Those outside the Israeli government express even greater urgency. "I'm worried that by November it's going to be too late," to stop Iran from gaining the ability to produce nuclear weapons, said Yossi Kuperwasser, the former senior intelligence officer for the Central Command of the Israeli Defense. On military action against nuclear sites in Iran, he said, "Just do it. For Christ's sake, do it and solve our problem."
Nor is it only the Israelis who are concerned. Egyptian and Saudi leaders also expressed their worries about Iran's nuclear ambitions when Bush met with them on the trip, several White House aides say. "People in the region really want to see it solved peacefully," says a senior White House official, "but they're also concerned for their own safety and they're also mindful of the calendar, and they know that this President has been very strong."
If diplomatic efforts continue to look unlikely to produce an outcome acceptable to the Administration, would President Bush consider military action? The odds have to be against it, given the domestic environment. But the tone among some of his allies abroad is very different. As he often does on such trips, Bush held one-on-one talks with key leaders on his recent trip, during which aides were asked to leave the room and particularly sensitive matters were discussed. After a similar one-on-one last January, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was asked at a press conference with Bush whether the American leader's "hands were tied" when it came to Iran. Olmert said his impression after talks with Bush was that the President is "exceptionally determined," and that "he has proven this throughout his term in office his preparedness to take exceptional measures in order to defend the principles in which he believes, and in his deep commitment to the security of the state of Israel."
Following Bush's visit this month, the Jerusalem Post reported that a senior U.S. advisor on the trip had told Israeli officials that Bush was prepared to attack Iran, but that Gates and Rice were blocking the way. It was a second-hand report that White House Press Secretary Dana Perino strongly denied. On the Hill Thursday, Petraeus listed Iran as key to the top two security concerns facing Central Command, and mentioned nuclear worries in particular. "The lack of transparency in efforts by countries such as Iran and Syria to develop their nuclear programs is a major concern," he said.
It's that kind of talk that has people in Washington worried. Aides to Democratic leaders on the Hill fear that Bush may be planning to bomb Iran between November and January, after the political cost goes down and when he may feel he is doing his successor a favor. Dan Senor, former military spokesman and foreign policy advisor to the Bush Administration, says he finds that scenario highly unlikely, because he believes it would provoke numerous resignations from the intelligence community and the armed services, both of which groups feel burned from the Iraq experience. Senor may be right, but there are enough signs echoing back from abroad, to keep observers at home and overseas guessing. View this article on Time.com
Related articles on Time.com: Why Not Talk? Talking to Iran — or Talking War? The Israelis Prepare for Bush Visit The Fallout from the Iran Nukes Report Iran Assessment Creates an Israeli Headache | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Sat May 24, 2008 10:27 am Post subject: Falsification of intelligence? |
| From: Ray Close
Sent: Friday, May 23, 2008 9:19 AM
To: undisclosed-recipients
Subject: Falsification of intelligence?
Over the past weeks and months, there has been a continuing flow of half-baked claims by Bush administration spokespersons that Iranian covert supply of lethal weapons to Iraqi militants has contributed directly to the deaths of many American service personnel in Iraq . Sometimes, news stories on the subject have consisted primarily of drum-rolls of hype, building expectations that dramatic revelations would soon be forthcoming. In the event, however, very little has ever been produced that substantiates assertions of a direct connection between Iranian covert support to Iraqi militants and significant loss of American life.
There have recently been two excellent articles on this subject written by U.S. observers: one by historian and national security policy analyst Gareth Porter entitled "Where Are Those Iranian Weapons in Iraq ?", and an equally perceptive and informative follow-up commentary by Professor William Beeman of the University of Minnesota . (I would be happy to supply links to these pieces for anyone who wants to have their full texts. Just drop me a note.)
The simple fact is that persistent assertions by the USG of direct Iranian responsibility for killing large numbers of American soldiers in Iraq have lacked credibility.
It is quite possible, of course, that the subject has simply been seized upon and sensationalized by overzealous journalists hunting for opportunities to file a front-page story. We always have to make fair allowance for that possibility.
However, remembering our difficulties in correctly evaluating "intelligence" portraying Saddam Hussein's regime as a dire and imminent threat to American lives, it seems prudent to look at all allegedly incriminating "evidence" against Iran with a very jaundiced eye. In short, it should be our patriotic duty to question whether efforts to "sell" that "case" may be planned and orchestrated (and exaggerated?) by the Bush administration with an ulterior motive. It is not a trivial question. It could be a matter of war or peace.
I would frame the proposition in these terms, reflecting my professional training and experience:
For an independent intelligence analyst attempting to evaluate indications that the United States is planning to attack Iranian training and supply bases in Iran, a valuable first step would be to determine the accuracy (or, more specifically, the veracity) of reports emanating from the Bush administration concerning the volume and effective quality of Iranian weapons being supplied to Shiite elements in Iraq that are allegedly being used to kill large numbers of U.S. military personnel.
If these reports are being deliberately exaggerated, that fact in itself should be taken as an extremely significant intelligence indicator. It could only mean that the U.S. is, in fact, as many of us have speculated, systematically building a case to justify attacking Iranian targets --- basing its case on the legitimate principle that any sovereign state is entitled to protect the lives and safety of its own citizens --- and NOT committing an act of war that would require international legal authority or approval from the U.S. Congress. This would not be a case of simply "sexing up" a few facts for the purposes of deception or propaganda. That latter activity would fall (well, sort of) within the definition of legitimate (?) covert action.
What we may be witnessing here, on the other hand, could only be characterized as deliberate falsification of national intelligence in order to deceive and mislead the Congress and the American people, for the purpose of justifying acts of war that would not otherwise be countenanced.
Sound familiar?
Where is the dividing line between that level of deception and outright crime?
Would it make any rational sense deliberately to exaggerate Iranian actions of this nature if we were trying to avoid unnecessarily increasing the risks of inadvertent military confrontation?
Ray | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Sat May 24, 2008 11:18 am Post subject: |
| Acts of war:
Iran mosque blast plotters admit Israeli, US links: report
Fri May 23, 2008
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080523/wl_mideast_afp/iranunrestusisraeltrial_080523174601
TEHRAN (AFP) - Iran's chief prosecutor said bombers who caused a deadly blast at a mosque in Shiraz had confessed of links to Israel and the United States, the ISNA student news agency reported on Friday.
"Those responsible for the attack against the Shiraz mosque have confessed to having links to worldwide oppression, in particular the United States and Israel," Ghorbanali Dorri-Najafabadi was quoted by the agency as saying.
They also admitted carrying out "one or two minor operations," the agency said, without providing further details except to say the group launched military operations a year ago.
The April 12 blast in the southern city left 13 people dead and more than 200 wounded. Authorities subsequently announced the arrest of 15 people.
Earlier Friday, senior Iranian cleric Ayatollah Ahmed Khatami said people had also plotted attacks in the holy city of Qom, 120 kilometres (75 miles) south of Tehran, and at a book fair held in the capital.
Iran has already accused Britain and the United States of training and financing those behind the bombing. In the past it has also blamed US and British agents based in neighbouring Iraq and Afghanistan for launching attacks on border provinces with significant ethnic minority populations.
The strike in Shiraz was the first in decades in Iran's Persian heartland. The normally placid city is not in a border zone, nor is it home to any significant ethnic or religious minority population.
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Access the following article (URL) as well:
Subverting Iran:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=20070323&articleId=5165 | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Sat May 24, 2008 10:56 pm Post subject: |
| May 24, 2008
Bush and McCain's Iran Insanity
by Charley Reese
President George Bush and his tag-along buddy John McCain are repeating almost word for word about Iran the pattern of lies and threats they used to justify the war against Iraq.
Our intelligence agencies have said that Iran gave up the pursuit of a nuclear weapon three years ago. President Bush makes speeches as if he's never heard of any intelligence agencies. That's what worries me about President Bush. His words very often defy and contradict reality.
Recently, he almost repeated word for word a theme he often used in the buildup to the Iraq aggression. It was, he said, unthinkable to allow "the most dangerous regime to acquire the most dangerous weapons." This guy might actually launch an attack on Iran before his term expires. If he does, you can kiss the world economy goodbye. You don't like $4-a-gallon gas? How about $10 a gallon?
In the first place, Iran is far from the most dangerous regime in the world. I would say it is not dangerous at all, so far as the United States is concerned. Except for idiots, sane people assess threats based on capability, not on political rhetoric, intentions or imagination.
So what are the capabilities of Iran? It has no nuclear weapons. We have about 3,000 or more. One American submarine could destroy the entire country of Iran and its population. Iran has no missiles that could reach us. It has no aircraft that could reach us. Its army couldn't even defeat Iraq.
So what I want to know is how in the blankety-blank Hades Bush and McCain define the word "dangerous"? When their statements about Iran are placed side by side with the known facts, Bush and McCain sound insane.
Nothing alarms me more than the thought of an irrational person in the White House. I'm OK with stupid. I can live with venal. I can tolerate a womanizer, even a drunk, but a crazy person in command of our nuclear forces gives me the heebie-jeebies. Somebody who can't tell the difference between a nuclear-free Iran with no ICBMs and Russia with thousands of nuclear warheads sitting atop advanced intercontinental missiles has no business being allowed in the White House, even as a tourist.
There are two countries that have the capability of being a threat to us – Russia and China. That's foreign policy and geopolitical strategy at the kindergarten level. They have the capability. No other country in the world does. Only a moron would worry more about an ex-college professor with a long name whose office doesn't even control the armed forces than he would about Vladimir Putin. This present American administration, in one of the dumbest moves in the history of diplomacy, neglected our relations with Russia while it got us bogged down in two small desert countries that don't amount to a hill of coffee beans.
Also bear in mind that it doesn't matter diddly squat if some small country manages to make a few nuclear weapons. A few is no threat to many. Nobody with a few would be tempted to attack any country with many nuclear weapons.
Deterrence worked when the Soviet Union had 30,000 nuclear warheads, but these moronic, unscrupulous, intellectually dishonest, dishonorable neocons would convince you that deterrence wouldn't work against Iran.
I know most secular folks equate religion with insanity, but they are not the same. Iran is a religious nation, but its leaders are not crazy. They are smart and well-educated. They fought a long, grueling war with Iraq, and I think what they want more than anything else is a little peace and prosperity. But I think they are worried about Bush, McCain and Israel, and I don't blame them.
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