Iran — A & Q, Q, Q, Q

The answer to the “Is Iran developing nuclear weapons” question has been released, loud and clear — NO! No it’s not!

Now we’ve got a gazillion more questions, and all of them about BushCo.

The question of the moment is why did they release the report, apparently finished a year ago, when they told us repeatedly they had no intention of making it public. Is it because Putin has solidified power and become increasingly testy with American interference, favoring Iran with sweet oil deals? Is it because committing warfare toward Iran would leave nothing with which to fight larger problems … Pakistan, for instance, and an increasingly volatile Afghanistan? Is it because the military itself [barring the evangelical Air Force] has no stomach for such a fight and has repeatedly spoken against it? Is it some insider deal we don’t know about?

The Dubby claims he only saw the intelligence last week, yet it’s reported that the White House had this in hand last August; it’s a smack in the eye to our intelligence to believe a sitting president wouldn’t have knowledge of every scrap of intel on a nation he’d claimed as an “evil” enemy. His backpeddle is the smoke he’s throwing up in front of his World War III commentary, and Uncle Dick’s egregious prodding for war and hysteria to solidify the base [think FAUX News, who had the bombers engines revving and the attack eminent.]

I’d be happier about this news if I could get a good explanation for its appearance. The blogosphere has gone to work on that, ferreting out the wonky dots and trying to connect them. Meanwhile, the Dub has gone petulant and defensive — that’s how I’ll remember these Enron years; with the smallest mind in politics sucking up all the oxygen, either posturing in codpiece fashion or pouting like a child. This weekend’s radio offering was sheer tantrum, for instance — and gave me a chuckle.

Harry Reid had established a pro forma session during the Thanksgiving break to keep Bush from making a recess appointment of Dr. James Holsinger for Surgeon General — Holsinger believes, among other things, that “gay conversion therapy” works and is a part-time preacher; he told friends he would be appointed during the break, and the Dems moved to block it.

Here’s the Dub’s pouty commentary:

“In a political maneuver designed to block my ability to make recess appointments, congressional leaders arranged for a senator to come in every three days or so, bang a gavel, wait for about 30 seconds, bang a gavel again, and then leave,” Bush said. “Under the Senate rules, this counts as a full day. If 30 seconds is a full day, no wonder Congress has got a lot of work to do.”

He’s a piece of work, ain’t he? And his response to the intelligence estimate is as you’d expect — he thinks it “proves his point” about how dangerous Iran is, that they want nuclear weapons. He prides himself on his role as “teacher” to the American public — he’s “teaching us” that Iran wants a nuke? I think he’s taught the world that the way he treats those WITH weapons, ie, Musharraf and Little Kim, as opposed to those WITHOUT, ie, Saddam and Ahmadinejad, make you a fool NOT to have one as a safety net.

So as far as I’m concerned, the problem IS George Bush and all those who think like him. And the question of the day remains — what bats are flying around in that vacuum today?

A big collection on a big issue, below — last bit is the snarkiest. And today — while we still have to worry about what the neo-nuts are up to — we’ve had a miracle of sorts, a step toward peaceful diplomacy and another piece of glaring proof that GWB shouldn’t be allowed to play with guns.

Jude

Like Iraq, US intel on Iran faulty
TERENCE HUNT, AP White House Correspondent
Mon Dec 3, 2007

WASHINGTON - First Iraq, now Iran. The United States has operated under a cloud of faulty intelligence in both countries.

In a bombshell intelligence assessment, the United States has backed away from its once-ironclad assertion that Tehran is intent on building nuclear bombs.

Where there once was certainty, there now is doubt. “We do not know whether it currently intends to develop nuclear weapons,” the new estimate said Monday.

Compare that with what then-National Intelligence Director John Negroponte told Congress in January. “Our assessment is that Tehran is determined to develop nuclear weapons.”

Just last month, President Bush, at a news conference with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, said, “We talked about Iran and the desire to work jointly to convince the Iranian regime to give up their nuclear weapons ambitions, for the sake of peace.”

More ominously, Bush told a news conference Oct. 17, “I’ve told people that if you’re interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon.”

Asked then if he definitely believed that Iran wanted to build a nuclear bomb, Bush said, “Yeah, I believe they want to have the capacity, the knowledge, in order to make a nuclear weapon.”

Bush’s National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley said the president made comments like those “because he was describing the threat as the intelligence community itself had been describing the threat both publicly and in their briefings to him.”

Intelligence officials advised Bush several months ago that they were reevaluating their assessments about Iran. They came to the White House last Wednesday and briefed him on their new findings.

The intelligence flip-flop recalled the embarrassing reversal that Bush was forced to make on whether Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. The conviction that Saddam Hussein had such weapons was one of the factors behind Bush’s decision to invade Iraq. It since has been determined that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction.

Democrats on Monday did not hesitate to suggest an Iran-Iraq comparison.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Democrats had requested the new Iran assessment “so that the administration could not rush this Congress and the country to another war based on flawed intelligence.”

“I hope this administration reads this report carefully and appropriately adjusts its rhetoric and policy vis-a-vis Iran,” Reid said. “The administration should begin this process by finally undertaking a diplomatic surge necessary to effectively address the challenges posed by Iran.”

In the case of Iran, though, the White House has not dropped its suspicions that Tehran could pursue a nuclear bomb.

Iran continues to develop, test and deploy ballistic missiles, and its civilian uranium enrichment program is continuing. “It can readily use the same technology to produce weapons-grade uranium,” Hadley said.

In rewriting the conclusions about Iran, the new estimate said Tehran was pursuing a nuclear weapons program but halted that effort in the fall of 2003 under the weight of international pressure. Importantly, the estimate said Iran has not restarted the nuclear bomb program.

“Tehran’s decision to halt its nuclear weapons program suggests it is less determined to develop nuclear weapons than we have been judging since 2005,” the new estimate said.

While key facts have changed, the administration’s strategy has not.

The White House says it will continue to try to build pressure on Iran to prevent it from ever acquiring nuclear bombs.

“The bottom line is that for that strategy to succeed, the international community has to turn up the pressure on Iran with diplomatic isolation, United Nations sanctions and with other financial pressure,” Hadley said. “And Iran has to decide that it wants to negotiate a solution.”

Some analysts believe the new conclusions will be a roadblock for Vice President Dick Cheney and other hawkish members of the administration to be more confrontational toward Iran.

“It’s a good thing that we caught this before we marched headlong into another military conflict,” said Jon Wolfsthal, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “This isn’t the timebomb the administration made it out to be for the last several years.”

Wolfsthal said the conclusion that international pressure prompted Iran to halt its program “is the piece of information that we missed in Iraq” where Bush believed that Iraq’s pursuit of WMD was continuing despite sanctions. He said the administration did not appear inclined to change its strategy toward Iran. He said that “suggests they can’t take yes for an answer.”

Terence Hunt has covered the White House for The Associated Press since the Reagan administration.

U.S. Says Iran Ended Atomic Arms Work
MARK MAZZETTI, NYT
December 3, 2007

WASHINGTON, Dec. 3 — A new assessment by American intelligence agencies concludes that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and that the program remains frozen, contradicting judgment two years ago that Tehran was working relentlessly toward building a nuclear bomb.

The conclusions of the new assessment are likely to reshape the final year of the Bush administration, which has made halting Iran’s nuclear program a cornerstone of its foreign policy.

The assessment, a National Intelligence Estimate that represents the consensus view of all 16 American spy agencies, states that Tehran is likely keeping its options open with respect to building a weapon, but that intelligence agencies “do not know whether it currently intends to develop nuclear weapons.”

Iran is continuing to produce enriched uranium, a program that the Tehran government has said is designed for civilian purposes. The new estimate says that enrichment program could still provide Iran with enough raw material to produce a nuclear weapon sometime by the middle of next decade, a timetable essentially unchanged from previous estimates.

But the new estimate declares with “high confidence” that a military-run Iranian program intended to transform that raw material into a nuclear weapon has been shut down since 2003, and also says with high confidence that the halt “was directed primarily in response to increasing international scrutiny and pressure.”

The estimate does not say when American intelligence agencies learned that the weapons program had been halted, but a statement issued by Donald Kerr, the principal director of national intelligence, said the document was being made public “since our understanding of Iran’s capabilities has changed.”

Rather than painting Iran as a rogue, irrational nation determined to join the club of nations with the bomb, the estimate states Iran’s “decisions are guided by a cost-benefit approach rather than a rush to a weapon irrespective of the political, economic and military costs.” The administration called new attention to the threat posed by Iran earlier this year when President Bush had suggested in October that a nuclear-armed Iran could lead to “World War III” and Vice President Dick Cheney promised “serious consequences” if the government in Tehran did not abandon its nuclear program.

Yet at the same time officials were airing these dire warnings about the Iranian threat, analysts at the Central Intelligence Agency were secretly concluding that Iran’s nuclear weapons work halted years ago and that international pressure on the Islamic regime in Tehran was working.

Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader, portrayed the assessment as “directly challenging some of this administration’s alarming rhetoric about the threat posed by Iran.” He said he hoped the administration “appropriately adjusts its rhetoric and policy,” and called for a “a diplomatic surge necessary to effectively address the challenges posed by Iran.”

But the national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, quickly issued a statement describing the N.I.E. as containing positive news rather than reflecting intelligence mistakes.

“It confirms that we were right to be worried about Iran seeking to develop nuclear weapons,” Mr. Hadley said. “It tells us that we have made progress in trying to ensure that this does not happen. But the intelligence also tells us that the risk of Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon remains a very serious problem.”

“The estimate offers grounds for hope that the problem can be solved diplomatically — without the use of force — as the administration has been trying to do,” Mr. Hadley said.

The new report comes out just over five years after a deeply flawed N.I.E. concluded that Iraq possessed chemical and biological weapons programs and was determined to restart its nuclear program — an estimate that led to congressional authorization for a military invasion of Iraq, although most of the report’s conclusions turned out to be wrong.

Intelligence officials said that the specter of the botched 2002 N.I.E. hung over their deliberations over the Iran assessment, leading them to treat the document with particular caution.

“We felt that we needed to scrub all the assessments and sources to make sure we weren’t misleading ourselves,” said one senior intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

A Miracle: Honest Intel on Iran Nukes
Ray McGovern, Consortium News
December 3, 2007

For those who have doubts about miracles, a double one occurred today. An honest National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran’s nuclear program has been issued and its Key Judgments were made public.

With redraft after redraft, it was what the Germans call “eine schwere Geburt”—a difficult birth, ten months in gestation.

I do not know how often Vice President Dick Cheney visited CIA Headquarters during the gestation period, but I am told he voiced his displeasure as soon as he saw the first sonogram/draft very early this year, and is so displeased with what issued that he has refused to be the godfather.

This time Cheney and his neo-con colleagues were unable to abort the process. And after delivery to the press, this child is going to be very hard to explain—the more so since it is legitimate.

The main points of the NIE:

“We judge that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program…

“We assess with moderate confidence Tehran has not restarted its nuclear weapons program as of mid-2007.

“We do not have sufficient intelligence to judge confidently whether Tehran is willing to maintain the halt of its nuclear weapons program indefinitely…

“We judge with moderate confidence Iran probably would be technically capable of producing enough highly enriched uranium sometime during the 2010-2015 time frame.

“We judge with high confidence that Iran will not be technically capable of producing and reprocessing enough plutonium for a weapon before about 2015.”

Having reached these conclusions, it is not surprising that the NIE’s authors make a point of saying up front (in bold type) “This NIE does not (italics in original) assume that Iran intends to acquire nuclear weapons.”

This, of course, pulls out the rug from under Cheney’s claim of a “fairly robust new nuclear program” in Iran, and President Bush’s inaccurate assertion that Iranian leaders have even admitted they are developing nuclear weapons.

Apparently, intelligence community analysts are no longer required to produce the faith-based intelligence that brought us the Oct. 1, 2002, NIE “Iraq’s Continuing Program for Weapons of Mass Destruction”—the worst in the history of U.S. intelligence.

Truth be told, one of the Iran NIE’s findings was written into its first draft, from which Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell drew in telling the Senate Armed Services Committee on Feb. 27 that Iran could possibly develop a nuclear weapon by early-to-mid-next decade.

McConnell said not a word, though, about Iran’s having halted its nuclear weapons program in fall 2003. And in February, he was still adhering to the faith-based approach, saying, “We assess that Iran seeks to develop a nuclear weapon.”

At which point, Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-South Carolina, tried to sum up the proceedings with the disingenuous comment, “We all agree, then, that the Iranians are trying to get nuclear weapons.”

Curiously, McConnell indicated recently that the key findings of NIEs would no longer be made public.

My guess is that the Pentagon, and especially Adm. William Fallon, commander of our forces in the Middle East, succeeded in persuading McConnell to go public. Several months ago, Fallon was reliably reported to have said, “We are not going to do Iran on my watch.”

And it is an open secret that he and other senior military officers, except those of the Air Force, are strongly opposed to getting into a war with Iran for which the U.S. is so ill prepared.

Will President George W. Bush and our domesticated media succeed in dismissing this latest NIE as “guesswork,” as he has in the past? It is going to be highly interesting to see how the White House will try to spin this one.

A Blow to Bush’s Tehran Policy
Peter Baker and Robin Wright, WaPo
Tuesday, December 4, 2007

Think Fast
Faiz Shakir, Amanda Terkel, Satyam Khanna, Matt Corley, and Ali Frick, The Progress Report
December 4, 2007

When intelligence analysts briefed Bush administration officials on Iran in July, the officials refused to believe that Iran had stopped its weapons program. They “expressed skepticism” about an intercept from “a senior Iranian military official” complaining “that the nuclear program had been shuttered,” believing it was “part of a clever Iranian deception campaign.”

The IAEA says that the new National Intelligence Estimate on Iran’s halted nuclear weapons program is “validation of its own long-standing conclusion that there is ‘no evidence’ of an undeclared nuclear program in Iran.” Glenn Greenwald notes that the IAEA has long been attacked for its conclusions.

Israel publicly challenged the U.S. intelligence consensus that Iran had stopped its nuclear weapons program. “It’s apparently true that in 2003 Iran stopped pursuing its military nuclear program for a time. But in our opinion, since then it has apparently continued that program,” Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak told army radio.

Iran welcomed the U.S. intelligence report and said it was becoming clear the Islamic republic’s plans were peaceful. Manouchehr Mottaki, the Iranian foreign minister, said, “The condition of Iran’s peaceful nuclear activities is becoming clear to the world.”

Democrats Respond To New National Intelligence Estimate On Iran
Nicholas Graham, HuffPo
December 3, 2007
[open link for entire article]

An explosive new U.S. intelligence report has concluded that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003. Read below for statements on the report from top Democrats:

Senator Harry Reid: “Today this nation’s senior intelligence analysts concluded that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003, directly challenging some of this Administration’s alarming rhetoric about the threat posed by Iran. Keep reading here.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi: While we should harbor no illusions about the intentions of some Iranian leaders, the new Iran NIE suggests there is time for a new policy toward Iran that deters it from restarting its nuclear program while also improving relations overall. Keep reading here.

Senator Hillary Clinton: “The new declassified key judgments of the Iran NIE expose the latest effort by the Bush administration to distort intelligence to pursue its ideological ends. Keep reading here.

Senator John Edwards: “The new National Intelligence Estimate shows that George Bush and Dick Cheney’s rush to war with Iran is, in fact, a rush to war. Keep reading here.

Senator Chris Dodd: “The NIE on Iran contains some very important findings by the intelligence community. Taken together these findings make a strong case for pursuing robust diplomacy to resolve our differences with Iran and for an end to the reckless talk by the Administration and reckless votes by some members of Congress.” Keep reading here.

Chairman Silvestre Reyes: Today’s National Intelligence Estimate on Iran reflects a remarkable shift in our Intelligence Community’s assessment of Iran’s nuclear capabilities and intentions. Keep reading here.

They Were Lying and Knew It - The Bush Administration and Iran
A. Alexander, Progressive Daily Beacon
December 4th, 2007

On October 17, 2007, George W. Bush, President of the United States of America, made headlines when he said, “So I’ve told people that if you’re interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from hav[ing] the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon. I take the threat of Iran with a nuclear weapon very seriously.” The only problem with Mister Bush’s statement is that he had already been made aware that Iran had stopped its nuclear weapons program in 2003.

The findings of a recently released National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) — the consensus view of the nation’s 16 intelligence agencies — which Bush had been made aware of in August or September, concluded that Iran had ceased its nuclear weapons program in 2003. It would seem logical and obvious, though some within the White House are trying to claim otherwise, that senior members of the President’s inner circle would also have been made privy to the report and its conclusions….

But, of course, as the disastrous mess in Iraq makes clear, Mister Bush and his people aren’t big fans of the truth or honesty. Indeed, this is an administration that has never been confined by quaint notions of honor and integrity. And, as their record proves, this is a White House that has never been concerned with, or about the American people and it has definitely never acted with the best interest of the United States in mind. The Bush administration has only and always been motivated by one thing … its own failed ideology.

Fast forward to October 26, 2007: Dana Perino, the Bush Administration’s press secretary said that, “The problem is Iran, and Iran has not stepped back from trying to pursue a nuclear weapon….” And then, of course, there is Mister Dick Cheney’s November 9, 2007, comment that, “We’re in a position now, clearly, especially when we look at Iran, where it’s very, very important we succeed in our efforts, our national security efforts, to discourage the Iranians from…producing nuclear weapons.”

It is likely Mister Cheney knew that, when making the above comment, Iran had stopped its nuclear weapons program some four years previously. So, keeping Iraq in mind, what could have motivated the Vice-President to make such an inflammatory, deceitful and confrontational comment? Again, keeping Iraq in mind, why would the President, fully aware that Iran was no longer pursuing a nuclear weapon, warn of “World War III”?

And, one is left to wonder why on November 13, 2007, Mister Bush’s Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said, “We are convinced that [Iran is] developing nuclear weapons.”

If George W. Bush and Dick Cheney weren’t trying to con the American people into another war; why where they and their surrogates telling all the lies?

Note: Bush admin quotes found at Think Progress

Is Bush a whining vindictive sore loser crybaby?
Hall Brown, Capital Hill Blue
December 3, 2007

No. Despite despite the evidence of the introduction to his Rose Garden address today, he’s still the bully using the bully pulpit of the presidency to lash out at those who would dare to thwart his imperial ambitions.

Bush began his Monday address with an “oh woe is me” jab at the Senate without admitting that they actually succeeded in their plan to keep him from making recess appointments. This was our petulant president in all his gory glory. Perhaps being told Iran stopped their nuclear weapon program in 2003 got him so frustrated he had to attack someone. (Updated after Tuesday news conference)

This is from the Monday address:

Good morning. Congress returns from its two-week Thanksgiving break today. They have just two weeks to go before they leave town again. That’s not really a lot of time to squeeze in nearly a year’s worth of unfinished business.

In fairness, Congress was not entirely out over the past two weeks. In a political maneuver designed to block my ability to make recess appointments, congressional leaders arranged for a senator to come in every three days or so, bang a gavel, wait for about 30 seconds, bang a gavel again, and then leave. Under the Senate rules, this counts as a full day. If 30 seconds is a full day, no wonder Congress has got a lot of work to do.

You can read the rest of his address “President Bush Discusses Congress’s Legislative Priorities for the Remainder of the Year” here but frankly it’s a waste of time. It’s merely Bush trying to dictate the Congressional agenda.

Ho hum.

Our poor bully president now faces yet another deflation of his stuffed codpiece which is breaking news today. It turns out that Iran gave up its nuclear weapon program in 2003.

I’d pity this inadequate man who glories in the bully role but is really a limp dick if he wasn’t the most destructive president in modern history.

Now Bush has to stand down on his saber rattling over Iran and is having cold water thrown over his hot wet dreams of bombing Iran.

Poor Bush, you could almost feel sorry for the poor dear who wanted to go out with a big bang bombing Iran — almost NOT!

The Democrats thwarted Bush’s plans to appoint Doctor Reverend Homophobe as our nation’s top doctor, and perhaps other lesser puke inducing appointees. Now he’s probably trying to dare the Democrats to play the gavel game during the Christmas recess.

I hope these prissy comments piss off the Democrats enough so they assure Bush doesn’t give the nation a lump of coal in a doctor’s suit as a Christmas present.

More important for the nation, I hope the Democrats and rational Republicans can join together to stop Bush from running roughshod over Congress in the wanning days of his presidency.

Updated after Tuesday’s press conference

Add slimy lying weasel to the list of descriptive terms.

At least only a gullible moron would believe his answers to questions about the Iranian weapons illusion.

Here’s a guy who a couple of weeks ago was talking about Iran starting World War III and now he’s trying to say his opinion hasn’t changed… but…. maybe it has changed… but maybe it hasn’t… so he’s trying to give a lecture on the technology of making atomic bombs… this smirking scientific dunderhead is trying to lecture us about… uh… science… give us a break….

Talk about trying to put lipstick on a pig.

He persists in trying to scare us about Iran, for example:

“Iran was dangerous, Iran is dangerous, and Iran will be dangerous if they have the knowledge to make a nuclear weapon.”

“The NIE says that Iran had a hidden, covert nuclear weapons program. What’s to say it couldn’t start another covert, nuclear weapons program?”

“I think it is very important for the international community to recognize the fact that if Iran were to develop the knowledge that they could transfer to a clandestine program, it would create a danger of the world. And so, I view this report as a warning signal that they had the program, they halted the program. The reason why it’s a warning signal is they could restart it.”

“I still feel strongly that Iran is a danger. I think the NIE makes it clear that Iran needs to be taken seriously as a threat to peace. My opinion hasn’t changed.”

“But it also tells us that the intent was there, and the risk of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons remains a very serious problem.”

“While this report seems to show the Iranians have moved away from producing weapons-grade uranium, the real worry is that they still may be continuing to move forward with enrichment and processing.”

When the transcript gets online I’ll put a link to it here for the masochists among you. His closing comment was about the threat of Iran and was so over the top I hope it is replayed on the news shows. I could almost hear the air raid sirens.

The CNN commentator said Bush is trying to make lemonade out of lemons.

“So keep fightin’ for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don’t you forget to have fun doin’ it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin’ ass and celebratin’ the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.”
~ Molly Ivins, 1944 - 2007

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