The UN nuclear watchdog has protested to the US government over a report on Iran's nuclear programme, calling it "erroneous" and "misleading". In a leaked letter, the IAEA said a congressional report contained serious distortions of the agency's own findings on Iran's nuclear activity.
The IAEA also took "strong exception" to claims made over the removal of a senior safeguards inspector.
There was no immediate comment from Washington over the letter.
From Editor&Publisher:
A report today by veteran McClatchy (formerly Knight Ridder) reporters John Walcott and Warren P. Strobel warns that some of the same type of shaky intelligence that proved false in the run up to the Iraq war may be rearing its head again in regard to Iran.
"U.S. intelligence and counterterrorism officials say Bush political appointees and hard-liners on Capitol Hill have tried recently to portray Iran's nuclear program as more advanced than it is and to exaggerate Tehran's role in Hezbollah's attack on Israel in mid-July," they write.
Again, from From Editor&Publisher:
When Daniel Ellsberg, the defense analyst, leaked the Pentagon Papers to the press in 1971, it created one of the most significant newspaper stories -- and battles -- of the century. One thing it did not do was prevent the Vietnam War, although it may have shortened it. Now he is calling on officials within the government to leak "the Pentagon Papers of the Middle East" to modern reporters, to short-circuit another possible war.
Ellsberg's challenge is found in the October issue of Harper's magazine, to appear next week. E&P has obtained an advance copy. The article is titled, "The Next War," with the conflict in question a possible face-off between the U.S. and Iran. Ellsberg, based on unconfirmed reporting by Seymour Hersh and others, believes there is a "hidden crisis," with government insiders aware of "serious plans for war with Iran" while "congress and the public remain largely in the dark." His remedy: "Conscientious insiders" need to leak hard evidence to the press and public, while risking their current and future employment, as he did in the early 1970s.
Where's Judy Miller when you need her?
8 comments:
Hey Tom, nice of you to pay us a visit.
Here's what David Frum has to say about this subject and I think he's probably right:
http://frum.nationalreview.com/
SEP. 20, 2006: ATTACK IRAN?
Here's why I don't think it's going to happen:
1) Any prudent war planner has to assume that the rulers of Iran will strike back. They may not - they may absorb the blow, they may come to terms, they may be overthrown in a popular uprising - but the plan has to assume a counterstrike. Which means that war planners must plan their counter-counter-strike. Any sign of that happening? And no, talk of sending an additional Aegis cruiser to the Gulf on Oct. 1 does not count.
2) Despite the accusations of America's critics, the United States does not bomb other countries out of a clear blue sky. When it uses force it does so either in response to an aggression against the US or an ally - or with the legitimation of some international organization. For all the talk of * unilateralism * in Iraq, the US went to war on the strength of more than a dozen coercive UN Security Council resolutions. Post-Iraq, this kind of legitimation is more essential than ever to bringing along US allies. The US has not even begun to build any such kind of predicate against Iran - even though Iran has repeatedly been caught violating nonproliferation rules. Most recently, Iran has defied an Aug. 31 Security Council resolution ordering it to suspend its uranium enrichment program - and yet President Bush did not even mention this resolution in his UN address on Tuesday. If he were preparing to lead the nation and the world to war, he would have done so.
3) Nor has there been diplomacy outside the UN. The American public strongly prefers going to war alongside allies. If the allies refuse, that is politically risky - but if they are not even asked, that is far worse.
4) Finally, through Washington there echoes the hushed sound of back doors being opened to quiet negotiations. See, for example, this:
http://www.tnr.com/blog/theplank?pid=39370
"Just got back from the first-ever press conference of the super-low-key commission on what to do in Iraq, chaired by James Baker and Lee Hamilton. ... Baker, in response to a question by Jim Lobe of Inter Press News, disclosed that he is "fairly confident that [the panel] will meet with a representative at a high level of the Iranian government" during the upcoming United Nations General Assembly session."
One hears things like that about once a week these days.
Which is why I'm beating that rather than war, the US and Iran are heading toward a deal.
So there you go. I don't think you've got anything to worry about. We can all just sit back, relax and wait to see if Iran turns Tel Aviv into a flaming parking lot or not.
Six: The lefties like my brother Tom and buddy Nadir always portray the US as aggessive bullies. Consider Cuba. The US has had a military base there since Castro founded his tyrany in 1960. For five or so years the US attempted military actions against that regime, and then for 30 years US military aggression towards Cuba has existed merely as an empty claim by US leftists and Castronistas. Absence of a US military strike has done nothing to diminish the claims by Tom, Nadir, Castro, and Noam Chomsky about the dire threat of US military action against the brutes running Cuba.
The same is happening in Venezuala. An alleged US-sponsored military coup against Chavez... failed? The all-powerful international bully force of the US certainly attempted (according the to the lefties) to oust Chavez, but failed? Either the US military is lame, or far less agressive than the lefties claim. In Iraq and Afganistan you can argue that the US military there is losing, but not for lack of US-fired bullets, bombs, and other ordinance. Where is the US-caused destruction in Venezuala by this bully force? In Cuba?
Meanwhile, some of the freest and most prosperous regions of earth exist where the US military waged full-scale war, and still occupies military bases: Germany, Japan, Italy, Georgia, North Carolina, and South Korea. Did anything ever better ever happen to Germany and North Carolina than US military conquest and occupation?
Tommy and I have a childhood chum in Iraq, Vassar, working for Haliburton. He's from a regular democrat-voting, Bush-hating black family. He says that the US military is losing and cannot win, and for two reasons: (1) There are too many evil people in Iraq. "Their heart beats on the wrong side of their chest," he says. And (2) The US military is forbidden from fighting these beasts decisively. Vassar has lived amounst this situation for about three years. He says that either the US military needs to turn the hostile areas (controlled by the beasts) into 1943 Dresden or Tokyo (or 1864 Atlanta), or needs to just leave and let the beasts kill and torture each other "until they get sick of it and start behaving like decent human beings." Vassar sees curruption there, from US corporate managers, but much more so from local Iraqis. And he believes that Bush is genuine in his aims to create a democracy for decent, civilized people in Iraq as a means for quelling the alure for islam-based barbarism. But he believes that too many people in Iraq today (except for Kurdistan) are devoted barbarians; it only takes a handful of barbarians to make a neighborhood barbaric.
I don't know if the Bushies will invade Iran. I think that they have made many misjudgements about Iraq and Afgahnistan. They may believe that the barbarism in Iraq really does come from Iran... and Syria. And from this belief may extend their fight to one or both of those nations. I no longer believe that such a course of action will work. I have come to agree with Vassar that too many people on those areas are devoted to uncilized living, rendering the region unable yet to enjoy civilization. A crucial mass of people in Arabia appear devoted to tyranical rule, prefering it to civilization, it appears.
If the Bushies had adopted my proposal for zero torturing, very lenient forbearance, minimal destruction and curruption, and higher efficiency in matters such as rebuilding and planning, would that have made a difference? I am very doubtful. For one thing, accomplishing those goals would have resulted humanity's first such war. All the constructive wars so far that have advanced civilization -- US Revolution, US Civil War, Allied efforts in WWII, US war in Korea -- failed to achieve any of these goals. Even the war efforts that Tom, Nadir, and Howar Zin praise have failed in these regards: Robert Mugabe, Castro, Mao, L'Overture in Haiti, PLO, Hezbollah, etc. Also, the US military in Iraq and Afgahnistan have performed better with respect to these goals than the local militaries in those areas. Remember the reports recently of Abu Graib prisoners crying and screaming in protest when those horrible US personel turned over the keys to Iraqi officials? And consider the civilian causualties and infrastructure destruction of the Iraq-Iran war back in the '80s.
If the US military's current imperfect conduct in Iraq and Afgahnistan doesn't set the stage for civilized local people to sieze the moment and create a civilization, then I don't think that the reason is that the US military has failed to finally achieve humanity's first perfect war; I think that not enough people in that area are ready or interested in civilization. Too many people there are devoted to exacting revenge, assembling criminal gangs, or enforcing barbaric religious strictures from the dark ages, and not enough people are devoted to making dresses, milk shakes, side walks, and houses. I reckon that the US military set as good a stage as any army ever has for productive, modern, sensible people to erect a civilization. I suppose it was worth a chance, and now we know.
"Despite the accusations of America's critics, the United States does not bomb other countries out of a clear blue sky. When it uses force it does so either in response to an aggression against the US or an ally - or with the legitimation of some international organization."
HORSE HOCKEY!!! The United Nations did not sanction the invasion of Iraq. Kofi Annan has stated it was a violation of the UN charter.
And what about Clinton's bombing of Sudan? Clearly out of the blue sky bombing of an asprin factory.
"For five or so years the US attempted military actions against that regime, and then for 30 years US military aggression towards Cuba has existed merely as an empty claim by US leftists and Castronistas. Absence of a US military strike has done nothing to diminish the claims by Tom, Nadir, Castro, and Noam Chomsky about the dire threat of US military action against the brutes running Cuba."
Paul, like the CIA, refuses to acknowledge that it trained and funded terrorists like Luis Posada Carriles or that it has tried to assassinate Castro at least a dozen times.
Terrorism is military action even if the US hires mercenaries instead of using its own regular troops to wage the war.
"The same is happening in Venezuala. An alleged US-sponsored military coup against Chavez... failed? The all-powerful international bully force of the US certainly attempted (according the to the lefties) to oust Chavez, but failed? Either the US military is lame, or far less agressive than the lefties claim."
Well, after the Sept. 11, 1973 bombing of Chile, the US has limited its overt regime change activities somewhat. However, Panama, Grenada, Haiti, Iraq and Afghanistan are exceptions to that rule. Most of the time they hire local proxies to do the dirty work.
Many other US sponsored coup attempts have failed as well. The coup attempt against Chavez actually succeeded, but the people of Venezuela refused to recognize the new government, revolted and returned their democratically elected leader to power. That is true democracy, and that is what defeated your US sponsored Venezuelan coup, Mr. Hue.
"Did anything ever better ever happen to Germany and North Carolina than US military conquest and occupation?"
There are many people in Germany and North Carolina who would disagree with this statement.
Thanks for this post, Tom.
Currently the US simply doesn't have the manpower to win decisively in Iraq, so it is highly unlikely that it will open a new front in Iran. At least not directly.
It is possible that the US could bomb, but that would be a military and diplomatic mistake at this point. If the Iraq war were going better, we would have seen an invasion of Iran already.
The US turned the Afghan command over to NATO, and those troops are undermanned as well. Bush's lies have created two poorly conceived and poorly executed wars that should never have been started in the first place. A third front in Iran would be a catastrophe.
That doesn't mean, however, that they won't make the case for it so that if Israel, for instance, were to attack Iran, they would supply as much support as possible.
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