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Wednesday, December 05, 2007

Seymour Hersh is always right
Posted by Jill | 5:24 AM




Here's what Hersh wrote in that July 2006 article:

Inside the Pentagon, senior commanders have increasingly challenged the President’s plans, according to active-duty and retired officers and officials. The generals and admirals have told the Administration that the bombing campaign will probably not succeed in destroying Iran’s nuclear program. They have also warned that an attack could lead to serious economic, political, and military consequences for the United States.

A crucial issue in the military’s dissent, the officers said, is the fact that American and European intelligence agencies have not found specific evidence of clandestine activities or hidden facilities; the war planners are not sure what to hit. “The target array in Iran is huge, but it’s amorphous,” a high-ranking general told me. “The question we face is, When does innocent infrastructure evolve into something nefarious?” The high-ranking general added that the military’s experience in Iraq, where intelligence on weapons of mass destruction was deeply flawed, has affected its approach to Iran. “We built this big monster with Iraq, and there was nothing there. This is son of Iraq,” he said.

“There is a war about the war going on inside the building,” a Pentagon consultant said. “If we go, we have to find something.”

[snip]

Inside the Pentagon, senior commanders have increasingly challenged the President’s plans, according to active-duty and retired officers and officials. The generals and admirals have told the Administration that the bombing campaign will probably not succeed in destroying Iran’s nuclear program. They have also warned that an attack could lead to serious economic, political, and military consequences for the United States.

A crucial issue in the military’s dissent, the officers said, is the fact that American and European intelligence agencies have not found specific evidence of clandestine activities or hidden facilities; the war planners are not sure what to hit. “The target array in Iran is huge, but it’s amorphous,” a high-ranking general told me. “The question we face is, When does innocent infrastructure evolve into something nefarious?” The high-ranking general added that the military’s experience in Iraq, where intelligence on weapons of mass destruction was deeply flawed, has affected its approach to Iran. “We built this big monster with Iraq, and there was nothing there. This is son of Iraq,” he said.

“There is a war about the war going on inside the building,” a Pentagon consultant said. “If we go, we have to find something.”


And as much crap as I'm going to take for this, a guy named "Seymour Hersh" is allowed to say it, and I'm allowed to quote it, because here's where it's coming from:

The Israelis have insisted for years that Iran has a clandestine program to build a bomb, and will do so as soon as it can. Israeli officials have emphasized that their “redline” is the moment Iran masters the nuclear fuel cycle, acquiring the technical ability to produce weapons-grade uranium. “Iran managed to surprise everyone in terms of the enrichment capability,” one diplomat familiar with the Israeli position told me, referring to Iran’s announcement, this spring, that it had successfully enriched uranium to the 3.6-per-cent level needed to fuel a nuclear-power reactor. The Israelis believe that Iran must be stopped as soon as possible, because, once it is able to enrich uranium for fuel, the next step—enriching it to the ninety-per-cent level needed for a nuclear bomb—is merely a mechanical process.

Israeli intelligence, however, has also failed to provide specific evidence about secret sites in Iran, according to current and former military and intelligence officials. In May, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert visited Washington and, addressing a joint session of Congress, said that Iran “stands on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons” that would pose “an existential threat” to Israel. Olmert noted that Ahmadinejad had questioned the reality of the Holocaust, and he added, “It is not Israel’s threat alone. It is a threat to all those committed to stability in the Middle East and to the well-being of the world at large.” But at a secret intelligence exchange that took place at the Pentagon during the visit, the Pentagon consultant said, “what the Israelis provided fell way short” of what would be needed to publicly justify preventive action.


With Rudy Giuliani as Bush's anointed successor, and with Rudy having the lunatic rantings of Norman Podhoretz in his ear, and with Dick Cheney pulling the strings, it's clear that until this NIE was released, we were on a collision course with a foreign policy blunder that would make Iraq look like stumbling on a sidewalk -- that is, if anyone were still around after the resulting worldwide conflagration to even write history. As it is, Preznit Delusional is sticking with Cheney's One Percent Doctrine; that if Iran had a weapons program before, that means that there is a chance they will have one again (and that Rudy Giuliani, who's the candidate most likely to continue Bush's insane bellicosity in the Middle East, will crash and burn and if he's not the nominee, not even the California Electoral Theft Initiative can make him president), and therefore we have to attack NOW -- before Bush leaves office and "lesser men" get, to quote Margaret Thatcher, all wobbly.

Last night Joe Biden drew a line in the proverbial sand on Hardball, saying that THIS TIME, if Bush attacks Iran, he would push the House to impeach:




Of course Biden voted for the original 2002 AUMF, and has never gone as far as John Edwards has done in admitting that he made a mistake, so his words are somewhat disingenuous now. What's important right now is not to promise dire consequences for this president if he goes ahead with an attack on Iran, but to somehow find a way to stop him from doing so in the first place. My suspicion is that the decision to release the NIE came from Robert Gates, in conjunction with Old Man Bush and James Baker, in a last-ditch attempt to keep the Family Shithead from blowing the entire family's legacy to smithereens.

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