[WCUSP] Fw: Deja Vu on Iran?

[Libby or Mort Frank]

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Sent: Saturday, September 23, 2006 12:44 AM
Subject: Deja Vu on Iran?


> Deja Vu on Iran?
> 
> <http://www.thenation.com/doc/20061009/iran>
> Editorial
> [from the October 9, 2006 issue]
> 
> Here we go again. The cliches come frighteningly easy
> when one ponders the recent efforts of the hawks to gin
> up the case for military confrontation with Iran. The
> playbook is familiar: Pump up the threat, use the media
> as a conveyor and watch public opinion swing toward war.
> 
> A campaign of this sort has been under way for weeks. In
> late August the staff of the GOP-led House Intelligence
> Committee released a report on Iran that depicted it as
> a pressing strategic danger. Iran "probably" has a
> biological weapons program and "likely" has a chemical
> weapons research and development program, it said. More
> alarming, the report stated that Iran was definitely
> "seeking" nuclear weapons and enriching weapons-grade
> uranium. It conceded that US intelligence lacked crucial
> information on Iran's WMDs, but it warned intelligence
> analysts not to be wimps in reaching assessments about
> Iran's WMD capabilities and not to "shy away from
> provocative conclusions." That is, don't wait for hard-
> and-fast evidence before pronouncing Iran a nuclear
> threat.
> 
> The media coverage of the report was straightforward--a
> bit too straightforward. Major news stories did not
> question the report's assertion that Iran is producing
> weapons-grade uranium. Yet three weeks later, the
> International Atomic Energy Agency sent a letter to
> Peter Hoekstra, Republican chair of the House
> Intelligence Committee, criticizing the report for being
> "outrageous and dishonest." It noted that uranium for
> weapons must be 90 percent enriched but that Iran had
> enriched uranium only to 3.5 percent. The IAEA letter--
> first reported by the Washington Post--also challenged
> the committee's unsupported assertion that the IAEA has
> a policy barring its officials "from telling the whole
> truth about the Iranian nuclear program."
> 
> The report was born of an agenda: to whip up public
> support for military action against Iran. Its principal
> author was Frederick Fleitz, a former CIA official who
> had worked for hard-liner John Bolton at the State
> Department. The report was not fully vetted by the
> intelligence committee before being released by Hoekstra
> (who in June was claiming that there had been WMDs in
> Iraq), but it was reviewed by the office of John
> Negroponte, the hawkish Director of National
> Intelligence. Pardon our suspicion, but this whole deal
> appears to be an end run orchestrated by a Boltonite
> keen on clearing the way for military action.
> 
> The obvious question is, can they get away with it
> again? In this sequel the war advocates have another
> repressive regime to demonize and another proliferation
> challenge they can portray as a dire and immediate
> threat. Knight Ridder reports that CIA and Pentagon
> intelligence officials are concerned that the offices of
> Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld are "receiving a stream
> of questionable information" on Iran from Iranian exiles
> (a la Ahmad Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress).
> But the Knight Ridder report adds: As was not the case
> during the Iraq episode, "intelligence analysts and
> others are more forcefully challenging claims they
> believe to be false or questionable." And foreign policy
> "realists" and retired and currently serving members of
> the military are warning that with Iraq falling apart,
> confrontation with Iran is not feasible. At the same
> time, a European push is growing to drop the threat of
> sanctions against Iran in favor of negotiations.
> 
> That's good news. However, the House intelligence report
> shows that the hawkish clique is prepared to roll over
> analysts and experts who don't reach the desired
> conclusion. And such dissenters will not have the (aptly
> named) bully pulpit routinely available to George W.
> Bush.
> 
> Which brings us to the media and Congress. Each will
> have to be far more discriminating and diligent than it
> was the last time around. No automatic transmission
> belt. No rubber stamp. No forgetting.
> 
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