So WHAT is being done about it, leaders?
The American people have made their voices clear!
Even Mourning Joe says it (watch video).
Scarborough Rips Bush On Iran NIE: He’s Either ‘Ly...
While Joe may not know about the president, everyone knows Dogshit Dick lied:
Cheney Lied about Iranian Nuke Threat While Suppre...
"Cheney Lied about Iranian Nuke Threat While Suppressing Intel That Iran Suspended Weapons Program in ‘03
Jon Ponder | Dec. 5, 2007
Repercussions continue to shake out in the wake of the release this week of a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) that says Iran abandoned its nuclear weapons program four years ago.
At a news conference yesterday, George Bush denied knowing that U.S. intelligence had learned the Iranian program had been suspended when he warned the American people last month that Iran was on the verge of launching World War III. He was not lying, he suggested, but rather it was his own incompetence that led him to give the false warning. He said that when Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Mike McConnell told him in August that new information about the program had come to light, Bush did not bother to ask the DNI about the nature of the new developments.
If the muted response from reporters at the news conference to this assertion is a guide, journalists close to the White House believe that it while it is unacceptable for Bush to lie to them, it is perfectly okay for him to issue false predictions about an impending apocalypse if the warnings are based entirely on Bush’s ineptitude and lack of curiosity.
Today we learn that Dick Cheney has known about — and actively suppressed — the intelligence community’s finding for over a year. In particular, Cheney knew that Iran had suspended its weapons program in 2003 when he made this statement on Oct. 21, 2007, in an address to a Washington think tank:
Dismissing Iran’s claims that it is seeking only nuclear energy and not a weapons program, Cheney accused Iranian leaders of pursuing a practice of “delay and deception in an obvious effort to buy time.”
“Our country, and the entire international community, cannot stand by as a terror-supporting state fulfills its grandest ambitions … The Iranian regime needs to know that if it stays on its present course the international community is prepared to impose serious consequences.”
Yesterday, on CNN, New Yorker reporter Seymour Hersh reminded viewers that he’d reported on White House efforts to suppress the NIE last November:
HERSH: At the time, I wrote that there was a tremendous fight about it, because Cheney in the White House — the vice president did not want to hear this. So that there was a fight about that intelligence. And, actually, for the last year, I think the vice president’s office pretty much has kept — you know, the vice president has kept his foot on the neck of that report. That report was bottled up for a year.
The intelligence we learned about yesterday has been circulating inside this government at the highest levels for the last year — and probably longer.
The complete transcript of Hersh’s interview on CNN follows:
BLITZER: The stunning intelligence turnaround on Iran’s nuclear weapons program comes as little surprise to Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, Seymour Hersh. He wrote back in July of 2006 in “The New Yorker” about the lack of evidence that Iran was trying to build a bomb.
Sy Hersh is joining us now live here in THE SITUATION ROOM.
He also wrote an article in November of last year, 2006: “The Next Act: Is A Damaged Administration Less Likely to Attack Iran or More?,” in which you said there was a new National Intelligence Estimate circulating, suggesting they didn’t really have a nuclear weapons program that was ongoing any longer.
SEYMOUR HERSH, “THE NEW YORKER”: Exactly right.
BLITZER: So what do you think?
HERSH: Well, I…
BLITZER: I mean if you knew that a year ago, you know, what does that mean?
HERSH: At the time, I wrote that there was a tremendous fight about it, because Cheney in the White House — the vice president did not want to hear this. So that there was a fight about that intelligence. And, actually, for the last year, I think the vice president’s office pretty much has kept — you know, the vice president has kept his foot on the neck of that report. That report was bottled up for a year.
The intelligence we learned about yesterday has been circulating inside this government at the highest levels for the last year — and probably longer.
BLITZER: All right. But you were suggesting that there was a real run-up to a war developing within the administration, even as there were some in the administration and the intelligence community suggesting, hey, hold off — maybe they did suspend or freeze their nuclear weapons program.
HERSH: Of course. And I think it’s still not over. I mean it…
BLITZER: Well, look, because I want to press you on this.
Does that mean now that this new NIE has been released publicly, it is over, the run-up toward a potential military confrontation with Iran?
HERSH: There’s always Israel.
BLITZER: What does that mean?
HERSH: Well, that means that Israel can always decide unilaterally to take action or with us, covertly. Israel objects to this report. I am told that Olmert had a private discussion with Bush about it during Annapolis — before Annapolis. Bush briefed him about it. The Israelis were very upset about the report. They think we’re naive. They don’t think we get it right.
And so they have a different point of view. And this is a serious breach (INAUDIBLE)…
BLITZER: Well, let me ask you this, is it possible that this new NIE — because we know that the 2005 NIE was wrong, the 2002 NIE on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction was wrong.
Is it possible this new one that has just been made public, declassified, is it possible they got it wrong again?
HERSH: It’s been four years since we’ve had any positive evidence of a parallel secret program to build a bomb. And we’ve been all over the country. One of the things that that NIE, that they finished last year, actually, that they were working on last year, it was a result of a lot of covert operations. I also was writing about the fact that we had people on the ground inside. We checked every place we thought there was some secret activity and we found nada — nothing.
So, sure, it’s possible. Everything’s possible. But this is — this is a pretty remarkable document, given the hostility to it inside the White House that it’s been made public.
BLITZER: It’s pretty amazing when you look at, from many respects, and certainly from your respect. You probably feel vindicated. You know, you were hammered — and we were hammered for giving you some air time on “LATE EDITION,” our Sunday show.
I want to play for you a clip of what the White House press secretary, Dana Perino, said the last time you were interviewed by me.
Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DANA PERINO, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Every two months or so, Sy Hersh writes an article in “The New Yorker” magazine and CNN provides him a forum in which to talk about his article and all the anonymous sources that are quoted in it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLITZER: All right. So you heard that from the White House press secretary. And, you know, we went back and took a look at what you wrote more than a year ago. And you had some pretty good information in there.
HERSH: Well, you know, they also criticized me — if you remember, I went on your show repeatedly about Abu Ghraib. We did long interviews about it. And they were saying, oh — literally, senior officials said he’s throwing, you know, crap against the wall to see what sticks. So this has been consistent.
What’s interesting here is the president’s position. As you know, today in his news conference, he said he only learned about this the other week.
BLITZER: He said he only got the word from Mike McConnell, the national intelligence director, last week, that there was, in fact, now a new National Intelligence Estimate, although last August he was told there’s some new information. We haven’t vetted it. It’s not yet confirmed. There may be some new information. He only says he learned about the new NIE last week.
HERSH: Look, it’s a lose-lose for them. Either he didn’t know what was going on at the highest levels — the fight I’m talking about began last year. I was writing about something in November and also, you mentioned earlier, they were aware of a big dispute inside the community — that is, between the White House and the community about this. Now, maybe he didn’t know what was going on at the vice presidential level about something that serious. If so, I mean we pay him to know these things and not to make statements based on information that turned out not to be accurate. Or else he’s misrepresenting what he knows. I don’t think there’s any question, this is going to pose a serious credibility problem. I assume people are going to be asking more and more questions about what did he know when. And his statement that McConnell comes to him — the head of the intelligence services of the United States — and says I have something serious to say to you and he says great, let me know when I want to hear it, is, you know — it’s his words and we can only say that if that’s true, you know, that’s — that’s not what we pay the guy to do.
BLITZER: The former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, was here in THE SITUATION ROOM in the last hour. He’s a hard- liner, as you know, when it comes to Iran. He says maybe this new NIE has been politicized and says they may get it wrong still. And he told me this.
Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN BOLTON, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE U.N.: I think there is a very real risk here that the intelligence community is like generals fighting a last war — they got Iraq wrong and they’re overcompensating by understating the potential threat from Iran.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLITZER: What do you think?
Because, you know, he reflects a view that’s still pretty prevalent out there, especially within the administration.
[HERSH]: Particularly within the vice president’s office.
And, also, now — you would have to say also within Israel. The Israelis think we’re very naive about this. They say you guys don’t know, you know, you’re thinking about it the way Americans think — not about how Middle Eastern people think.
And so this is literally, what I understand one of their arguments has been to the White House. Look, the bottom line is that we haven’t been able to find evidence. And we need evidence. We deal with evidence. We can’t find evidence of any ongoing secret parallel weapons program — period. And we know that the program they have now has gone nowhere — period.
We report that the NIE was careful to say it’s possible that they may get some fissile material from a third country. It’s possible they may solve their problems.
But I can tell you, John Negroponte was telling Congress privately in the last few months, it could be as long as 10 years before they really are in a position to get a bomb.
BLITZER: And in the report, the NIE, they said maybe 2015, if they were to reactivate that program. But under the Nuclear Non- Proliferation Treaty, they are entitled to enrich uranium, which they say they’re doing for peaceful purposes.
HERSH: Tell that to the president. The president’s view on this, I think, is pretty tough. His view is simply — his negotiating position, as I understand it from inside, they have to stop everything, not just — end it. Destroy it. Get rid of all the centrifuges. Inspectors have to come in that we pick, that we recognize as rational, go inside Iran and verify that they have gotten rid of the program. That’s his standard. He’s not saying that publicly, but that’s the private standard, so I understand.
| Permalink"
I didn't realize Sy Hersh was on the Shituation Room yesterday!
See what happens when you don't watch television!
Thanks, blogs, for keeping me MORE than informed!
Now, about those damn newspapers:
Debunking Iran's Nuclear Program: Another 'Intelli...
"Debunking Iran's Nuclear Program: Another 'Intelligence Failure' -- On the Part of the Press?
Iraqi WMD redux: The release of the NIE throwing cold water on oft-repeated claims of a rampant Iranian nuclear weapons program has chastened public officials and policymakers who have promoted this line for years. But many in the media have made these same claims, often extravagantly.
By Greg Mitchell
NEW YORK (December 04, 2007) -- Press reports so far have suggested that the belated release of the National Intelligence Estimate yesterday throwing cold water on oft-repeated claims of a rampant Iranian nuclear weapons program has deeply embarrassed, or at least chastened, public officials and policymakers who have promoted this line for years. Gaining little attention so far: Many in the media have made these same claims, often extravagantly, which promoted (deliberately or not) the tubthumping for striking Iran.
Surely you remember Sen. John McCain's inspired Beach Boys' parody, a YouTube favorite, "Bomb-bomb-bomb, Bomb-bomb Iran"? That was the least of it. You could dance to it and it had a good beat. Not so for so much of the press and punditry surrounding the bomb. Who can forget Norman Podhoretz's call for an immediate attack on Iran, in the pages of the Wall Street Journal last May, as he argued that "the plain and brutal truth is that if Iran is to be prevented from developing a nuclear arsenal, there is no alternative to the actual use of military force -- any more than there was an alternative to force if Hitler was to be stopped in 1938."
As I've warned in this space for years, too many in the media seemed to fail to learn the lessons of the Iraqi WMD intelligence failure -- and White House propaganda effort -- and instead, were repeating it, re: Iran. This time, perhaps, we may have averted war, with little help from most of the media. In this case, it appears, the NIE people managed to resist several months of efforts by the administration to change their assessment. If only they had stiffened their backbones concerning Iraq in 2002.
For the rest of today and this week, media critics will be offering up all sorts of reminders of the near-fatal claims by many in the press relating to Iranian nukes. Sure to get attention are the scare stories in the summer of 2005 after "proof" of an Iranian nuke program somehow surfaced on a certain laptop, proudly unveiled by offiicials and bought by many in the media then as firm evidence (and now debunked, like much of the "proof" of Iraqi WMD provided by defectors a few years back).
Wth much effort, I've already found this beauty from David Brooks of The New York Times from Jan. 22, 2006, when he declared that "despite administration hopes, there is scant reason to believe that imagined Iranian cosmopolitans would shut down the nuclear program, or could if they wanted to, or could do it in time - before Israel forced the issue to a crisis point. This is going to be a lengthy and tortured debate, dividing both parties. We'll probably be engaged in it up to the moment the Iranian bombs are built and fully functioning."
As recently as this past June, Thomas Friedman of The Times wrote: "Iran is about to go nuclear."
Even more recently, on October 23, 2007, Richard Cohen (like Brooks and Friedman, a big backer of the attack on Iraq) of The Washington Post, wrote: "Sadly, it is simply not possible to dismiss the Iranian threat. Not only is Iran proceeding with a nuclear program, but it projects a pugnacious, somewhat nutty, profile to the world."
More in this vein is sure to come: I found those three quotes without even breaking a sweat. At least Friedman, Brooks and Cohen back some kind of diplomacy in regard to Iran, unlike many of their brethren.
Another Post columnist, Jim Hoagland, exactly one month ago summarized his year-long travels and study surrounding this issue, declaring "unmistakable effort by Iran to develop nuclear weapons....That Iran has gone to great, secretive lengths to create and push forward a bomb-building capability is not a Bush delusion." He added the warning that "time is running out on the diplomatic track."
One week before that, reporting on his trip to Moscow, Hoagland noted Putin's doubts that Tehran will be able to turn enriched uranium into a usable weapon -- but called that failure "implausible."
We'd be remiss if we left out William Kristol, the hawk's hawk on Iran, who for the July 14, 2006 issue of The Weekly Standard called for a "military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. Why wait? Does anyone think a nuclear Iran can be contained? That the current regime will negotiate in good faith? It would be easier to act sooner rather than later. Yes, there would be repercussions--and they would be healthy ones, showing a strong America that has rejected further appeasement."
As often the case, Salon.com's popular blogger, Glenn Greenwald, may have gotten there first. A longtime critic of The Washington Post editorial page and its editor, Fred Hiatt, he has already happily reprinted a few choice passages from the past.
Here is the latest, from a Sept. 26, 2007 editorial in the Post, which flatly denounced Iran's "race for a bomb":
"As France's new foreign minister has recognized, the danger is growing that the United States and its allies could face a choice between allowing Iran to acquire the capacity to build a nuclear weapon and going to war to prevent it.
"The only way to avoid facing that terrible decision is effective diplomacy -- that is, a mix of sanctions and incentives that will induce Mr. Ahmadinejad's superiors to suspend their race for a bomb. ...
Even if Tehran provides satisfactory answers, its uranium enrichment -- and thus its progress toward a bomb -- will continue. That doesn't trouble Mr. ElBaradei, who hasn't hidden his view that the world should stop trying to prevent Iran from enriching uranium and should concentrate instead on blocking U.S. military action ...
"European diplomats say they are worried that escalating tensions between the United States and Iran, if fueled by more sanctions, could lead to war. What they don't make clear is how the government Mr. Ahmadinejad represents will be induced to change its policy if it has nothing to fear from the West."
Greenwald also resurrects Post editorial quotes in this vein going back to 2005, along with this choice snippet from a September online interview with Kenneth Pollack, whose complete wrongheadedness on Iraqi WMD somehow has not kept him from remaining a darling of the press as an expert on Iran's nukes and other Middle East issues:
"Q. How compelling is the evidence that Iranians are developing a nuclear weapons program?
"POLLACK: Obviously, the evidence is circumstantial, but it is quite strong."
I'll provide other examples of pundit malfeasance as they surface.
*
Care to comment or read more press criticism? Go to E&P Editor Greg Mitchell's new blog at
Comment.
Greg Mitchell (gmitchell@editorandpublisher.com) is editor of E&P. His book on Iraq and the media, "So Wrong for So Long," will published in March by Union Square Press. He blogs at: http://gregmitchellwriter.blogspot.com/"
At this point, the BLOGGERS WORDS SHOULD BE HEEDED!!!!
Bush Drops Standard on Iran as Credibility Questioned
"President George W. Bush, his credibility under fire because of intelligence that Iran halted its nuclear weapons drive in 2003, adopted a new argument yesterday to justify tougher sanctions: Just knowing how to produce a bomb is dangerous."
Well then, I guess Bill Clinton shouldn't have given Iran the blueprints for a nuclear weapon!
Folks, everyone knows how to kill their neighbor. But we don't kill people for knowing how to kill. We kill then when they actually try to do it.
The same applies here. Pretty much everyone knows how to build a nuclear weapon. Even I have a pretty good grasp of the basic principles. Under Bush's new policy of invading nations for simply knowing how to build a nuclear weapon, every nation on Earth is now a target.
It is time to face facts. Bush is a danger to the United States and to the world. Congress is a danger to the United States and to the world for not dealing with him. -- Mike Rivero, What Really Happened
Rivero is the only one with the balls to say the truth!
The red highlight was my emphasis. Because HE IS RIGHT!
IMPEACH, CONVICT, INDICT and IMPRISON. It's the only way!
