Iran Is Judged 10 Years From Nuclear Bomb

wnes,

Appologize my friend, I didn't see your initial post about this...

The border issue is an old grievance Iraqis have always had with Kuwait. Historically speaking, Kuwait was in fact part of Iraq, but it was carved out by the British for obvious reasons (oil and the divide to conquer mentality that has always characterized the British). In this regard, it's always safe to blame the British for all problems in the Middle East

Seriously though, the Kuwaitis have always been an arrogant bunch when it came to their border dispute with Iraq, and this practice of basically "stealing" oil from Iraq is nothing new, the Kuwaitis always think they can get away with it, they think because the Americans are based there, they could do whatever they want with immunity in regards to Iraq, and they did during the Saddam era (this was before the US had any presence in Kuwait obviously). The first Gulf War was brought about because of the Iraqi-Kuwaiti border dispute in a large part, when Bush Sr. actually told Saddam "your border dispute with Kuwait doesn't concern the United States", which led Saddam to believe (mistakenly) that he got the "Green light" from his "ally" the U.S. to invade Kuwait and annex it even if he so pleased. Obviously, we know what happened next.

Kuwait has always been a trouble-maker in the Middle East, and they are one of the few Arab states that are widely disliked throughout the region, even before they hosted US troops as a launching pad for the Iraqi invasion. In fact, Kuwait had such a negative reputation throughout the Arab world that when Saddam invaded and occupied it (took nore more than a couple of hours really), many of the masses across the Arab world were rooting for Saddam. Needless to say, the only countries that were terrified by Saddam's invasion of Kuwait were the Saudis, whom Saddam seemed intent on adding to his piece of the pie; THIS was Saddam's biggest mistake that ultimately got the US and the whole world to get involved in this otherwise regional dispute.

Most Americans don't know this, but I guarantee you that the U.S. wouldn't have been involved in the conflict if Saddam was content with taking Kuwait, but his ambitions got the best of him, and it was only at the behest of the Saudi Royals that the U.S. and the West got involved.

Let's just say that Kuwait has been that snotty little kid that is just asking for it.

 

There are a lot of theories surrounding what exactly happened to lead to Desert Storm, some believe the US baited Iraq into invading Kuwait to justify military retaliation and thus ushering in US military presence in the region (most Arabs believe this); others believe that Saddam made the mistake of becoming too ambitious by threatening an invasion of Saudi, which meant the entire world would stand against him (this is what most experts tend to believe, including myself); others believe Kuwait was asking for it and deserved it.

It's complicated, but the end result was what it was. It was the beginning point of most of the problems/conflicts we are involved in in that region today.

 

This is true, yes. But don't forget that the SAUDIS themselves were the ones who lobbied for the US to kick Saddam out of Kuwait, saying that he "intended" to go further into Saudi territory sooner or later.

I was actually living in Saudi at the time, I lived in a small town in the Eastern Province that was about 100km only away from the Kuwaiti border, and we had a flood of Kuwaitis who came into Saudi to seek a safe haven for themselves and their families. They were treated extremely well (dare I say too damn well) by the Saudis.

I honestly don't think that Saddam would have gone into Saudi, he knew damn well that this would have rallied the whole world against him. However, that's now how the Saudis spun it and not how the Bush I administration saw it.

Here is the interesting connection of all this to today's events: Bin Laden was still on good terms with his family and even had contacts in the Royal family, and he requested permission from King Fahd (R.I.P) to bring over ALL his "mujahideen" forces from Afghanistan and elsewhere and kick Saddam out of Kuwait. Obviously, Fahd rejected his offer on the ground that he didn't believe Osama stood a chance against Saddam's forces (we are talking at a time when Saddam had one of the top 5 militaries in the world, according to most estimates). From THAT point on, Osama became the sworn enemy of the Royals, and the ensuing American presence in his homeland became the rallying cry (and really the main goal to this day) of his Al-Qaida organization. This is why Osama hated the U.S. (his former allies in Afghanistan), and turned against them.

So really, the origin of Osama's crusade against the U.S. can be traced all the way back to the first Gulf War.

 

I wouldn't say the Kuwaitis deserved it, but they certainly were "asking for it", so to speak. Their leadership was (and still is) ill-regarded in the region as a whole.

 

Back to the original topic...

Hmm...so who is leaking this stuff to the Washington Post? Someone who is concerned about something? "Timely leak" indeed.

Here is Ray McGovern's commentary on this leak (McGovern is a former CIA analyst):

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20050803/preempting_cheney.php

Preempting Cheney
Ray McGovern
August 03, 2005

Ray McGovern works for Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in Washington, DC. During his 27-year career as a CIA analyst, he chaired National Intelligence Estimates and prepared/briefed the President's Daily Brief. He is co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.

Whatever plans Dick Cheney and his neo-conservatives may have had to conjure up a nuclear threat from Iran as "justification" for military action have been sharply undercut by some timely leaks to the Washington Post. In a redux of President George W. Bush's spin on the "grave and growing" danger from Iraq, Cheney protégé and newly appointed U.N. Ambassador John Bolton is on record warning that Iranian "deception" must not be allowed to continue much longer: "It will be too late. Iran will have nuclear weapons."

Not for ten more years, report sources close to the U.S. intelligence community in yesterday's lead story in the Post . Several government officials with access to the most recent National Intelligence Estimate on Iran have told journalist Dafna Linzer of its main judgments. By doing so, Linzer's sources seem determined not to sit idly by as our country is misled once again into a war favored only by "neo-conservatives" in Washington and their counterparts in the far-right Likud government in Israel who share a vision of remaking the map of the Middle East.

Linzer has shown commendable tenacity on Iran and the nuclear issue—tenacity highly unusual by today's lax media standards. According to Linzer's sources, the National Intelligence Estimate states that, while there are credible signs that the Iranian military is doing some clandestine work, there is no information to connect that work directly to a nuclear weapons program. Moreover, U.N. inspectors have found no convincing proof that Iran is conducting a nuclear weapons program or that it has a nuclear warhead design.

The NIE concludes that Iran will not be able to produce enough highly enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon until "early to mid-next decade," with general consensus among intelligence analysts that 2015 would actually be the earliest.

Devotees of Preemption

The exposure of these intelligence judgments is extremely well timed. It comes amid rumors that Vice President Cheney's office has ordered up contingency plans for a large-scale air assault on Iran using not only conventional weapons but also tactical nuclear weapons to take out hardened underground nuclear facilities. The action would be framed as a response to a terrorist act—whether sponsored by Iran or not—on the United States. According to former CIA operative Philip Giraldi, senior Air Force officers involved in the planning are appalled that Iran is being set up for an unprovoked attack but, sadly, no one wants to jeopardize a career by posing objections.

Indeed, Cheney is once again leading the public charge, just as he did in 2002 in the lead up to invading Iraq. On the morning of Inauguration Day 2005 on MSNBC's Imus in the Morning , Cheney warned that Iran has "a fairly robust new nuclear program." And, he added, it sponsors terrorism. The vice president said Iran's "objective is the destruction of Israel." Imus then brought up the possibility of preempting Iran, asking, "Why don't we make Israel do it?" Cheney responded:

Well, one of the concerns people have is that Israel might do it without being asked, that if, in fact, the Israelis became convinced the Iranians had significant capability, the Israelis might well decide to act first, and let the rest of the world worry about cleaning up the diplomatic mess afterwards.​

A few weeks later President Bush elaborated on Cheney's remarkably nonchalant remark:

Clearly, if I was the leader of Israel and I'd listened to some of the statements by the Iranian ayatollahs that regarded the security of my country, I'd be concerned about Iran having a nuclear weapon as well. And, in that Israel is our ally (sic)—and in that we've made a very strong commitment to support Israel—we will support Israel if her security is threatened.​

That all fits in with Cheney's personal view of the one time Israel did 'take out' what it perceived as a hostile nuclear weapons program. Despite the official position of the United States (and the unanimous U.N. Security Council vote) condemning the Israeli preemptive attack on Iraq's nuclear reactor at Osirak in 1981, Cheney saw fit to refer to the Israel attack approvingly in his speech on Iraq on August 26, 2002. Earlier, as defense secretary in 1991, Cheney reportedly gave Israeli Maj. Gen. David Ivri, then the commander of the Israeli Air Force, a satellite photo of the Iraqi nuclear reactor destroyed by U.S.-built Israeli aircraft. On the photo Cheney penned, "Thanks for the outstanding job on the Iraqi nuclear program in 1981."

Cherry-Picking Intelligence

Will this new, apparently reality-based NIE on Iran influence the actions of the White House? Linzer points out that a number of less ambitious papers on Iran, ordered up during Bush's first term "were rejected by advocates of policies that were inconsistent with the intelligence judgments." In 2002, then-deputy national security adviser Stephen Hadley commissioned one such paper on the possibility of "regime change" in Iran. The paper concluded that Iran seemed to be on a slow march to democracy and cautioned against U.S. interference in the process and thus became material for the shredder.

Bush is more likely to take his "intelligence" from Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who, according to George H. W. Bush's national security adviser, Gen. Brent Scowcroft, has George W. Bush "wrapped around his little finger." It went little noticed that on his visit to Crawford last April, Sharon had his senior military aide, Gen. Yoav Galant, present photos and other Israeli intelligence on Iran's nuclear weapons program, showing it to be at a "very advanced" stage. In July 2003, Sharon and Galant gave a similar performance in the oval office, reportedly showering Bush with data from a thick dossier on Iran's covert program.

As has been abundantly clear in the case of Iraq, Vice President Cheney does not feel at all bound by U.S. intelligence, unless he can put in enough appearances at CIA headquarters to slant the intelligence in the desired direction. This time he is likely to dismiss the new NIE on Iran, harkening back—as he is fond of doing—to the less-than-stellar performance of earlier U.S. estimates regarding how far along the Iraqi nuclear program was before the Gulf War in 1991.

And then there is John Bolton. Let us recall that during his confirmation hearings, amid countless credible charges that he had politicized intelligence, he had the chutzpah to write to the committee that he reserves the right to "state his own reading of the intelligence."

A Leak in Time...

You readers out there in the intelligence and policy communities may wish to take those who told Linzer about the NIE as your model. Between multiple sources in London and in Washington finally willing to see it as their patriotic duty to speak out to prevent war, we have a new, very hopeful, truth-driven process going less than a year after the Truth Telling Coalition gave it fresh impetus. This disclosure will make it more difficult for the Bush administration and/or Israel to launch war on Iran. Timing makes all the difference.