The Osterley Times: Some in G.O.P. Say Iran Threat Is Played Down

Thursday, August 24, 2006

Some in G.O.P. Say Iran Threat Is Played Down

The Bush regime are getting impatient over how much time Bush has left in office and whether or not there will be time to attack Iran before he steps down. What other possible reading is there of some senior Bush officials criticising intelligence services for not issuing more ominous warnings of the threat posed to the US by Iran?

It's almost a re-run of the same tired arguments they made before the invasion of Iraq.

Some policy makers have accused intelligence agencies of playing down Iran’s role in Hezbollah’s recent attacks against Israel and overestimating the time it would take for Iran to build a nuclear weapon.
The criticisms reflect the views of some officials inside the White House and the Pentagon who advocated going to war with Iraq and now are pressing for confronting Iran directly over its nuclear program and ties to terrorism, say officials with knowledge of the debate.

The dissonance is surfacing just as the intelligence agencies are overhauling their procedures to prevent a repeat of the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate — the faulty assessment that in part set the United States on the path to war with Iraq.

The new report, from the House Intelligence Committee, led by Representative Peter Hoekstra, Republican of Michigan, portrayed Iran as a growing threat and criticized American spy agencies for cautious assessments about Iran’s weapons programs. “Intelligence community managers and analysts must provide their best analytical judgments about Iranian W.M.D. programs and not shy away from provocative conclusions or bury disagreements in consensus assessments,” the report said, using the abbreviation for weapons of mass destruction like nuclear arms.

Leaving aside the obvious desire of these people to invade Iran - a mission that would light the Middle East up like a Roman candle and probably ensure the US eviction from Iraq - what is staggering is that the GOP don't realise that any reluctance from the intelligence community to overstate their case is probably a result of the behaviour of the Bush administration before and after the Iraq war.

Before the Iraq war they made the same arguments, with Cheney visiting intelligence agencies to pressure them to re-examine previously discarded information and Rumsfeld operating a counter intelligence unit - the Office of Special Plans - with the one aim of ensuring that the intelligence told the Bush administration what it wanted to hear. That Saddam was a threat and that he should be attacked.

However, when the war was over, and the intelligence exposed as the overstated rubbish that it always was, the Bush administration had the gall to pretend that they had nothing to do with the hyping of this intelligence and promptly placed the blame for the debacle on the intelligence community.

Are the GOP really so surprised that intelligence officers aren't lining themselves up to be the fall guys for this administration for a second time?

I thought Bush had already memorably covered this topic.

"There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again."

President George W. Bush, Nashville, Tenn., Sept. 17, 2002