Newsweek: Off-Script on Iran
Last week, Perrspectives documented the controversy and contradictions surrounding the administration's case to provide Iranian meddling in Iraq ("Fool Me Once: Bush and Iran"). Today, Newsweek provides more of the backstory in "Straying from the Script."
While there is evidence of Iranian weapons and agents in Iraq, JCS Chairman Peter Pace and Centcomm commander William Fallon disagreed with military briefers claiming the "highest levels" of the Tehran regime had authorized the activities. The resulting confusion led to rhetorical gymnastics from President Bush and press secretary Tony Snow to establish the link. As Bush put it:
"What we do know is that the Quds force was instrumental in providing these deadly IEDs to networks inside of Iraq. We know that. And we also know that the Quds Force is a part of the Iranian government. That's a known. What we don't know is whether or not the head leaders of Iran ordered the Quds Force to do what they did."
As Newsweek details, the entire episode reveals not just a military briefer gone off-script, but in the bigger picture the limits of American intelligence operations when it comes to Iran.
...At some point during the Baghdad presentation, however, one of the briefers apparently went beyond the text of the slide show. The briefer claimed that senior Iranian government officials had authorized the Quds Force to supply insurgents with weapons designed to kill Americans. If true, it would be powerful evidence that high-level elements of the Iranian regime were directly involved in the targeting of U.S. soldiers - arguably an act of war...
The briefing has also inadvertently called attention to what may be an even more serious problem: the limits of U.S. intelligence in deciphering Iranian government actions. Unable to recruit enough reliable spies or collect sufficient hard technical intelligence about the country's military and nuclear programs, U.S. intelligence agencies are being forced once again to fall back on "deductions" and "inferences." In many ways, this is the same "guesswork" process that a White House review panel later concluded was governed by "groupthink" conclusions - which ultimately led to wrong calls about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction...
All of which brings us back to the staggering credibility problems of the Bush White House in the wake of its failed justifications for the war in Iraq. But while Iran's nuclear program and its support for Hezbollah in Lebanon and Shiite militias in Iraq is an ongoing concern for U.S. policymakers, President Bush's track record will continue to cause Americans and the global community to doubt any pronouncements on Tehran coming from the White House.
For more, see "Fool Me Once: Bush and Iran."
Bush likes to take out with pin-pointed and absolute
harmless darts iranian energy and electric sites located
in the middle of very crowded populated aereas. But wait
for the aftertast of any high noon nuclear [d]art delight:
All in all an extended CNN-orchestrated Wulf_Blitzer
embedded showbizz with 'suspense':
It's not only about sheer & simple
Baqerololum Missile Research Center
or the Iranian Aerospace Industries Organization.
# MIKHAIL KIRILLIN: 'SOME AMERICAN COMPANIES ARE DEVELOPING MISSILE EQUIPMENT DEALS WITH IRAN' Yaderny Kontrol, April 06, 1998
# Missile Threat from Iran By Kenneth R. Timmerman Reader's Digest January 1998
# Browse image for IKONOS 1m 2000/07/21 - southeast Tehran suburb
# Browse image for IKONOS 1m 2000/03/17 - southeast Tehran suburb
# Browse image for IKONOS 1m 2000/02/27 - west of Parchin
# Browse image for IKONOS 1m 2000/02/27 - midway between Parchin & Tehran
# Browse image for IKONOS 1m 1999/12/23 - midway between Parchin & Tehran
# Browse image for IKONOS 1m 1999/12/23 - east of Tehran
What is it all about? An answer in mixed Frech language:Le président américain devient-il bientôt bombarder des secteurs
des villes comme Téhéran et Arak?
1st exemple Arak, the city, the sea and its deuterium factory
A 2nd simplistic typical christian-jewish excerpt from 'Reader's Digest' to a Teheran capital city outskirt nuke_facility
An economical embargo against
Jewish invaders in Palestine
is overdue and recommended :
'At present, the aerospace industry has turned into a scene of competition in terms of science and technology'(6th conference of Iran's Aerospace Association, 2/24/2007).