How 'bout we not?
Via maggiesox: According to Seymour Hersh, the CIA has no firm evidence that Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapons program.
Seymour Hersh, writing in an article for the November 27 issue of the magazine The New Yorker released in advance, reported on whether the administration of Republican President George W. Bush was more, or less, inclined to attack Iran after Democrats won control of Congress last week.
I know this is absolutely par for course for this administration, but can we just sit back a second and contemplate this as a concept? What the shit are considerations like who controls Congress even doing in whether a President wants to take his country into (another) war? I can see where it might become an issue in terms of getting Congress' ok to do so, but a President's inclination should be based on what is justified, what is necessary, what is legal, and what is in the best interests of his/her country and the world.
Not that they care about Congress' ok...
Cheney said the White House would circumvent any legislative restrictions "and thus stop Congress from getting in its way," he said.
I wonder how they'd get around a "you're not allowed to bomb Iran unless it bombs us or our allies first, you malignant warmonger" resolution? I'm sure they'd find a way.
And they won't let those pesky "facts" get in their way either.
But the administration's planning of a military option was made "far more complicated" in recent months by a highly classified draft assessment by the
Central Intelligence Agency "challenging the White House's assumptions about how close Iran might be to building a nuclear bomb," he wrote.
"The CIA found no conclusive evidence, as yet, of a secret Iranian nuclear-weapons program running paallel[sic] to the civilian operations that Iran has declared to the
International Atomic Energy Agency," Hersh wrote, adding the CIA had declined to comment on that story.
A current senior intelligence official confirmed the existence of the CIA analysis and said the White House had been hostile to it, he wrote.
Cheney and his aides had discounted the assessment, the official said.
"They're not looking for a smoking gun," the official was quoted as saying, referring to specific intelligence about Iranian nuclear planning.
"They're looking for the degree of comfort level they think they need to accomplish the mission."
*head spinning* I can't believe... Is this is what they have learned from Iraq? Not that unnecessary military adventures are enormously costly in money, international goodwill, and human lives... not that they should maybe listen to actual experts and evidence that disputes their pet theories... they have learned that the bar is so incredibly low on evidence that all they have to do is be comfortable in their suspicions? It would appear so.
Of course, bombing Iran would be illegal, even if they were pursuing nuclear weapons. That's the argument I tried to make in 2002-2003 about Iraq. Actually, I was more on the "it's immoral, and also, stupid," than the "it's illegal", but it amounted to the same thing. "They don't have WMD... and even if they did, so do half the other countries on the planet. It wouldn't give us the right attack them, unless we had proof they were about to attack us."
Back then, no one wanted to hear that. My only hope is that the country seems to be much more inclined to listen now.
(May I just add that Bush has made it so the smartest thing for Iran, or any other country in our sights, to do in its own defense is to get nuclear weapons. You'll notice we're not bombing North Korea. Why does no one at the White House understand simple cause and effect?)
Seymour Hersh, writing in an article for the November 27 issue of the magazine The New Yorker released in advance, reported on whether the administration of Republican President George W. Bush was more, or less, inclined to attack Iran after Democrats won control of Congress last week.
I know this is absolutely par for course for this administration, but can we just sit back a second and contemplate this as a concept? What the shit are considerations like who controls Congress even doing in whether a President wants to take his country into (another) war? I can see where it might become an issue in terms of getting Congress' ok to do so, but a President's inclination should be based on what is justified, what is necessary, what is legal, and what is in the best interests of his/her country and the world.
Not that they care about Congress' ok...
Cheney said the White House would circumvent any legislative restrictions "and thus stop Congress from getting in its way," he said.
I wonder how they'd get around a "you're not allowed to bomb Iran unless it bombs us or our allies first, you malignant warmonger" resolution? I'm sure they'd find a way.
And they won't let those pesky "facts" get in their way either.
But the administration's planning of a military option was made "far more complicated" in recent months by a highly classified draft assessment by the
Central Intelligence Agency "challenging the White House's assumptions about how close Iran might be to building a nuclear bomb," he wrote.
"The CIA found no conclusive evidence, as yet, of a secret Iranian nuclear-weapons program running paallel[sic] to the civilian operations that Iran has declared to the
International Atomic Energy Agency," Hersh wrote, adding the CIA had declined to comment on that story.
A current senior intelligence official confirmed the existence of the CIA analysis and said the White House had been hostile to it, he wrote.
Cheney and his aides had discounted the assessment, the official said.
"They're not looking for a smoking gun," the official was quoted as saying, referring to specific intelligence about Iranian nuclear planning.
"They're looking for the degree of comfort level they think they need to accomplish the mission."
*head spinning* I can't believe... Is this is what they have learned from Iraq? Not that unnecessary military adventures are enormously costly in money, international goodwill, and human lives... not that they should maybe listen to actual experts and evidence that disputes their pet theories... they have learned that the bar is so incredibly low on evidence that all they have to do is be comfortable in their suspicions? It would appear so.
Of course, bombing Iran would be illegal, even if they were pursuing nuclear weapons. That's the argument I tried to make in 2002-2003 about Iraq. Actually, I was more on the "it's immoral, and also, stupid," than the "it's illegal", but it amounted to the same thing. "They don't have WMD... and even if they did, so do half the other countries on the planet. It wouldn't give us the right attack them, unless we had proof they were about to attack us."
Back then, no one wanted to hear that. My only hope is that the country seems to be much more inclined to listen now.
(May I just add that Bush has made it so the smartest thing for Iran, or any other country in our sights, to do in its own defense is to get nuclear weapons. You'll notice we're not bombing North Korea. Why does no one at the White House understand simple cause and effect?)