R. McCovern Lays Out Bush Tricks to Justify Iran Attack

[autorank]

Ray McGovern, former soldier and CIA analyist is on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, quite a job these days. This is an excellent lay out of the subtrufuge * and company are going through to set Iran up for attack. They need a “sanity” specialist!


consortiumnews.com

Bush Puts Iran in Crosshairs

By Ray McGovern
August 30, 2007

Not another warning about war with Iran! Well, suck it up. President George W. Bush’s speech Tuesday makes clear his plan to attack Iran, and how the intelligence, as was the case before the attack on Iraq, is being “fixed around the policy.”

It’s not about putative Iranian “weapons of mass destruction” — not even ostensibly. It is about the requirement for a scapegoat for U.S. reverses in Iraq, and the felt need to create a casus belli by provoking Iran in such a way as to “justify” armed retaliation — perhaps extending to an attempt to destroy its nuclear-related facilities.

Snip

Iran’s Nuclear Plans

It has been like waiting for Godot...the endless wait for the latest National Intelligence Estimate on Iran’s nuclear plans.

That NIE turns out to be the quintessential dog that didn’t bark. The most recent published NIE on the subject was issued two-and-a-half years ago and concluded that Iran could not have a nuclear weapon until “early- to mid-next decade.”

Link: http://www.consortiumnews.com/Print/2007/083007b.html]

[understandinglife]

1. #1.

Peace.

[bobthedrummer]

2. K&R

[Tom Joad]

3. I heard nothin in response to bush's speech last week from Dem Leaders. Why?

Tell me i missed something. It was a very threatening speech, one of bush's worst.

is it the same reason Dem leaders refused to require bush to come to congress before attacking Iran?
appeasing aipac seems to be one possibility.

[rodeodance]

4. i have not heard either.

[mod mom]

5. Here is a telling article from the NYT (March):

But it is their positions on Iran’s nuclear program, a subject that is almost certain to bedevil whoever becomes president in 2009, that most strongly suggest that the foreign-policy differences between Democratic and Republican policy elites have been vastly overblown.

Earlier this year, Vice President Cheney insisted that the administration had not “taken any options off the table” as Iran continued to defy United Nations calls for it to abandon its nuclear ambitions. The response from Democrats was not long in coming. Senator Clinton helped lead the charge, reminding the president that he did not have the authority to go to war with Iran on the basis of the Senate’s authorization of the use of force in Iraq in 2002. But what Senator Clinton did not say was at least as interesting as what she did say. And what she did not say was that she opposed the use of force in Iran. To the contrary, Senator Clinton used virtually the same formulation as Vice President Cheney. When dealing with Iran, she insisted, “no option can be taken off the table.”

Speaking to a meeting of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac), a lobbying group, on March 2, Senator Obama said pretty much the same: the Iranian regime was “a threat to all of us,” and “we should take no option, including military action, off the table.” John Edwards has been even more categorical. In a January speech in Israel, he said, “Under no circumstances can Iran be allowed to have nuclear weapons.” And he added, “We need to keep all options on the table.”

-SNIP

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/25/magazine/25WWLNlede.t.html?ex=1188619200&en=10d7bcae1b37bff9&ei=5070

[Tom Joad]

6. yep, lapdogs for american empire. obomba and hillary w. tell the same lies,

have the same priorities as the bushclowns.

you know also they tap their feet and wave their hands whenever aipac sits near them....

[DCKit]

9. Hillary Bush, John Bush and Obama Bush.

Or is it Cheney?

Fucking GREAT.

[autorank]

12. We've got the "War Party" - the Republican wing, the Democratic wing

What a load of crap. May be someone will go to one of these interest group gatherings and say,
go fight your own damn war...and I'm talking about all the interest groups that just can't stand
to see a situation go on without the risk of American lives.

We fought to end human rights abuses in southern Europe and Kuwait but allow them to proceed in Darfur. That's called hypocracy. Our interests plus humanitarian interests are the guide. The latter is the excuse for action on the former.

:hi:

[mod mom]

13. I went to an anti war rally on Tuesday sponsored by Move on & others and the speakers

ranged from Fitrakis, to a mother of an Iraq soldier currently serving (who said she rushes to check emails each morning to make sure her son is still alive :mad: ) to an Af Am Baptist Minister, to a Catholic Priest, to a Steel Worker Union Boss. All were majorly pissed at the priorities of congress. Our soldiers are dying or becoming maimed w/o any foreseeable promise in Iraq, our infrastructure is failing, our citizens are suffering w/o healthcare, and those serving us in congress are failing to act. No more funding bu$h's war. No more blank check to his crony mercenaries allowed to preform atrocities in our name. WE won in '06 despite a rigged electoral system so the time is now (really past due) for ACTION! BRING THE TROOPS HOME NOW!

[Megahurtz]

17. God.

It's like they're all A.I.P.A.C. Lapdog Warmongers!:nuke:

[Megahurtz]

16. "Appeasing A.I.P.A.C."

Of course. That's why Congress is going along with Bush because they are appeasing A.I.P.A.C.:grr:

[coco77]

7. kick..

[leftchick]

8. A hidden menace in Bush's words on Iran

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IH31Ak01.html

<snip>

In January, the president's allegations against Iran were widely seen as preparing the grounds for war. Key lawmakers in the newly elected Democratic Congress moved swiftly to challenge the administration and demand evidence for its claims.

At a hearing in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee a day after the president's January 10 address, Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska drew parallels with the Richard Nixon administration's attempt to deceive the public regarding the US government's efforts to expand the Vietnam War into Cambodia.

"ur government lied to the American people and said we didn't cross the border going into Cambodia. In fact we did," he told Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. "I think this speech given last night by this president represents the most dangerous foreign policy blunder in this country since Vietnam, if it's carried out. I will resist it," Hagel continued.

Other lawmakers publicly questioned the veracity of the president's allegations regarding Iranian involvement in Iraq. All in all, the pushback from Congress in January is believed to have played a key role in preventing hawks in the administration from forcing the US into a military confrontation with Iran.

But with Congress preparing for a fight over Iraq - not Iran - and with key lawmakers planning to pass legislation imposing harsh new sanctions on Tehran, Congress' ability and willingness to simultaneously contain deliberate or unintentional escalation with Iran may be limited. If so, there may be little business as usual about Washington and Tehran's intensified war of words.

[AikidoSoul]

10. The author Ray McGovern is a good man

He worked as a CIA analyst for 27 years. His job required him to write bi-weekly detailed analyses of foreign threats and present them in briefings to presidents starting with John F. Kennedy and ending with the Clinton Administration. His analyses now concentrate mainly on activities by our own government.

Kick and Recommend

[autorank]

11. He's what makes me believe we can recover from all this. There are others

who take the stand for freedom and truth. Bless them all!

[Stephanie]

15. Yes he is.

I have met him and he is a good man, a great person.

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

14. They are running out of time.

Will they be confident enough in stealing another election with another puppet as the pResident to put off Iran? Somehow, I doubt that because there are so many people prepared to report ANY election abnormality.

Heck, all they have to do is drop a few bombs atop Iran and the war will be on auto-expansion. Yuck,...I hate to even imagine the kind of disaster humanity would suffer at the behest of these heartless effers.