U.S. Says Iran Ended Atomic Arms Work

[TheMojoPin]

WASHINGTON, Dec. 3 — A new assessment by American intelligence agencies concludes that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and that the program remains frozen, contradicting judgment two years ago that Tehran was working relentlessly toward building a nuclear bomb. (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/03/world/middleeast/03cnd-iran.html?_r=2&hp&oref=slogin&oref=slogin)

Hmmmmm...on the one hand, it's great that our guys are coming out and deflating the rhetoric they had set up earlier preparing us all for an invasion of Iran, which would have been monumentally stupid. On the other hand, is this the same intelligence services that told us Iraq had WMD's?

I hope it's true.

[FUNKMAN]

Hmmmmm...on the one hand, it's great that our guys are coming out and deflating the rhetoric they had set up earlier preparing us all for an invasion of Iran, which would have been monumentally stupid. On the other hand, is this the same intellience services that told us Iraq had WMD's?

then Bush comes out with the statement " see, Diplomacy can work " or something similar which i heard on wcbs today driving into work

that murdering mother fucker

[S0S]

It would be more credible if another NATO country's intelligence agency said the same thing.

[scottinnj]

It doesn't matter. Bush is going to take care of Iran no matter what. The story I read just said that the uranium enrichment program is ongoing and that this is just a "delay" to the weapons program, by about 9 years. (Which is good enough for me)
But he'll use this news to (rightfully so) show that his administration's diplomatic side is good.....but he'll still goto war with Iran (wrongfully so) based on the support they give to the Al-Quaeda in Iraq.

[A.J.]

Maybe if we had an embassy and diplomats over there we could find out more about this.

Oh...........right.

[Knowledged_one]

then Bush comes out with the statement " see, Diplomacy can work " or something similar which i heard on wcbs today driving into work

that murdering mother fucker

Did i miss something? Who did George Bush murder

[epo]

When I got up this morning and heard Elvis Costello's "Peace, Love and Understanding" on the radio ... I knew this was gonna be a good day. Then in the coffee shop I saw this headline and I think my faith in the world was restored.

[cupcakelove]

Bush said today that this report confirms that Iran is dangerous. The guy makes the same argument no matter what facts come out.

[A.J.]

Iran is dangerous regardless of whether they have nukes or not. Ask our guys on the ground in Iraq or our sailors in the Gulf.

[TheMojoPin]

Iran is dangerous regardless of whether they have nukes or not. Ask our guys on the ground in Iraq or our sailors in the Gulf.

Which opens up a grey area.

I'm not saying it's "good" coalition soldiers are attacked, but they are in Iran's "backyard" under pretexts that are incredibly flimsy at best, so it's hardly a solid argument to then try and spin their chest-puffing as being dangerous. It's only dangerous because we put people into a dangerous situation they shouldn't be in in the first place because it's not really justified, and most of the rest of the world knows it.

[A.J.]

It's not so much about the IRGC being involved in Iraq overtly or covertly for the reasons you correctly argued. I was also referring to a serious naval threat that Iran also poses as well.

Of course, Bush can always paraphrase Patton and say "I can have us a war with Iran in 3 weeks and make it look like their fault!"

[TheMojoPin]

It's not so much about the IRGC being involved in Iraq overtly or covertly for the reasons you correctly argued. I was also referring to a serious naval threat that Iran also poses as well.

True, though then again, it's really only an "immediate" threat because we're in the Gulf on the scale we are, again, when it could be argued we really shouldn't be.

Of course, Bush can always paraphrase Patton and say "I can have us a war with Iran in 3 weeks and make it look like their fault!"

Love that Patton!

[Knowledged_one]

Do you really know how bad Patton actually was, the guy hijacked fuel shipments for US troops in WWII to use for his own troops which opened our flanks up to attack

[patsopinion]

hey bush decided that we dont need to start yet another war
horrah!

now if iran would just stop supplying/allowing safe haven for the iraq insurgents everything will be okay


fucking nuke em all
the oils underground and no one will miss the region
im sure no one would even notice for a few years

[foodcourtdruide]

hey bush decided that we dont need to start yet another war
horrah!

now if iran would just stop supplying/allowing safe haven for the iraq insurgents everything will be okay


fucking nuke em all
the oils underground and no one will miss the region
im sure no one would even notice for a few years

You don't really think this way, do you?

[Knowledged_one]

You don't really think this way, do you?

Why would it matter if thats his opinion, you know you wont be able to change it.

Also the mideast oil monopoly is about to be done, they are finding huge deposits of oil all over Africa, once they all die out from AIDS then its free for the taking.

But seriously Africa has tons of oil, the US will soon be receiving a lot of oil soon from countries like Gibbon

[patsopinion]

You don't really think this way, do you?

well because of what nukes do as far as fall out it might be better to just carpet bomb them
we dont want any of that bad nuke air floating into Israel or Dubai(Dubai being one of my fav countries in the world)
other than that yes

[TheMojoPin]

Do you really know how bad Patton actually was, the guy hijacked fuel shipments for US troops in WWII to use for his own troops which opened our flanks up to attack

We were being sarcastic. I thought that it was clear by applying his "advice" to a fucked up situation.

[Knowledged_one]

no harm no foul

[Recyclerz]

One of Rudy Guliani's Midddle East advisors says the CIA is lying to protect the Iranians.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/060227.php

It is that the intelligence community, which has for some years now been leaking material calculated to undermine George W. Bush, is doing it again

Yeah fuck those CIA types who are only interested in verifiable facts. Our Leader shouldn't have to be constrained by petty concerns like objective reality. Or by the "laws" of physics either.

You Rudy-Lovers should give the guy a 2nd, clear-eyed look. I think love has made him crazier than Fez and Earl combined.

[A.J.]

But seriously Africa has tons of oil, the US will soon be receiving a lot of oil soon from countries like Gibbon

http://www.ms-starship.com/journal/aug00/images/GIBBON-md34P52083.jpg

[Tallman388]

My dad worked with the CIA a little in Vietnam and when I asked him about this report, he said it is quite possible that the story is a plant on their part. He said that the logic in this is that if the Iranians think they're in the clear for a while, they might be dumb enough to start the program again. Then Israel calls up and says "Guess what we found" and then the bombs start falling.

[TheMojoPin]

My dad worked with the CIA a little in Vietnam and when I asked him about this report, he said it is quite possible that the story is a plant on their part. He said that the logic in this is that if the Iranians think they're in the clear for a while, they might be dumb enough to start the program again. Then Israel calls up and says "Guess what we found" and then the bombs start falling.

No offense, but your dad's "little" work for them 3-4 decades ago hasn't given him a very accurate perspective on this. Trust me on this.

[badmonkey]

Bush beleives intelligence reports of multiple countries and goes to war in Iraq.
George Bush lied to the American people so he could go to war in Iraq!

Bush does not beleive intelligence reports from the CIA about Iran's nuclear program.
The CIA comes to George Bush with FACTS and he ignores them!

So when did we decide we could trust our intelligence again? Somebody catch me up.

[TheMojoPin]

Bush beleives intelligence reports of multiple countries and goes to war in Iraq.
George Bush lied to the American people so he could go to war in Iraq!

Bush does not beleive intelligence reports from the CIA about Iran's nuclear program.
The CIA comes to George Bush with FACTS and he ignores them!

So when did we decide we could trust our intelligence again? Somebody catch me up.

Damned if I know. That's my concern here, and it has little to do with "trust" as opposed to the far more realistic and worrisome concern of competence. Bush, Smush, I'm more worried about our intelligence capabilities being inadequate. But please, let's turn this into a meaningless partisan pissing mach over whether Bush is a liar or not. I know that you're kind of just replying to sentiments somewhat similar to your generalization, but damn, why do you always just want to argue the perceptions of Bush or the Republicans on a issue instead of the issue itself? Doing what you do just encourages what you're condemning.

[badmonkey]

I'm just getting tired of the same worn out "Bush is a liar" crap. If he lied and there's a shred of proof, then let's impeach his ass. If not, then let's start shunning the people in the tinfoil hats the way we used to instead of carrying the spare batteries for their megaphones.

[TheMojoPin]

Personaly, I don't think Bush is any more of a liar than the "average" politician. My main problem with him is his "by the gut" attitude and his thinking that once he makes a decision he needs to stick with it no matter how shittily it turns out. It drives me nuts that that is spun as a refreshing change of pace from business as usual and anything else would just be "flip-flopping." This is my concern with Iran since he and his administration seemed deadset on setting us on a course of confrontation with them. If this information is valid and accurate, how far will it go to steering him away from pushing towards a conflict wih Iran?

[Tallman388]

No offense, but your dad's "little" work for them 3-4 decades ago hasn't given him a very accurate perspective on this. Trust me on this.

Actually it gives him far more accurate perspective on this than anyone here. Especially given his education (USMA and Princeton M.P.A.) and "interest" in foreign affairs. He knows far more about this situation than probably everyone here. Why else would I ask him? Otherwise I would have said "who gives a shit, bomb them anyway!"

[TheMojoPin]

Actually it gives him far more accurate perspective on this than anyone here.

That's simply not true, and I'll leave it at that.

I'm not saying the guy doesn't know HIS stuff, but in this case his perspective on the Agency in this situation is not correct at all.

[Tallman388]

I'd like to know how you know that anyone's perspective on this particular situation is wrong. My dad's perspective on this could be right on, and you'd probably still say it's not. I need a little more than you responding by saying "it's not correct."

I'm not trying to get into an argument over it, it's just how I am, I just need some sort of qualification for it being the wrong perspective

[Recyclerz]

Bush beleives intelligence reports of multiple countries and goes to war in Iraq.
George Bush lied to the American people so he could go to war in Iraq!

Bush does not beleive intelligence reports from the CIA about Iran's nuclear program.
The CIA comes to George Bush with FACTS and he ignores them!

So when did we decide we could trust our intelligence again? Somebody catch me up.

There has been a lot of solid reporting over the last several years (Seymour Hersh, Isikoff & Corn with Hubris, etc., etc.) that lays out the case that the intelligence that Bush/Cheney relied on for all their claims about Sadaam was "shaped" by political appointees, mostly Cheney's henchmen - more specifically, that wherever the professional career intelligence people said they weren't sure about what Sadaam had or was up to, the political hacks filled in the gaps with the scariest stuff they could think of to make the threat seem imminent. See the chapter in Hubris about the infamous aluminum tubes.

Is it possible that Bush/Cheney et al. believed the crap they were peddling so they weren't technically "lying"? It's possible - but then you have to cop to them running an administration guilty of reckless malfeasance on the most critical responsibility entrusted to them. Either way - they stink and I don't like them.

Now let's get back to agreeing that we don't like Hilary very much.

[epo]

I find it pretty amazing that in 2003 Cheney called the NIE the "gold standard", and now since the public disclosure of the report the NIE is shit to the neo-cons. Seriously, this whole thing honestly stinks to high hell on the part of the neo-con crowd as they are again playing the card of "attack the source".

It's pretty obvious to most of the world that the President has no pants.

To be totally fair, I found it pretty funny to hear Hillary try to justify her Iran vote of two months ago by claiming that things have "significantly improved" because of that. Really? You had a time machine huh?

[Yerdaddy]

Bush beleives intelligence reports of multiple countries and goes to war in Iraq.
George Bush lied to the American people so he could go to war in Iraq!

Bush does not beleive intelligence reports from the CIA about Iran's nuclear program.
The CIA comes to George Bush with FACTS and he ignores them!

So when did we decide we could trust our intelligence again? Somebody catch me up.

Like an idiot I'm going to write out the exact same example I've posted for years of why we as citizens of a democracy should be without doubt convinced that the Bush administration lied us into Iraq and, if we weren't such short bus passengers we'd have impeach the lot of them before the war began, and once again it will be ignored and distorted by the board conservatives just like the rest of American conservatism has done for four years. I hate myself for doing this.

Aluminum tubes. The Bush administration said repeatedly in the State of the Union speech, in Colin Powell's UN speech, and repeatedly in every other public discussion of Iraq that Saddam's regime was using them as part of an active uranium-enriching program. The 2003 NIE said the same in the main body of the report. However, as it was reported in the print media at the time, the sole source of that conclusion was the CIA, and in particular, a single right-wing analyst with only a tertiary academic training in nuclear weapons programs. Also at the time the print media reported what the collective understanding of the professional intelligence community was: that the true nuclear experts in the US intelligence community are the US Department of Energy - the agency that builds and maintains our own nuclear arsenal. It was there assessment prior to the NIE that the aluminum tubes were "almost certainly" NOT intended for enriching uranium, that if they were being used for enrichment they were a poor choice, and that they were probably intended to be used for making rockets. This opinion of the true nuclear intelligence experts was relegated in the NIE to an addendum at the back of the report.

Why was this so, when the intelligence professionals were of the collective opinion that the DoE were the best experts? Because that NIE was not compiled by intelligence experts but by political appointees who changed the organizational structure to exclude the professionals who would normally compile an NIE on the basis of established objective methodology and instead the partisans compiled it themselves in their own "Office of Special Plans".

When the seriously flawed NIE came out and was clearly the basis of administration policy on Iraq scientists at the DoE and intel analysts at other agencies told the press what had happened and it was reported in the print media. But we don't read newspapers in America so that story slowly died as conservatives pushed the NIE at face value, (and the administration pushed a case that went way beyond even the blatantly manipulated NIE), and liberals stomped around and flagellated themselves to a "no blood for oil" chant beat. To be fair there were moderate liberals and conservatives who tried to press the issue of why the tube story was blatantly manipulated, but because most of the American public couldn't muster the will to read a story instead of have it read to them by waxy animatrons in between Viagra commercials and breaking Anna Nichole Smith rehab alerts, the story faded away and conventional wisdom became the convenient: the intelligence community fucked up.

Whatever anyone may think of my own biases, the fact remains that the DoE's assessment is the only one the intelligence professionals care about on nuclear issues and it was relegated to a footnote in that report. There's no way the intel pros did that themselves. That subjugating of the intelligence process alone, (but along with many other similar examples), is why I have no doubt that the Bush administration did not just lie us into the war in Iraq, but they deliberatey conspired to produce intelligence reports to cover up their own lies.

And I have no doubt that just like the dozen or so times I've told this exact same verifiable story it will be ignored or distorted and prove to be a complete waste of time because the sides have been chosen and the right has no interest in admitting any more wrongdoing by its leaders than it absolutely has to and because this story can't be summed up in a sound byte they don't have to.

And the fact that you don't care if or why this happened and instead will continue only accept facts that support Bush's presentation of the political world is the reason that YOU are confused as to why others might dare to think Bush is a liar.

Let the obfuscation commence!

[scottinnj]

That's my concern here, and it has little to do with "trust" as opposed to the far more realistic and worrisome concern of competence.

I'm worried about that too. We blew 9/11, WMDs and now seem to be dropping the ball on accurate information about Iran. Meanwhile Isreal is totally disagreeing with our estimate, insisting Iran is 2-3 years from a nuclear weapon, and I'm afraid if they don't see some clear policy from us, they will begin a war with Iran expecting us to jump in the water with them.

[A.J.]

Meanwhile Isreal is totally disagreeing with our estimate, insisting Iran is 2-3 years from a nuclear weapon, and I'm afraid if they don't see some clear policy from us, they will begin a war with Iran expecting us to jump in the water with them.

Gee what a shocker.

[Yerdaddy]

Like an idiot I'm going to write out the exact same example I've posted for years of why we as citizens of a democracy should be without doubt convinced that the Bush administration lied us into Iraq and, if we weren't such short bus passengers we'd have impeach the lot of them before the war began, and once again it will be ignored and distorted by the board conservatives just like the rest of American conservatism has done for four years. I hate myself for doing this.

Aluminum tubes. The Bush administration said repeatedly in the State of the Union speech, in Colin Powell's UN speech, and repeatedly in every other public discussion of Iraq that Saddam's regime was using them as part of an active uranium-enriching program. The 2003 NIE said the same in the main body of the report. However, as it was reported in the print media at the time, the sole source of that conclusion was the CIA, and in particular, a single right-wing analyst with only a tertiary academic training in nuclear weapons programs. Also at the time the print media reported what the collective understanding of the professional intelligence community was: that the true nuclear experts in the US intelligence community are the US Department of Energy - the agency that builds and maintains our own nuclear arsenal. It was there assessment prior to the NIE that the aluminum tubes were "almost certainly" NOT intended for enriching uranium, that if they were being used for enrichment they were a poor choice, and that they were probably intended to be used for making rockets. This opinion of the true nuclear intelligence experts was relegated in the NIE to an addendum at the back of the report.

Why was this so, when the intelligence professionals were of the collective opinion that the DoE were the best experts? Because that NIE was not compiled by intelligence experts but by political appointees who changed the organizational structure to exclude the professionals who would normally compile an NIE on the basis of established objective methodology and instead the partisans compiled it themselves in their own "Office of Special Plans".

When the seriously flawed NIE came out and was clearly the basis of administration policy on Iraq scientists at the DoE and intel analysts at other agencies told the press what had happened and it was reported in the print media. But we don't read newspapers in America so that story slowly died as conservatives pushed the NIE at face value, (and the administration pushed a case that went way beyond even the blatantly manipulated NIE), and liberals stomped around and flagellated themselves to a "no blood for oil" chant beat. To be fair there were moderate liberals and conservatives who tried to press the issue of why the tube story was blatantly manipulated, but because most of the American public couldn't muster the will to read a story instead of have it read to them by waxy animatrons in between Viagra commercials and breaking Anna Nichole Smith rehab alerts, the story faded away and conventional wisdom became the convenient: the intelligence community fucked up.

Whatever anyone may think of my own biases, the fact remains that the DoE's assessment is the only one the intelligence professionals care about on nuclear issues and it was relegated to a footnote in that report. There's no way the intel pros did that themselves. That subjugating of the intelligence process alone, (but along with many other similar examples), is why I have no doubt that the Bush administration did not just lie us into the war in Iraq, but they deliberatey conspired to produce intelligence reports to cover up their own lies.

And I have no doubt that just like the dozen or so times I've told this exact same verifiable story it will be ignored or distorted and prove to be a complete waste of time because the sides have been chosen and the right has no interest in admitting any more wrongdoing by its leaders than it absolutely has to and because this story can't be summed up in a sound byte they don't have to.

And the fact that you don't care if or why this happened and instead will continue only accept facts that support Bush's presentation of the political world is the reason that YOU are confused as to why others might dare to think Bush is a liar.

Let the obfuscation commence!

And, as I predicted, not a peep in response from Badmonkey or any other conservative. Ignore the evidence and it will go away. Just like in the lead-up to this war - all the generals, DoE scientists, the writings of Bush I and his NSA Brent Scowcroft, the warnings of failure from the Army War College, the handful of Iraq scholars... all of it meant nothing because conservatives and some liberal hawks wanted the war and weren't going to let anything keep it from them. Then for three years they ignored the bad news from Iraq becuase they had their own "media" sources to tell us everything was going groovy, but it was the liberals in the media who were lying about Iraq just to make their boy look bad. And now there's still not a shred of self-criticism, no capacity to review the last four years' events to ask what they should have done different, what sources of information should be discarded as unreliable, or what kind of decisions (like the decision to attack Iran) should be avoided - or even questioned - in the future. The mentality of conservatism, (with the usual exceptions - but still not enough), is still to win the war of ideology through the obtainment of political power rather than do what's best for the country regardless of ideological conventional wisdom.

Badmonkey merely personifies this ideological fanaticism that permeates American political culture. It's the views of their current candidates - scrambling to take a more Bush-like stance than the others on foreign policy - that shows me the disease is still very much malignant. That the victors get to write the history always applied to conflicts between nations. What my little story shows is that it also applies within America. And as long as that's true we are doomed to repeat it.

[scottinnj]

Dude, I just want accurate information. If the NIE is the "gold standard" to Cheney in 2003 and not now, but the opponents of Bush are using the NIE as the "gold standard" now that it shows us information that goes against the Bush Administration, I feel that both sides are using it for their own agenda.

[badmonkey]

And, as I predicted, not a peep in response from Badmonkey or any other conservative. Ignore the evidence and it will go away. Just like in the lead-up to this war - all the generals, DoE scientists, the writings of Bush I and his NSA Brent Scowcroft, the warnings of failure from the Army War College, the handful of Iraq scholars... all of it meant nothing because conservatives and some liberal hawks wanted the war and weren't going to let anything keep it from them. Then for three years they ignored the bad news from Iraq becuase they had their own "media" sources to tell us everything was going groovy, but it was the liberals in the media who were lying about Iraq just to make their boy look bad. And now there's still not a shred of self-criticism, no capacity to review the last four years' events to ask what they should have done different, what sources of information should be discarded as unreliable, or what kind of decisions (like the decision to attack Iran) should be avoided - or even questioned - in the future. The mentality of conservatism, (with the usual exceptions - but still not enough), is still to win the war of ideology through the obtainment of political power rather than do what's best for the country regardless of ideological conventional wisdom.

Badmonkey merely personifies this ideological fanaticism that permeates American political culture. It's the views of their current candidates - scrambling to take a more Bush-like stance than the others on foreign policy - that shows me the disease is still very much malignant. That the victors get to write the history always applied to conflicts between nations. What my little story shows is that it also applies within America. And as long as that's true we are doomed to repeat it.

I'm sorry... was I supposed to take you seriously when you basically just screamed from under your tin-foil hat that one "single right-wing analyst" said he's building nukes and that's why we went to war? Why don't you just say "we went to war because the Illuminati wanted us to"? Much shorter and to the point than your long-winded rant.

If your post isn't the rantings of a left-wing idealistic lunatic, then why has the Democratic party not filed a single article of impeachment against Bush? Do they not have the information you just posted? Can they not build a case against Bush? Maybe you should put a file together and mail it to them so we can get Bush outta there before he causes anymore trouble.

Oh... nevermind, you must be right. Look how surprised they are to find out that somebody "might have been" waterboarded after being briefed on interrogation techniques over a dozen times. Yeah, you better get to puttin that file together. Your guys are too stupid to do it themselves.

Like Scott just said... the NIE is either the gold standard or it isn't so which is it?

[TheMojoPin]

I think a large issue with pushing impeachment is that they don't have a significant majority at all and odds are amost guarenteeing that it would go nowhere.

[TheMojoPin]

Dude, I just want accurate information. If the NIE is the "gold standard" to Cheney in 2003 and not now, but the opponents of Bush are using the NIE as the "gold standard" now that it shows us information that goes against the Bush Administration, I feel that both sides are using it for their own agenda.

Hey, I'm with you on this. I'm wary of it because I have little confidence in the international intelligence abilitis of our country in that region. I want it to be true, but I hopr they're just not fooling themselves again.

[Jujubees2]

Dude, I just want accurate information. If the NIE is the "gold standard" to Cheney in 2003 and not now, but the opponents of Bush are using the NIE as the "gold standard" now that it shows us information that goes against the Bush Administration, I feel that both sides are using it for their own agenda.

The problem is that the info used to go into Iraq was not compiled by the NIE (which is a group of intelligent agencies). It was a bunch of info that was hand-picked by the administration that "fit" their agenda.

The current NIE report on Iran was done the correct way, with input from all the various agencies without pressure from the White House, which is why it refutes everything the Bushies believe.

So we are comparing apples to oranges here.

[NortonRules]

Don't forget Iran has been telling the world they have WMD's and intend on using them.

[epo]

Don't forget Iran has been telling the world they have WMD's and intend on using them.

So did Saddam, but that didn't make it true.

[TheMojoPin]

Don't forget Iran has been telling the world they have WMD's and intend on using them.

Back this up, please. Their president has definitely tried to swing his balls around talking like they would use the big guns if they had them and were pushed, but I must have completely missed when he said that they hae them and WILL use them no matter what.

[badmonkey]

The problem is that the info used to go into Iraq was not compiled by the NIE (which is a group of intelligent agencies). It was a bunch of info that was hand-picked by the administration that "fit" their agenda.

The current NIE report on Iran was done the correct way, with input from all the various agencies without pressure from the White House, which is why it refutes everything the Bushies believe.

So we are comparing apples to oranges here.

The NIE report on Iran says they stopped their nuclear weapons program in 2003. We're almost into 2008. Why did it take us almost 5 yrs to find that out? If they started it back up in 2004, will we be finding that out in next years NIE report on Iran? If the NIE report is almost 5yrs behind on Iran, then why would it not be 5yrs behind on Iraq as well? If the NIE report is 5yrs behind, then isn't it just about worthless when it comes to making a decision for or against going to war immediately? Maybe Bush didn't lie, maybe his NIE report was based on the information Clinton's administration used in 1998 to bomb Iraq over their WMD's in order to push Monica out of the news cycle. Who's fabricating what? Hindsight 20/20? Illuminati got you down? Write your own conspiracy! (http://www.cjnetworks.com/~cubsfan/conspiracy.html)

[Furtherman]

Don't forget Iran has been telling the world they have WMD's and intend on using them.

Oh yea, I forgot about his UN speech this past summer... didn't he say "We have the bomb and intend to use it!" :dry:

[scottinnj]

Oh yea, I forgot about his UN speech this past summer... didn't he say "We have the bomb and intend to use it!" :dry:


Yeah...right after he took off his shoe and used it as a gavel.

Oh wait, that was that other lunatic......


http://www.russiablog.org/Krushchev-boot.jpg

[scottinnj]

So did Saddam, but that didn't make it true.

Oh my God, are you right. He was so entrenched in the lie about WMDs that two weeks before we invaded he knew we were coming in, and told his generals to do what they could to repel us but not to count on gas/biological munitions because he didn't have any. The generals who were interrogated post-invasion were pissed. Saddam wanted the world to think he had WMDs because he was scared of an invasion from Iran if they knew he didn't have a functioning WMD program with the stockpiles everyone in the world assumed he had. He was hoping his allies on the UN security council (those he had bought off in the UN oil-for-food debacle) would prevent the U.S. from going in. Then he would wait for the sanctions to be lifted altogether, and resume his WMD program.

How one jerk-off got away with this is just again my concern about the NIE reports and in general foreign intelligence.


Now we are in the dark regarding Iran. I don't care if it's Earth II and President Hillary Clinton saying "We need to invade, Iran has the bomb" or President Guiliani saying "Iran is still 5 years from developing the bomb, we can use diplomacy and sanctions"

Either way, if we are wrong, we're fucked-with Putin doing what he is doing lately, we can't count on Russia helping us with the containment option.

We know Iran doesn't have the bomb yet. We just aren't sure how far along they are in developing it. And that is dangerous in of itself. Dangerous enough to invade or bomb? I don't know, my gut says no. But we need to find out fast so we can base our policy on real truths and not waste resources, soldiers, sailors and airmens lives just to get "caught up" on what is going on.

[epo]

Oh my God, are you right. He was so entrenched in the lie about WMDs that two weeks before we invaded he knew we were coming in, and told his generals to do what they could to repel us but not to count on gas/biological munitions because he didn't have any. The generals who were interrogated post-invasion were pissed. Saddam wanted the world to think he had WMDs because he was scared of an invasion from Iran if they knew he didn't have a functioning WMD program with the stockpiles everyone in the world assumed he had. He was hoping his allies on the UN security council (those he had bought off in the UN oil-for-food debacle) would prevent the U.S. from going in. Then he would wait for the sanctions to be lifted altogether, and resume his WMD program.

How one jerk-off got away with this is just again my concern about the NIE reports and in general foreign intelligence.

Now we are in the dark regarding Iran. I don't care if it's Earth II and President Hillary Clinton saying "We need to invade, Iran has the bomb" or President Guiliani saying "Iran is still 5 years from developing the bomb, we can use diplomacy and sanctions"

Either way, if we are wrong, we're fucked-with Putin doing what he is doing lately, we can't count on Russia helping us with the containment option.

We know Iran doesn't have the bomb yet. We just aren't sure how far along they are in developing it. And that is dangerous in of itself. Dangerous enough to invade or bomb? I don't know, my gut says no. But we need to find out fast so we can base our policy on real truths and not waste resources, soldiers, sailors and airmens lives just to get "caught up" on what is going on.

I understand your point completely, and this is what makes our Middle East policy a fucking trainwreck. Stick with me here:

Bush had everything going for him after 9/11 his pronouncement in 2001 that the war on terrorism was going to be a "different kind of war (http://www.guardian.co.uk/waronterror/story/0,,555705,00.html)."

"The mindset of war must change," Mr Bush said on Wednesday. "It is a different type of battlefield. It is a different type of war." The battles, he said, "will be fought visibly sometimes, and sometimes we'll never see what may be taking place".

I couldn't agree with that assessment more. It is a different kind of war, it's a war against rogue organizations rather than nation-states. Of course after attacking Afghanistan with the support of the world, he completely deviated off of that course. He attacked a sovereign-nation state.

So instead of a global intelligence/special ops war with the support of the UN and all of it's nation states, Bush completely traded it all in for Iraq & Saddam.

Now one of our biggest problems is supposed to be the Al-Qaeda based in Iran attacking our troops. But because of our shitting on the UN & it's nation states and our faulty intelligence we have nothing we really can do about it.

And if Iran is developing any weapons, it will take the world community to identify it. We've lost everything for Iraq.

What is the way to fix this? I can't see anything other than a new president going to the UN and "setting a new course". Until then I can't see anything but a disaster in Iraq and a scary pain-in-the-ass in Iran.

[scottinnj]

Why the hell are you Mojo and me agreeing so much so lately.

Did you guys have Yerdaddy put moderate pills in my morning coffee lately?

[epo]

Why the hell are you Mojo and me agreeing so much so lately.

Did you guys have Yerdaddy put moderate pills in my morning coffee lately?

Our nation is such a mess and it's so obvious at this point the things that went wrong. Seeing as we all want the best for our nation we just want a logical fix to this trainwreck.

Either that or really good pills.

[Yerdaddy]

Dude, I just want accurate information. If the NIE is the "gold standard" to Cheney in 2003 and not now, but the opponents of Bush are using the NIE as the "gold standard" now that it shows us information that goes against the Bush Administration, I feel that both sides are using it for their own agenda.

My post wasn't meat to address the validity of the current NIE on Iran. It was a verifiable account of one of the ways in which it can be proven that the Bush administration manipulated the Iraq WMD NIE based on publicly available mainstream news sources - the same story I've told a dozen times for more than four years. It was a direct response to the implication that the Bush administration didn't lie, but were only following the assessments of the intelligence community. That statement is and has been provably false since that NIE was provided to the public.

And his response - to ignore and obfuscate my story rather than to verify or disprove it on its merits are an example of how the right has treated evidence-based opposition to the war and how it was sold to the public from the beginning. And that is the fundamental issue that, if conservatives themselves don't resolve for themselves, sooner or later will take us into another Iraq and very possibly the WWIII that many of them - like Rudy's boy, Podhertz - have been pushing us towards just like the neocons pushed us into Iraq. All they need is approval or aquiesence from their base of support and there's nothing the left or "the middle" can do to stop it. It's in your guys' hands to either learn the lessons of Iraq or to ignore them. That's all I'm saying.

[scottinnj]

It's in your guys' hands to either learn the lessons of Iraq or to ignore them. That's all I'm saying.

You mean you trust us to do the right thing in Iran? I think we have reached a new plateau in our relationship, Yerdaddy! :tongue:


Seriously, I'm really really paying attention this time in the primaries. I hope you guys do too. I seriously am not going to help nominate a candidate who is going to lead us into war with Iran. I mean, without a damn good reason. And simply having WMDs is not a good enough reason anymore.
So I promise to do a good job this time. And I hope you guys do too.

[scottinnj]

And his response - to ignore and obfuscate my story rather than to verify or disprove it on its merits are an example of how the right has treated evidence-based opposition to the war and how it was sold to the public from the beginning.

Are you talking about badmonkey? I noticed you two had a few choice words for each other.

You and I have had this argument before..the whole "Bush lied" "No he didn't" discussion.

I consider it a moot point now. Whether you and I disagree on the rollup to the war, I think we agree that post-invasion Iraq hasn't gone as swimmingly for us neo-cons as we had hoped.

So now I'm looking for someone who can get us out of Iraq, or at least continue to bear most of the burden.
And deal with Iran the correct way. Whether that person is Democrat or Republican, I'm going to vote for that person

I promise

[Yerdaddy]

Are you talking about badmonkey? I noticed you two had a few choice words for each other.

You and I have had this argument before..the whole "Bush lied" "No he didn't" discussion.

I consider it a moot point now. Whether you and I disagree on the rollup to the war, I think we agree that post-invasion Iraq hasn't gone as swimmingly for us neo-cons as we had hoped.

So now I'm looking for someone who can get us out of Iraq, or at least continue to bear most of the burden.
And deal with Iran the correct way. Whether that person is Democrat or Republican, I'm going to vote for that person

I promise

How can I consider the question of how we got into Iraq moot when the right ignores all evidence of manipulation of intelligence when the end-product leads to war, but dismisses the intel community's judgements when it doesn't? The right dominates American foreign policy even when Democrats are in the White House, (it's why we pulled out of Somalia, pussed out of intervening in Rwanda, and refused to tailor the sanctions on Iraq to target the regime instead of the Iraqi public). If conservatives don't learn from their mistakes on Iraq they will be willingly manipulated into backing another attack on Iran, (definitely if there is any kind of terrorist attack on US soil and very possibly even without it.)

I trust you as an individual, (and several other conservatives on the board), to make rational decisions. But you are not the majority of conservatives. And, if you refuse to question the tactics of your party's representatives in power and allow them to do the same thing again then they will and you'll believe them. The hypothetical question I'm pondering is: if the Bush administration - or a Giuliani administration - decided in their last year to manipulate the intelligence community's output in the same way they did in '02-'03, and the right has refused to address what they did before, then why would I expect you all to stand up to them this time when you all have ignored the evidence of manipulation from then until now? Basically, and with all due respect, if the story I told about the old NIE is true, (and it is), why should I trust you this time? And it it's not true, why has no conservative, in the four years I've been telling the exact same story, ever even addressed the assertions in it? If it's wrong, I would expect someone to be able to prove it wrong by now. If it's right, I would expect those who don't want to aknowledge that their political leaders did this to ignore and obfuscate - or even say it's moot.

So you see where my concearns lie?

[scottinnj]

How can I consider the question of how we got into Iraq moot...

I just meant for sake of discussion. But yeah, you have a point. It's the whole "ignore the past, make the same mistake again" argument right?

I don't think the Bush Administration (in particular) or a hypothetical Republican Administration that follows Bush will be able to get away with going into war with Iran using the same saber rattling we used before the 2003 invasion. Just look at the 2006 elections: Democrats took over the House overwhelmingly and also took over the Senate and their only national campaign motto was: Get Out Of Iraq. I think the congressional poll numbers are so low is not a result of some sinister revalation of a liberal plot-it is because the Americans who voted them in expected them to do what they said they were going to do.
Having said that, I just believe that unless Iran test fires a nuke above ground in the next two to three years, I don't think the American people are ready to commit to a war with Iran.

The argument can (and should) be made on pulling out of Iraq within the next year on one of two beliefs about the surge:

1) If the surge failed, as a lot of Democrats are saying, then we should pull out because Iraq is a lost cause and we have spent too much blood and treasure on them.

2) If the surge worked, and stability is appearing in Iraq, as many Republicans are saying, then we should pull out because the Iraqis have demonstrated they are able to take over control of their country, and we can say mission accomplished.

I happen to go with argument 2) but whichever one you want to use, the result is the same: withdrawal of American soldiers from Iraq next year.

[Yerdaddy]

I just meant for sake of discussion. But yeah, you have a point. It's the whole "ignore the past, make the same mistake again" argument right?

I don't think the Bush Administration (in particular) or a hypothetical Republican Administration that follows Bush will be able to get away with going into war with Iran using the same saber rattling we used before the 2003 invasion. Just look at the 2006 elections: Democrats took over the House overwhelmingly and also took over the Senate and their only national campaign motto was: Get Out Of Iraq. I think the congressional poll numbers are so low is not a result of some sinister revalation of a liberal plot-it is because the Americans who voted them in expected them to do what they said they were going to do.
Having said that, I just believe that unless Iran test fires a nuke above ground in the next two to three years, I don't think the American people are ready to commit to a war with Iran.

The argument can (and should) be made on pulling out of Iraq within the next year on one of two beliefs about the surge:

1) If the surge failed, as a lot of Democrats are saying, then we should pull out because Iraq is a lost cause and we have spent too much blood and treasure on them.

2) If the surge worked, and stability is appearing in Iraq, as many Republicans are saying, then we should pull out because the Iraqis have demonstrated they are able to take over control of their country, and we can say mission accomplished.

I happen to go with argument 2) but whichever one you want to use, the result is the same: withdrawal of American soldiers from Iraq next year.

Good arguments. Thanks for acknowledging the importance of knowing whether we were lied to and restoring a bit of my hope.

Re: Whether we're capable of making the same mistake in Iran:

I'm a college drop-out and the poster child for hack armchair generals. Yet I've been able to predict the miserable failures of this war and occupation and I did it using publically available information, like the opinions of generals, the Army War College, ME experts, Bush I's own public writings, and other credible sources I listed previously. The thing that freaks me out the most, however, is how little impact those sources actually had on the public's perception of what is and will happen, and whether or not to support this thing before and after the invasion. The public's decision to support this war from the beginning was never a rational decision. The public's unwillingness to revisit why they believed the things they did - that the administration was telling the truth about Saddam's WMD, links to al-Qaeda, and even the (never openly stated but constantly implied) assertion that Saddam was involved with the 9-11 attacks - leads me to believe they are capable of the same irrational and self-destructive decisions regarding a similar war. Further evidence is that every Republican candidate, while searching for a ways to tell their base what they want to hear, are concluding that the base wants aggressive action on Iran - even after this report should lead to at least a careful reconsideration of the threat Iran poses, just like the intel on Iraq actually begged those same questions. But it's not happening. The candidates have all reaffirmed their aggressive promises while Republican foreign policy liminaries like Podhertz and John Bolton have made absurd public arguments that the NIE is a CIA plot to support Iran against Bush.

Now I'm not asking: "why didn't everyone listen to me?!" I'm asking: "Why didn't enough people listen to the generals, CIA and DoE professionals, Bush's father, etc.?!" And if not then, why not now either? While I agree with you that many conservatives are considering the costs of Iraq in assessing the information about Iran, there seem to be even more who are still thinking only in terms of what their ideological gurus and politicians have to say; they're still acting on the obvious misconception that Ahmadenutjob is the decision-maker in Iran and taking his crazy-talk as literal expressions of Iranian policy and real-world facts; and perhaps most of all, they're NOT asking what would be the repurcussions of an attack on Iran - how would they retaliate against us in Iraq, in the Gulf, in international terrorism, in Israel, in OPEC, etc? Most conservatives seem to me to be either ignoring the question altogether, or they're parroting the randomly irrational tough-talk about Iran, (and that's not including the significant core of right-wing nut jobs who spend most of thier time attacking liberals on every subject, or preaching in megachurches about how America's foreign policy needs to be aimed at luring Christ back to earth). In short, I don't see conservatives calling for reason on the issue of attacking Iran, (to tell the truth, I don't see enough liberals or anyone else doing or saying the right thing to stop this catastrophe, except the people who put together this NIE). What I do see is every leading Republican presidential candidate determining that their base wants to hear promises of aggression and giving them just that.

Re: The surge:

I think it's both 1 and 2. The surge has brought about major improvements in security and stability. However, the diplomatic effort to put pressure on the Iraqi government - to force them to take advantage of this window of opportunity and reconcile the critical issues they've been avoiding for years now - is a miserable failure. That was the point of the surge - and the Democrats' calls for redeployment and timetables for withdrawal - and it's not happening. What to do in this situation? I don't think we should withdraw. I agree with Powell's principle that "if you break it you bought it". I think we'll be judged for generations on what condition we actually leave Iraq in - not whether we Americans think the effort is worth our own expenses. We've pretended war is not a moral question for too long. It is, and we should and will be judged accordingly and will be paying those costs for as long as we pay the financial costs of this war. I think we need to be talking to Iraq's neighbors and offering them real carrots and sticks for their interference in Iraq. That will mean finally committing wholly to Iraq, and we can then go to the Iraqi government as their main partner in their efforts to build a stable unified country and defeat the various movements who want to see Iraq destroyed.

Do I think this has a chance of happening under this administration? Little or none. And as for the next administration? Only under McCain or Clinton - in that order.

[high fly]

.And his response - to ignore and obfuscate my story rather than to verify or disprove it on its merits are an example of how the right has treated evidence-based opposition to the war and how it was sold to the public from the beginning.


Amazing isn't it?
For years now the evidence of how they cooked the intelligence and even set up the Office of Special Plans to present discredited reports as finished, analyzed intelligence has been made public, yet they never seem to get it.

I never cease to be aestruck at the way they first ignore just mountains of evidence, and thenare utterly incapable of holding anyone responsible for actions that have gotten 3,889 Americans killed as of December 14, 2007, tens of thousands more horribly wounded, many suffering loss of eyesight, limbs and/or internal organs, not to mention TBI and other brain injuries.
But look how upset they get at those who killed far less Americans on 9/11.......

[scottinnj]

But look how upset they get at those who killed far less Americans on 9/11.......

C'mon HighFly, don't close your argument with a statement like that. It totally invalidates your entire argument, and that type of tone that was taken by the left prior to the invasion is why your words were ignored in the first place.

Is that implying you don't care about terrorists attacking us? Or that you sympathize with their "cause?"

You see how easily you're dismissed when making such an arrogant statement like that?



And I'm not trying to be mean, I'm honestly pointing out something that I think you should consider. To all those who think of jumping on HighFly for that statement, I have to say HighFly is a fine and decent person, and is just being "passionate" in this debate.

[Yerdaddy]

and that type of tone that was taken by the left prior to the invasion is why your words were ignored in the first place.

Maybe. But it doesn't explain why the words of General Anthony Zinni, Brent Scowcroft, George H. W. Bush, the Army War College, DoE scientists and other good sources were ignored.

[scottinnj]

Maybe. But it doesn't explain why the words of General Anthony Zinni, Brent Scowcroft, George H. W. Bush, the Army War College, DoE scientists and other good sources were ignored.

You forgot Pat Buchanan, but other then that, touche, my freind!

[high fly]

C'mon HighFly, don't close your argument with a statement like that. It totally invalidates your entire argument, and that type of tone that was taken by the left prior to the invasion is why your words were ignored in the first place.

Is that implying you don't care about terrorists attacking us? Or that you sympathize with their "cause?"

You see how easily you're dismissed when making such an arrogant statement like that?



And I'm not trying to be mean, I'm honestly pointing out something that I think you should consider. To all those who think of jumping on HighFly for that statement, I have to say HighFly is a fine and decent person, and is just being "passionate" in this debate.


It doesn't invalidate my argument at all.

The fact is, the official death count for Iraq is now 3,893 as of December 17 and those Americans are dead because the Bush administration lied about an imminent threat that did not exist.

They whipped up fears with talk about mushroom clouds and implications of Iraqi UAV's spraying Americans with anthrax and small pox.

Those 3,893 Americans are dead because of what the Bush administration did.

Yet you right-wingers don't seem to mind at all. You have no inclination for holding them responsible for their actions.

Yes, many Democrats believed the lies, but most of them voted against giving Bush the authority in the vote that Bush promised wouldn't lead to war.

* But it was Bush's orders that started the dibacle rolling.

* It was the Bush administation which lied.

* It was the Bush administration that set up the OSP to cherry-pick intelligence.

* It was the Bush administration which deleted hundreds of thousands of troops from the invasion plan.

* It was the Bush administration which refused to plan for an insurgency, despite many warnings.


All those blunders and more are why the blood of those 3,893 Americans are on the hands of the Bush administration and they will find it doesn't wash off so easily.....
.

[high fly]

Maybe. But it doesn't explain why the words of General Anthony Zinni, Brent Scowcroft, George H. W. Bush, the Army War College, DoE scientists and other good sources were ignored.

Others who were ignored were:

* General (USA ret.) H. Norman Schwartzkoff

* Admiral William J. Crowe

* General (USMC ret.) Joseph Hoar

* Highly-decorated hero David Hackworth


Henry Kissinger sounded as if he was against it until he published clarifications with lots of qualifications on his statements




...and scott, my point remains, the one you ran away from,

I never cease to be awestruck at the way they first ignore just mountains of evidence, and then are utterly incapable of holding anyone responsible for actions that have gotten 3,889 Americans killed as of December 14, 2007, tens of thousands more horribly wounded, many suffering loss of eyesight, limbs and/or internal organs, not to mention TBI and other brain injuries.

[scottinnj]

Highfly, I didn't run away from your point. I still disagree with you and Yerdaddy that the Administration lied about WMDs. Remember that a lot of Democrats who voted against the war from the beginning believed he had WMDs.


My point was that your last statement invalidated your argument because of history.

At Pearl Harbor we lost 2402 Navy, Marines Army and civilians.

To take Iwo Jima alone, it was at a cost of 6891 US Marines.

To end World War II altogether, it cost America 408306 lives.


Did FDRs war mean that he cared more about the "far fewer" Americans killed at Pearl Harbor then he did about the dead and wounded Americans that fought in WWII?

Do we stop fighting because the dead soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan equal the amount of dead inflicted on 9/11? Do we just count the dead on 9/11 and line up 3000 Muslims, shoot them and call it even?

No, of course not. You fight a war and win it.

[Yerdaddy]

I still disagree with you and Yerdaddy that the Administration lied about WMDs.

Like an idiot I'm going to write out the exact same example I've posted for years of why we as citizens of a democracy should be without doubt convinced that the Bush administration lied us into Iraq and, if we weren't such short bus passengers we'd have impeach the lot of them before the war began, and once again it will be ignored and distorted by the board conservatives just like the rest of American conservatism has done for four years. I hate myself for doing this.

Aluminum tubes. The Bush administration said repeatedly in the State of the Union speech, in Colin Powell's UN speech, and repeatedly in every other public discussion of Iraq that Saddam's regime was using them as part of an active uranium-enriching program. The 2003 NIE said the same in the main body of the report. However, as it was reported in the print media at the time, the sole source of that conclusion was the CIA, and in particular, a single right-wing analyst with only a tertiary academic training in nuclear weapons programs. Also at the time the print media reported what the collective understanding of the professional intelligence community was: that the true nuclear experts in the US intelligence community are the US Department of Energy - the agency that builds and maintains our own nuclear arsenal. It was there assessment prior to the NIE that the aluminum tubes were "almost certainly" NOT intended for enriching uranium, that if they were being used for enrichment they were a poor choice, and that they were probably intended to be used for making rockets. This opinion of the true nuclear intelligence experts was relegated in the NIE to an addendum at the back of the report.

Why was this so, when the intelligence professionals were of the collective opinion that the DoE were the best experts? Because that NIE was not compiled by intelligence experts but by political appointees who changed the organizational structure to exclude the professionals who would normally compile an NIE on the basis of established objective methodology and instead the partisans compiled it themselves in their own "Office of Special Plans".

When the seriously flawed NIE came out and was clearly the basis of administration policy on Iraq scientists at the DoE and intel analysts at other agencies told the press what had happened and it was reported in the print media. But we don't read newspapers in America so that story slowly died as conservatives pushed the NIE at face value, (and the administration pushed a case that went way beyond even the blatantly manipulated NIE), and liberals stomped around and flagellated themselves to a "no blood for oil" chant beat. To be fair there were moderate liberals and conservatives who tried to press the issue of why the tube story was blatantly manipulated, but because most of the American public couldn't muster the will to read a story instead of have it read to them by waxy animatrons in between Viagra commercials and breaking Anna Nichole Smith rehab alerts, the story faded away and conventional wisdom became the convenient: the intelligence community fucked up.

Whatever anyone may think of my own biases, the fact remains that the DoE's assessment is the only one the intelligence professionals care about on nuclear issues and it was relegated to a footnote in that report. There's no way the intel pros did that themselves. That subjugating of the intelligence process alone, (but along with many other similar examples), is why I have no doubt that the Bush administration did not just lie us into the war in Iraq, but they deliberatey conspired to produce intelligence reports to cover up their own lies.

And I have no doubt that just like the dozen or so times I've told this exact same verifiable story it will be ignored or distorted and prove to be a complete waste of time because the sides have been chosen and the right has no interest in admitting any more wrongdoing by its leaders than it absolutely has to and because this story can't be summed up in a sound byte they don't have to.

And the fact that you don't care if or why this happened and instead will continue only accept facts that support Bush's presentation of the political world is the reason that YOU are confused as to why others might dare to think Bush is a liar.

Let the obfuscation commence!.

[scottinnj]

Or it could have been that Saddam was so afraid of an invasion of Iran, he did whatever it took to have the world community believe he had WMDs, a viable nuclear weapons program and the willingness to pass those weapons off to terrorists. And we bought it hook line and sinker.

[epo]

Or it could have been that Saddam was so afraid of an invasion of Iran, he did whatever it took to have the world community believe he had WMDs, a viable nuclear weapons program and the willingness to pass those weapons off to terrorists. And we bought it hook line and sinker.

Scott, I believe that Saddam was selling that whole-heartedly...but I also believe that our intelligence agencies knew better. Otherwise there is no way that we would have allowed him to stay in power so long after the first Gulf War.

Bush calling off Blix and his hunt early told me everything I needed to know.

[scottinnj]

All valid points. I commend you epo, Mojo, highfly and Yerdaddy. I gotta say, you guys always thoroughly read (and reread when I ask) my posts and return fire with vigor passion and respect.

Now to get back on track about the NIE and the Iranians dabbling with nuclear technology. And I'll admit it was my fault we went back down the "Bush lied/No he didn't" road again.

I just came across this entry (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/18/world/middleeast/18diplo.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin)while purusing the NY Times tonight.

It could be a blessing in disguise. Russia seems to be choosing to make a deal with the devil, and also trying to make the US look stupid.

However, if the US and the UN could follow up with diplomacy, and make it clear the world does not want the Iranians to obtain nuclear weapons, maybe they can be convinced to live with nuclear fuel being provided to them and quit figuring out how to enrich it themselves, and in doing so, make a nuclear bomb.

[high fly]

Highfly, I didn't run away from your point. I still disagree with you and Yerdaddy that the Administration lied about WMDs. Remember that a lot of Democrats who voted against the war from the beginning believed he had WMDs.


My point was that your last statement invalidated your argument because of history.

First off, there was never a vote for the war.
There was a vote giving Bush a military option in negotiations, but Bush himself, on October 7, 2002, when he asked for the authority, said the vote was not one for war.
He also made another lie amidst the cavalcade of dishonesty, when he promised not to invade without a UN authorization that asked us to do so.

Second, the administration told a number of bald-faced lies, such as when Dick Cheney told us on March 16, 2003 that we have "no doubt" that Saddam "has reconstituted nuclear weapons."

Another was when Bush referred to the Saddam son-in-law who defected. Bush said he told us of an ongoing nuke program when the truth was he told us it had been shut down in 1990 and not restarted.

Bush lied when he said said Sadam would give WMD to terrorists when the truth was the intel he had - the Oct. 2002 NIE said the opposite.

The Bush administration lied about al Qaeda operating out of Iraq.

There are many more, and if you want to do a thread on them I have extensive documentation to share - the same stuff that has somehow eluded you the last 4 years even though it was front-page news.





At Pearl Harbor we lost 2402 Navy, Marines Army and civilians.

To take Iwo Jima alone, it was at a cost of 6891 US Marines.

To end World War II altogether, it cost America 408306 lives.


Did FDRs war mean that he cared more about the "far fewer" Americans killed at Pearl Harbor then he did about the dead and wounded Americans that fought in WWII?

Do we stop fighting because the dead soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan equal the amount of dead inflicted on 9/11? Do we just count the dead on 9/11 and line up 3000 Muslims, shoot them and call it even?

No, of course not. You fight a war and win it.



Again, you address the point you pretend I made, rather than the one I actually did.
Here it is again:


I never cease to be awestruck at the way they first ignore just mountains of evidence, and then are utterly incapable of holding anyone responsible for actions that have gotten 3,889 Americans killed as of December 14, 2007, tens of thousands more horribly wounded, many suffering loss of eyesight, limbs and/or internal organs, not to mention TBI and other brain injuries.
But look how upset they get at those who killed far less Americans on 9/11.......




The point is right-wingers are ready to go to war with the terrorists who killed nearly 3,000 Americans on 9/11, but they refuse to hold Bush accountable for getting nearly 4,000 Americans killed when it was not necessary.
They also ignore mountains of evidence the Bush administration lied about the intelligence they were receiving.

World War II was necessary.

The Iraq invasion was not.

Iraq was bottled up and was going to stay bottled up as long as the U.S. is on the UN Security Council.
Iraq was not able to harm anyone outside of it's borders and was not doing so.
Iraq WAS serving our interests by being a strategic counterweight to Iran in the region, and a bastion against jihadist Islamic fundamentalism.
The administration decided to go to war, then sought rationales to do so and went so far as to lie like hell, getting thousands of Americans killed because of their dishonesty.

They even went so far as to set up the Office of Special Plans to take discredited intelligence reports and pretend they were analyzed, finished intelligence.
They have also botched the war from the beginning.

My point was, and is, that you right-wingers refuse to hold the Bush administration accountable for their lies and bungling of this war.

Me?
I'm enraged that we werre attacked on 9/11 and I am fiurious the Bush administration and its apologists are so fucking blase about throwing away the lives of nearly 4,000 Americans.




"GREAT IS THE GUILT OF AN UNNECESSARY WAR - John Adams

[scottinnj]

Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam, circa 1980s

http://www.notinkansas.us/Images/rumsfeld-hussein.jpg




I do. It was posted about 100,000 times in various boards prior to the Iraq invasion, because even you guys believed he had WMDs "because we gave it to him!"

You can't play it both ways. Before the invasion, we shouldn't have invaded because we were responsible for his WMD program in the first place, and post-invasion, we shouldn't have gone in because he didn't have WMDs and it was Bush all along, lying to us.

[high fly]

Maybe. But it doesn't explain why the words of General Anthony Zinni, Brent Scowcroft, George H. W. Bush, the Army War College, DoE scientists and other good sources were ignored.

Others the administration refused to listen to:

Army Secretary Tom White

Army General Ernest Shinseki

Lt. Gen. David McKiernan

Maj. Gen. James Thurman

General (USA ret.) Colin Powell

Lawrence Eagleberger

Robert Novak

James A Baker III

Andrew Bacevich

Yerdaddy, is that Army War College reference to the publication of “Force Requirements in Stability Operations” in Parameters back in 1995?
That would be the study that found that 4-10 soldiers would be needed for every 1,000 civilians in a permissive environment, but 20 troops per 1,000 citizens when an insurgency was active.

There were also numerous studies made from the Brookings Institution to the Pentagon to many other organizations which told us to prepare to secure the country once we took it, yet the administration thought they could just jury-rig something on the fly.

”The greatest concern after Saddam falls is that security vacuums will remain unfilled by legitimate authorities,” Mitchell [Sandra Mitchell, vice president of the International Rescue Committee] said. “If those vacuums aren’t filled by legitimate authorities, they will be filled by radicals, hardliners and spoilers who will seize the opportunity to gain power by fear and retribution.”
She added, We’ve received no satisfactory answer that the coalition forces will fill these vacuums. We’ve been told that policing is still something to be determined.”
- “Prolonged Iraq War May Imperil Reconstruction Analysts Foresee More Complex Problems for U.S.,” by Peter Slevin, Washington Post, March 28, 2003

[high fly]

.Like an idiot I'm going to write out the exact same example I've posted for years of why we as citizens of a democracy should be without doubt convinced that the Bush administration lied us into Iraq and, if we weren't such short bus passengers we'd have impeach the lot of them before the war began, and once again it will be ignored and distorted by the board conservatives just like the rest of American conservatism has done for four years. I hate myself for doing this.




Yerdaddy, I know what you mean.
I stand in complete awe of the way they can have a mountain of evidence placed before them, and still hang on to what are out and out lies.

Good grief, we just had all the publicity about "Curveball," who was the only source for the mobile WMD allegation and the WMD lab "accident" described by Colin Powell in his Security Council presentation.

There has been all kinds of stuff by the best intelligence professionals out there that Saddam's secular government not only was not allowing al Qaeda to operate from Iraq, but was hostile to al Qaeda because al Qaeda wanted to overthrow Saddam!


I think part of it has been the shoot-the-messenger approach by Limpbaugh and Manatee and others. They stand naked when the truth comes out so they decide to blame the messengers - the media - rather than the message.
This is why the right-wingers are seldom well-informed on these boards because Limpbaugh and Manatee talk them into believing cliches and being distrustful of anyone but a right-wing ideologue.

Then they bring that stuff to a message board and get slaughtered.

The amazing thing to me is they keep going back to what they know is a poisoned well....

[TheMojoPin]

Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam, circa 1980s

http://www.notinkansas.us/Images/rumsfeld-hussein.jpg




I do. It was posted about 100,000 times in various boards prior to the Iraq invasion, because even you guys believed he had WMDs "because we gave it to him!"

You can't play it both ways. Before the invasion, we shouldn't have invaded because we were responsible for his WMD program in the first place, and post-invasion, we shouldn't have gone in because he didn't have WMDs and it was Bush all along, lying to us.

There's a difference between that he had WMD's that he used aganst the Kurds that were based out of resources and intel given/sold to him by us during the Iraq/Iran War and that automatically meaning that he still had WMD's by the tim of the 2003 invasion. You can have it "both ways" since neither negates nor proves the other.

[Knowledged_one]

Yerdaddy, I know what you mean.
I stand in complete awe of the way they can have a mountain of evidence placed before them, and still hang on to what are out and out lies.

Good grief, we just had all the publicity about "Curveball," who was the only source for the mobile WMD allegation and the WMD lab "accident" described by Colin Powell in his Security Council presentation.

There has been all kinds of stuff by the best intelligence professionals out there that Saddam's secular government not only was not allowing al Qaeda to operate from Iraq, but was hostile to al Qaeda because al Qaeda wanted to overthrow Saddam!


I think part of it has been the shoot-the-messenger approach by Limpbaugh and Manatee and others. They stand naked when the truth comes out so they decide to blame the messengers - the media - rather than the message.
This is why the right-wingers are seldom well-informed on these boards because Limpbaugh and Manatee talk them into believing cliches and being distrustful of anyone but a right-wing ideologue.

Then they bring that stuff to a message board and get slaughtered.

The amazing thing to me is they keep going back to what they know is a poisoned well....

Could you be more condescending and warped then you already are? So all right wingers are not well informed while all of you liberals had it right the whole time

And kudos to the Limpbaugh and Manatee comments those are the pinnacles of comedy, you sir are a genius

[Knowledged_one]

First off, there was never a vote for the war.
There was a vote giving Bush a military option in negotiations, but Bush himself, on October 7, 2002, when he asked for the authority, said the vote was not one for war.
He also made another lie amidst the cavalcade of dishonesty, when he promised not to invade without a UN authorization that asked us to do so.

Second, the administration told a number of bald-faced lies, such as when Dick Cheney told us on March 16, 2003 that we have "no doubt" that Saddam "has reconstituted nuclear weapons."

Another was when Bush referred to the Saddam son-in-law who defected. Bush said he told us of an ongoing nuke program when the truth was he told us it had been shut down in 1990 and not restarted.

Bush lied when he said said Sadam would give WMD to terrorists when the truth was the intel he had - the Oct. 2002 NIE said the opposite.

The Bush administration lied about al Qaeda operating out of Iraq.

There are many more, and if you want to do a thread on them I have extensive documentation to share - the same stuff that has somehow eluded you the last 4 years even though it was front-page news.







Again, you address the point you pretend I made, rather than the one I actually did.
Here it is again:





The point is right-wingers are ready to go to war with the terrorists who killed nearly 3,000 Americans on 9/11, but they refuse to hold Bush accountable for getting nearly 4,000 Americans killed when it was not necessary.
They also ignore mountains of evidence the Bush administration lied about the intelligence they were receiving.

World War II was necessary.

The Iraq invasion was not.

Iraq was bottled up and was going to stay bottled up as long as the U.S. is on the UN Security Council.
Iraq was not able to harm anyone outside of it's borders and was not doing so.
Iraq WAS serving our interests by being a strategic counterweight to Iran in the region, and a bastion against jihadist Islamic fundamentalism.
The administration decided to go to war, then sought rationales to do so and went so far as to lie like hell, getting thousands of Americans killed because of their dishonesty.

They even went so far as to set up the Office of Special Plans to take discredited intelligence reports and pretend they were analyzed, finished intelligence.
They have also botched the war from the beginning.

My point was, and is, that you right-wingers refuse to hold the Bush administration accountable for their lies and bungling of this war.

Me?
I'm enraged that we werre attacked on 9/11 and I am fiurious the Bush administration and its apologists are so fucking blase about throwing away the lives of nearly 4,000 Americans.




"GREAT IS THE GUILT OF AN UNNECESSARY WAR - John Adams

Go ask a member of the military to see if they think we are throwing lives away because i think you would find quite a different answer
And the mass graves that we found of the people that opposed to Saddam and just disappeared dont count. Or the fact that they had the Al Samoud II missile that exceeded the range allowed and could strike Isreal yeah they werent important

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.
John Stuart Mill

[scottinnj]

There's a difference between that he had WMD's that he used aganst the Kurds that were based out of resources and intel given/sold to him by us during the Iraq/Iran War and that automatically meaning that he still had WMD's by the tim of the 2003 invasion. You can have it "both ways" since neither negates nor proves the other.

That is why I disagree with HighFly and Yerdaddy on the lie part. I know we blew it, and had been messed up for a while. That is why I am concerned about this current NIE report and the accuracy of it, and the bigger question of what to do with Iran short of WWIII?

[epo]

That is why I disagree with HighFly and Yerdaddy on the lie part. I know we blew it, and had been messed up for a while. That is why I am concerned about this current NIE report and the accuracy of it, and the bigger question of what to do with Iran short of WWIII?

Scott, I think first of all, we should make a rule: Bush & Cheney aren't allowed to use the words "World", "War" or "Three". Anytime they disobey, Yerdaddy gets to pee in their butt in public.

But how to deal with Iran is an interesting question. The biggest problem is that this administration's credibility is shot with the world community. I would advise Bush & company to take a diplomatic backseat to the United Nations until a new administration from either side of the aisle can "set a new course" and begin discussions with the Iranians.

At least this approach wouldn't sully the pool any worse than it is now. Honestly I can't see the current group doing anything but make the situation worse diplomatically.

In the meantime, you continue to use an international intelligence coalition to gather unbiased information as to what's going on inside of their borders.

[thejives]

Scott, I think first of all, we should make a rule: Bush & Cheney aren't allowed to use the words "World", "War" or "Three". Anytime they disobey, Yerdaddy gets to pee in their butt in public.

But how to deal with Iran is an interesting question. The biggest problem is that this administration's credibility is shot with the world community. I would advise Bush & company to take a diplomatic backseat to the United Nations until a new administration from either side of the aisle can "set a new course" and begin discussions with the Iranians.

At least this approach wouldn't sully the pool any worse than it is now. Honestly I can't see the current group doing anything but make the situation worse diplomatically.

In the meantime, you continue to use an international intelligence coalition to gather unbiased information as to what's going on inside of their borders.

epo for president!

[scottinnj]

Scott, I think first of all, we should make a rule: Bush & Cheney aren't allowed to use the words "World", "War" or "Three". Anytime they disobey, Yerdaddy gets to pee in their butt in public.

Agreed.

But how to deal with Iran is an interesting question. The biggest problem is that this administration's credibility is shot with the world community. I would advise Bush & company to take a diplomatic backseat to the United Nations until a new administration from either side of the aisle can "set a new course" and begin discussions with the Iranians.

Interesting. I'll think about that one. My knee-jerk reaction is that I agree.

At least this approach wouldn't sully the pool any worse than it is now. Honestly I can't see the current group doing anything but make the situation worse diplomatically.

Yes, even if it is something that could work, no one at this point is going to take them seriously anyway.

In the meantime, you continue to use an international intelligence coalition to gather unbiased information as to what's going on inside of their borders.

Agreed. Damn those moderate pills.

[scottinnj]

Could you be more condescending and warped then you already are? So all right wingers are not well informed while all of you liberals had it right the whole time

And kudos to the Limpbaugh and Manatee comments those are the pinnacles of comedy, you sir are a genius

Go easy on HighFly, he is actually a pretty cool dude once you get to know him. As for how he posts, I'm a big boy and can handle his digs. Me and him love going round and round like this.

[scottinnj]

This is why the right-wingers are seldom well-informed on these boards because Limpbaugh and Manatee talk them into believing cliches and being distrustful of anyone but a right-wing ideologue.

Then they bring that stuff to a message board and get slaughtered.

The amazing thing to me is they keep going back to what they know is a poisoned well....

I haven't listened to Limbaugh since I got my XM, and Hannity is a douche.

It may be that some of us actually think for ourselves and read from all over, but we just came to a different conclusion then you.

[Yerdaddy]

And the mass graves that we found of the people that opposed to Saddam and just disappeared dont count. Or the fact that they had the Al Samoud II missile that exceeded the range allowed and could strike Isreal yeah they werent important

The al-Samoud II missile is the one inspectors had been destroying because were merely in technical violation of UN resolutions, (they only exceeded the range limits if equipped with smaller payloads), when the Bush administration pulled the inspectors out to launch the war. Not a good example of a reason for the war.

And at least half the countries I've been in over the last three years have mass graves. Also not a reason we went to war. (It was a reason we posted that picture of Rumsfeld shaking Saddam's hand though - rather than as evidence they had WMD, because we sold it to them. That picture illustrates the point that most of the neocons in this adminstration were part of the Bush I administration and looked the other way - and in fact blocked token Congressional legislation to punish Saddam - when those graves were being filled. Our point being: mass graves were never a reason we went into Iraq.)

[TheMojoPin]

The al-Samoud II missile is the one inspectors had been destroying because were merely in technical violation of UN resolutions, (they only exceeded the range limits if equipped with smaller payloads), when the Bush administration pulled the inspectors out to launch the war. Not a good example of a reason for the war.

And at least half the countries I've been in over the last three years have mass graves. Also not a reason we went to war. (It was a reason we posted that picture of Rumsfeld shaking Saddam's hand though - rather than as evidence they had WMD, because we sold it to them. That picture illustrates the point that most of the neocons in this adminstration were part of the Bush I administration and looked the other way - and in fact blocked token Congressional legislation to punish Saddam - when those graves were being filled. Our point being: mass graves were never a reason we went into Iraq.)

Right. It's insulting, hypocritical and flat out disgusting for his administration especially to even dream of using the mass killings of Saddam as primary reason of invasion.

[A.J.]

In the meantime, you continue to use an international intelligence coalition to gather unbiased information as to what's going on inside of their borders.

Rule number one: there are no friendly foreign intelligence services.

[TheMojoPin]

Rule number one: there are no friendly foreign intelligence services.

QFT.

[high fly]

Go ask a member of the military to see if they think we are throwing lives away because i think you would find quite a different answer

I have and you are wrong.
I happened to have been blessed to know men whose deeds on the battlefield in World War II are found in history books. I have known several who wore that pretty blue ribbon with the white stars on it.
They gave me a number of lessons on military affairs, one of the most important was that every life is precious and there is no such thing as "light casualties."
I was taught to have a high standard before sending men to die for their country, and how sick it is to send them into combat on a whim or when the national security of the nation was not threatened.
I have heard the same sentiment from serving members of the military as recently as last week.




And the mass graves that we found of the people that opposed to Saddam and just disappeared dont count.

Count for what?
As an American, what counts for me are the lives of over 3,800 Americans who did not have to die, over 28,000 who have been wounded physically, many losing eyesight, limbs, internal organs and/or have been maimed. Over 100,000 have suffered TBI or other brain injury or needed mental treatment.

You want to count?
Try counting the number of Americans who died before we invaded in the containment of Saddam - that would be zero (unless you count that helicopter of ours we shot down).

Try counting the amount of national treasure spent containing Saddam - $12 billion in 12 years, compared to over $500 billion so far with costs projected to go over $2 trillion and none of you conservatives have the faintest idea of how to pay for it all other than set new records for borrowing to cover your oceans of red ink....


By becoming focused on the internal affairs of another coutry and adopting liberal Wilsonian imperialism, you right-wingers have forgotten America's strategic interest in the Gulf and the role Saddam played in it.
He was a counterweight to Iran and was a secular bulwark against the jihadists.

The Deciderator has opened the door for Iranian expansion of influence in the Gulf, given the jihadists a California-sized live-fire battle lab and staffed it with slow-moving American targets. That Dolt-In-Chief has given them a constitution based on the Koran, which will be interpreted by mullahs trained in Iran, has placed infidel troops on the second-holiest land of all Islam, has supercharged jihadist recruiting and mired the bulk of our combat power in the middle of a civil war and factional fighting that has been going on for hundreds of years and will continue for hundreds of years.


And none of it had to happen, and would not have happened if the Bush administration had just been honest with the American people.

[high fly]

That is why I disagree with HighFly and Yerdaddy on the lie part. I know we blew it, and had been messed up for a while. That is why I am concerned about this current NIE report and the accuracy of it, and the bigger question of what to do with Iran short of WWIII?

First off, thanks for the nice words in your post #80. I'm glad you know I don't mean nuthin.'

Scott, I’m going to take this opportunity to show you two events where another president in history faced an invasion debacle and an intelligence failure and the threat of weapons of mass destruction and how it was handled by a president who knew how to lead.
While not a perfect parallel, there are a few points where valuable lessons are there to learn and show where the Bush administration was lacking in Iraq.

Let’s go back to the Cuban Missile Crisis and we’ll get to the Bay of Pigs in a moment.
We discovered the Soviets had installed missiles with nuclear warheads on them in Cuba.
President John F. Kennedy met with his civilian and military advisors about what to do.
The majority opinion was the only way to go would be to act on a “worst case scenario” and not believe the Soviets had removed every single one of them, just because they said they did and our intelligence could locate no others.
They argued the only way to be certain our nation was safe would be by invading Cuba and seeing for ourselves.
Kennedy listened to all sides before taking a decision.
One of those who was most influential in convincing JFK in not invading was Marine Corps Commandant David Shoup (disclaimer – I had the pleasure of knowing General Shoup) who earned the Medal of Honor on Tarawa.
To give them an idea of what they were considering, Shoup brought a slide projector to a briefing with President Kennedy and projected a map of the U.S. on the screen and then superimposed on it a map of Cuba, which stretched from something like New York City to Cleveland, Ohio, and upon that was a red dot.
Shoup (whose heroics on Tarawa were then widely known), said the red dot was comparatively the size of Tarawa, where we lost thousands of Marines in just a few days, and said he anticipated having to fight across the whole island and that they should prepare for such an eventuality.
For over 30 years, Kennedy’s decision was second-guessed by those who felt we could have used the excuse of WMD to install a democracy and avoid the problems of Castro since then.
In the early 1990s it came out that the Soviets did indeed have other nukes on Cuba. They had about 70 tactical nuclear weapons there and the commander had orders to use them if America invaded.
So an invasion would have ignited a nuclear war.
Think about the consequences of that.


LESSONS

1) Unlike Bush before the invasion of Iraq, Kennedy did not decide what to do and then seek rationales for doing so. Instead, he listened to all sides before taking a decision.

2) The “worst-case scenario” is not necessarily the best or safest way to go.

3) Sometimes the minority opinion is correct. What is required in a president is that he have the WISDOM to know whether to go with a minority or a majority of his advisors when a decision must be taken. Had Bush done the same thing, we would not have the Iraq fiasco, nor would Ronald “Dutch” Reagan have the cloud of his arms-for-hostages deal staining his presidency.


Now, let us turn to the Bay of Pigs invasion.
Upon his election, Kennedy was presented with a plan for an invasion of Cuban insurgents trained by the CIA. The plan had been in the works for a long time and the invasion date was upon them. Kennedy was told by the CIA they had confidence in the plan, that Cubans would rise up and it could be accomplished without active American military involvement.
Those who had been working on the thing were good, serious men of accomplishment and Kennedy agreed to go forward and the Bay of Pigs invasion occurred a couple of months into his presidency and was a debacle.
At the first cabinet meeting afterward, Kennedy asked for opinions and Moris Udahl pointed out this had been the idea of and had been prepared by the Eisenhower administration and laid at Kennedy’s feet as a fait accompli.
Kennedy cut him off and said something like, “I am president here. This happened on my watch and I’m taking full responsibility.”
JFK then went on national tv and announced what had taken place and took full blame for the whole thing.
President Kennedy then called in Allen Dulles, the director of the CIA and his director of operations. Kennedy told them something like, “If this were a parliamentary democracy, this would cost me my job. It is not, it is a democratic republic, therefore this disaster will cost you two your jobs.
Because Dulles had a long record of outstanding service to the country, rather than humiliate him by sending him packing immediately, he let him stay on for several months until things died down.

LESSONS

1) Kennedy rejected the 60s version of the “B-b-b-but Clinton” buck-passing we have seen, but took full responsibility in an address to the American people.
Others in his his administration got the word that they would be held accountable for their actions.

2) Kennedy held responsible those who had given him rosy scenarios as to the intelligence.

3) Kennedy acted quickly and decisively to tell the American people the truth, to take personal responsibility and to hold subordinates accountable.

4) Following the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis, Cuba was a pain in the ass at times, but was largely contained for decades and confined to being little more than a minor irritant.

[scottinnj]

First off, thanks for the nice words in your post #80. I'm glad you know I don't mean nuthin.'



You are welcome and thanks back for that last post. It's good to see things from your perspective.

All I need now is Midkiff to chime in with a "fuck Bush in his fucking fuckhole" post so this thread gets the jocularities it deserves. :clap:

Oh BTW since we are talking about foreign intelligence and overseas military operations and such, does anyone else here look at Michael Yon's (http://www.michaelyon-online.com/)Blog? It's pretty good and I recommend it.

[badmonkey]

Files suggest Iran kept working on nukes (http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23281156-15084,00.html)

Iran Stepping Up Its Uranium Work (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/25/world/middleeast/25iran.html?ref=world)

Iran leader hails Ahmadinejad for 'nuclear success' (http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5j4XveJWSfzCDx59K1WXTOx6KXbJA)

Here we go again....

[Yerdaddy]

Files suggest Iran kept working on nukes (http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23281156-15084,00.html)

Iran Stepping Up Its Uranium Work (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/25/world/middleeast/25iran.html?ref=world)

Iran leader hails Ahmadinejad for 'nuclear success' (http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5j4XveJWSfzCDx59K1WXTOx6KXbJA)

Here we go again....

No I'd say we're staying put.