NIE LIE

"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," says the unclassified summary of the secret report.Rand Beers, who resigned from Bush's National Security Council just before the Iraq war, said the report should derail any appetite for war on the administration's part, and should reinvigorate regional diplomacy. "The new NIE throws cold water on the efforts of those urging military confrontation with Iran," he said.

The spooks say Iran halted its nuclear weapon program in 2003, incidentally the year it proposed unconditional talks with the US and which the White house rejected point blank. They want war, ok, the Bush administration in the United States of America want war with Iran. So with this latest piece of reality impinging on their war pimping they spin it thusly- as they continue to enrich uranium (which they need for nuclear power) that means they actually are pursuing weapons. Lying war mongering bastard says-

U.S. National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, said the risk of Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon remains "a serious problem." The estimate suggests Bush "has the right strategy: intensified international pressure along with a willingness to negotiate a solution that serves Iranian interests, while ensuring the world will never have to face a nuclear armed Iran," Hadley said. He was less interested in what the 2005 assessment missed than what it got right: that Iran had a covert nuclear program.

So even the entire intelligence community of the empire is saying for fuck's sake do not attack Iran, it poses no threat and the consequences of attacking to America would be disastrous. This is the NIE Cheney delayed for a year to force it to include as much anti Iranian propaganda as possible-

• intelligence analysts have had to review and rewrite their findings three times, because of pressure from the White House.


• The White House has now apparently decided to release the unsatisfactory draft NIE, but without making its key findings public.


• Frank J. Gaffney, a protégé of neoconservative heavyweight Richard Perle, complained that Negroponte was “absurdly declaring the Iranian regime to be years away from having nuclear weapons”.


• an unsubtle signal to the intelligence community that the White House was determined to obtain a more alarmist conclusion on the Iranian nuclear programme.

So even with that, look at what it concludes- they stopped 4 years ago. The cabal in charge are the same mental patients who deliberately exaggerated the threat from the Soviets in the cold war, they lied us into the Iraq invasion, at exactly which fucking point do we stop them?

PS. As Hass a commenter at my blog added-

From IranAffairs.com:

Iran NIE report - Are you lying now, or were you lying then? If the 2005 NIE report was wrong, why should the 2007 NIE report be any more credible? If Iran really had a nuclear weapons program until 2003 as the new NIE says, then why has the IAEA found no evidence of it? WHy should we believe that Iran EVER had a nuclear weapons program at all?

Is it really "either - or"?

As David Corn writes in MotherJones, Joe Biden may have given the best comment in the October 30 presidential candidates' debate. Here's an excerpt:

MR. RUSSERT: Senator Biden, would you pledge to the American people that Iran would not build a nuclear bomb on your watch?

Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards each wiggled his or her way out of the question, essentially pledging to do what they could to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Then Russert turned to Biden, and Biden threw the question back in Russert's face.

SEN. BIDEN: I would pledge to keep us safe. If you told me, Tim -- and this is not -- this is complicated stuff. We talk about this in isolation. The fact of the matter is the Iranians may get 2.6 kilograms of highly enriched uranium; the Pakistanis have hundreds, thousands of kilograms of highly enriched uranium.

If by attacking Iran to stop them from getting 2.6 kilograms of highly enriched uranium, the government in Pakistan falls, who has missiles already deployed, with nuclear weapons on them ... then that's a bad bargain. ...

What is the greatest threat to the United States of America: 2.6 kilograms of highly enriched uranium in Tehran or an out of control Pakistan? It's not close.

Biden was taking the mature approach to foreign policy, daring to challenge the false dichotomy: let Iran go nuclear or start a war.

Now, one could certainly challenge the idea of whether Iran will ever develop a nuclear weapon. Likewise, one could challenge the arrogance which assumes the nuclear USA has the right to decide who else joins the club.

But I do applaud Biden's refusal to comply with Russert's simplistic question; and I do applaud his attack on the absurd idea that foreign policy is ever as simple as Bush's binary: "Submit to the will of a foreign power or be bombed." Is either one a viable option to an elected leader of a sovereign nation?

Once again, Bush cannot see his policy as the catalyst that turns animosity to bellicosity.