Skeptics Doubt U.S. Evidence on Iran Action in Iraq

One of the most astonishing aspects of the Bush regime's pushing for conflict against Iran is the manner in which it has been conducted, almost as if their false reasoning for war against Iraq did not exist.

This reached it's pinnacle the other day when David Feith, the man who ran The Office of Special Plans had the gall to say that the false evidence that his office produced did not contribute to the build-up for that war.

"This was not an alternative intelligence assessment," he told the Washington Post. "It was from the start a criticism of the consensus of the intelligence community, and in presenting it I was not endorsing its substance."

One of the inevitable consequences of having been found to have lied is that, in future, people are less likely to take your word at face value. And so it now transpires that the Bush effort to convince people of Iranian involvement in Iraq is being met with profound scepticism.

The response from Congressional and other critics speaks volumes about the current state of American credibility, four years after the intelligence controversy leading up to the Iraq war. To pre-empt accusations that the charges against Iran were politically motivated, the administration rejected the idea of a high-level presentation, relying instead on military and intelligence officers to make its case in a background briefing in Baghdad.

Even so, critics have been quick to voice doubts. Representative Silvestre Reyes of Texas, the Democratic chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, suggested that the White House was more interested in sending a message to Tehran than in backing up serious allegations with proof. And David Kay, who once led the hunt for illicit weapons in Iraq, said the grave situation in Iraq should have taught the Bush administration to put more of a premium on transparency when it comes to intelligence.

“If you want to avoid the perception that you’ve cooked the books, you come out and make the charges publicly,” Mr. Kay said.

Administration officials say their approach was carefully calibrated to focus on concerns that Iran is providing potent weapons used against American troops in Iraq, not to ignite a wider war. “We’re trying to strike the right tone here,” a senior administration official said Monday. “It would have raised the rhetoric to major decibel levels if we had had a briefing in Washington.”

The idea that they had secret briefings rather than an announcement in Washington because they didn't want to raise "the rhetoric to major decibel levels" is simply unbelievable and works on the assumption that the route they chose did not in fact raise "the rhetoric to major decibel levels", which even a perfunctory glance at how this was covered throughout the world shows that it did.

Indeed, it's not even true to say that no briefings have been held in Washington as Tony Snow - in Washington - endorsed every word of the secret briefings.

Asked for direct evidence linking Iran’s leadership to the weapons, Tony Snow, the White House spokesman, said: “Let me put it this way. There’s not a whole lot of freelancing in the Iranian government, especially when its comes to something like that.”

The White House is yet again making charges for which they provide no substantial proof and, indeed, their conclusions are even disputed by one of their own Generals.

I am pleased that there exists such a healthy amount of cynicism regarding the regime's claims, although I remain unconvinced that this will stop them doing what they want to do in Iran.

These are ideologues who remain convinced that they know best. They neither need nor care for our approval, and our scepticism will not blow them off their course.

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tag: Bush, Iraq, Iran, General Pace, Office of Special Plans, Ahmadinejad