Defiant Bush says Iran still poses a threat
http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,,2222038,00.html
December 5 2007: "President Bush insists that US foreign policy towards Iran will remain unchanged despite proof it has halted its nuclear weapons programme
President George Bush insisted yesterday that US foreign policy towards Iran will remain unchanged in spite of an American intelligence report confirming the country had halted its nuclear weapons programme in 2003.
Bush, at a hastily-organised White House press conference, said: "Iran was dangerous, Iran is dangerous, and Iran will be dangerous if they have the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon."
But a major re-evaluation of policy towards Iran is under way in capitals round the world in light of the report."
Comment:
The combined report by the 16 intelligence agencies doesn't admit they didn't have reliable evidence that Iran had a nuclear weapons program PRIOR to 2003. Bush used this as an excuse to claim Iran DID have one to save face and go into the "Iran is the enemy" propoganda.
After the US and British attack on Iraq, the Iranians asked for talks - which the outriders of the Bush posse, Cheney and Rumsfeld, refused. It proved to be a colossal missed opportunity, as former Secretary of State James Baker has repeatedly underlined.
The intelligence community also said for the first time in the new NIE: "We do not know whether it currently intends to develop nuclear weapons."
That judgment confirms what International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) director general Mohamed ElBaradei and other close observers of the Iranian nuclear program have been saying since 2004: Iran is not interested in nuclear weapons but in the deterrent value inherent in the knowledge of mastering the nuclear fuel cycle.
Part of the background history to this was that the Pakistan military (pre-Musharraf - "our man" - military coup in 1999) needed to get money after the US cut their funding and had their scientist A Q Khan sell nuclear technology to North Korea, Libya, Iran and others. This was not disclosed by the US until many years later.
Germany, Canada , the US and others had not fulfilled contracts to supply nuclear technology to Iran under treaty agreements. So Iran got technology from others. But Iran has, officially, always had a "non-nuclear weapons" policy.
For years the US cooperated through its intelligence agencies with Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, with the assistance of Pakistan, in sending jihadis that he trained to fight into the Balkans and former Soviet states (while Halliburton under Cheney was doing business with Iran) - even after Osama had declared "war on America" in 1996, because of the US military presence in Saudi Arabia.
Prior to 9/11, the Bush administration actively sought pipeline contracts with the Taliban through its trade representatives , State department and intelligence officials on behalf of Enron and US oil companies, while ignoring the presence of Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, in spite of warnings from Richard Clarke, the head of counter-terrorism and others. The intelligence agencies (including the FBI) were ordered by the Bush administration to stop monitoring the flow of money from Saudi Arabia to jihadists in Pakistan, Afghanistan and elsewhere.
The biggest question raised by the NIE audit is about intelligence itself and the way that the Bush adminstration shamelessly put it to short-sighted political use. The credibility of the intelligence agencies is severely damaged by their part in the casual adventurism of the administration.
The Washington Post reported on Tuesday that the White House had been briefed on the new evidence of the Iranian presumed "abandonment of weaponization" in 2003 as early as July, and that White House officials had sharply challenged that evidence. According to the article Dafna Linzer and Joby Warrick, "several of the president's top advisers" had argued that electronic intercepts of Iranian military officers, which were reportedly a key element of the new evidence, were part of a "clever Iranian deception campaign".
The White House intervention had forced the intelligence analysts to go through months of defending their interpretation of the new data, according to Linzer and Warrick.
Inter Press Service reported last month that the NIE had been originally completed in the fall of 2006 but that it had been rewritten three times, reflecting pressure from Vice President Dick Cheney. The new revelations about White House political intervention appear to represent a far more ambitious effort to alter the conclusions of the NIE than previously reported.
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Comments: 31
I trust Ahmadman more than our own intelligence agency. The madman said Iran is developing nukes , it is their right, and they will soon have them.
The only good thing to have emerged from the failed Administration of the AWOL in Chief is the recognition of how politicized the use of Intelligence will be by monomaniacs in positions of power.
A great story in the Times today of how the Reagan Administration, where the current crop of Neo-Con kooks was cultivated, performed the same reckless manipulation of intelligence data regarding Nicaragua.
That led to the great criminal conspiracy of Iran Contra.
Glad to see the lunatic fringe thoroughly discredited in the courts of public opinion at last.
The Neo-Con strategy of serial military adventures to establish dominance throughout the Middle East never had any academic or intellectual support from anyone with real historical or cultural knowledge of the area.
Noted Israeli military historian Martin van Creveld even told Newsmax last week that he "cannot think of even one case since 1980 and the Iranian Islamic Revolution that this country has behaved irrationally".
By adjusting its Iran policy to the new strategic realities and putting its weight behind US-Iran negotiations, Israel can still avoid both an Iranian nuclear weapon and a disastrous war with Iran.
With any luck sane people can prevent a war against Iran.
Read about the world cancer known as Islam
"The same lie gets repeated... Ahmadinejad never threatened to destroy Israel and Iran's official policy (which he hasn't the authority to determine) has been clear : it has never threatened to attack any nation. Iran's proposals offering to recognize Israel are a matter of record."
I'm still unclear as to why Arafat refused Clinton/Israel's offer at Camp David back in 2000. Wasn't that an extremely generous offer?
And yet, Arafat refused. Hmmmmmm, if Arafat had said yes to that proposal, Iran wouldn't even have been in the mix.
Ten unsolicited points from the world's worst connection. Merry whatever you celebrate!
It is funny how you act always against America's interests from Washington DC. The US fromed a Federal Army in the 1780's because of Islamic Terror. How some things don't change.
"Actually, Clinton lied about the terms prior to the meeting, which guaranteed failure."
Clinton said everything would be on the table at Camp David..............and it was. How was that lying? And if an unbelievably magnanimous offer was pushed under Arafat's nose at that meeting, how can that be a bad thing?
The Palestinians were assured that their concerns would be addressed at the meeting..............and they were. The Israelis just wanted peace, so their concerns were easy to address - they just had to give up land for peace. They each had differing goals, but Clinton told them both that everything was negotiable. One of the rare times when Clinton's ability to speak out of both sides of his mouth came in handy......lol.
Why?
Because if Arafat signed a peace treaty, he'd be a dead man. He just wanted to push an impossible agenda...............but when he got what he asked for, he was shocked. He immediately got up and walked out. He told Clinton and Ehud Barak that he had to confer with his advisers (even after waving that right at the start of the negotiations). When he came back, hours later, he said he would sign nothing. End of story.
It is not true that Arafat was made a genuine offer or that former Prime Minster Barak went farther than any Israeli leader to date, or that the collapse of the negotiations was no fault of Israeli nor American positions. Camp David was a disaster on account of games played by all sides. The Israeli press reported the details more truthfully than the US or Clinton. There are accurate accounts by others who were there. For example ,see:
1) http://www.nybooks.com/articles/14380
2) http://dc.indymedia.org/newswire/display/48313
This article was about the supposed "threat of Iran," but there is an analogy to the globalist policy of Bush and that of the Israeli government. Iran is no threat to the US or Europe and the Palestinians were no threat to Israel. Both the US and Israeli governments support a "perpetual war" policy, which has never served their national interests, but weakens both countries while enriching a wealthy few.
Israel is quite able to negotiate with Iran without interference from the United States. Iran and Israel do a lot of business as it is, which is not publicized. They still have large of financial debts to settle between them and those negotiations are ongoing. Ordinary Israeli and Iranian citizens travel freely back and forth all the time.
Israel is in a constant state of war not because it wants to. It's in a constant state of war because it's neighbors will not come to their senses and realize that Israel is here to stay - for the long term. I know that galls them, but that's just the way it is.
I was there just over a month ago. What a difference there is to go from any of the surrounding Arab states then to Israel. Most of the Arab states are in political and economic disrepair (unless propped up by some American company who has a plant there............like in Jordan). Israel has a fully functioning economy that makes the Arab states look like amateurs in world trade. I was a little shocked the first time I went to Israel, but now after going there a dozen times, it all seems very natural. Dictatorships don't respect free markets - parliamentary representative governments do. Big difference.