The Osterley Times: A Pattern of Deception

I don't have much time to post this morning, but there is an excellent article in today's Washington Post by Dan Froomkin outlining the ever changing rhetoric of the neo-cons towards Iran and the fact that the latest NIE report seeks to prevent Bush claiming plausible deniability from some of his more outrageous claims surrounding Iranian Nuclear weapons.

Consider what Seymour Hersh wrote in the New Yorker over a year ago: "The Administration's planning for a military attack on Iran was made far more complicated earlier this fall by a highly classified draft assessment by the C.I.A. challenging the White House's assumptions about how close Iran might be to building a nuclear bomb. The C.I.A. found no conclusive evidence, as yet, of a secret Iranian nuclear-weapons program running parallel to the civilian operations that Iran has declared to the International Atomic Energy Agency."

Here's Hersh with Wolf Blitzer on CNN yesterday:

Hersh: "At the time, I wrote that there was a tremendous fight about it, because Cheney in the White House -- the vice president did not want to hear this. So that there was a fight about that intelligence. And, actually, for the last year, I think the vice president's office pretty much has kept -- you know, the vice president has kept his foot on the neck of that report. That report was bottled up for a year.
"The intelligence we learned about yesterday has been circulating inside this government at the highest levels for the last year -- and probably longer."

And Hersh scoffed at Bush's suggestion that he didn't know about the changing intelligence until last week: "Either he didn't know what was going on at the highest levels -- the fight I'm talking about began last year. . . . Now, maybe he didn't know what was going on at the vice presidential level about something that serious. If so, I mean we pay him to know these things and not to make statements based on information that turned out not to be accurate. Or else he's misrepresenting what he knows.

"I don't think there's any question, this is going to pose a serious credibility problem. I assume people are going to be asking more and more questions about what did he know when. And his statement that McConnell comes to him -- the head of the intelligence services of the United States -- and says I have something serious to say to you and he says great, let me know when I want to hear it, is, you know -- it's his words and we can only say that if that's true, you know, that's -- that's not what we pay the guy to do."

The conclusion is that the NIE report has been in the same state for the best part of a year and certainly for the past six months. There was no breakthrough piece of evidence that suddenly changed things.

"The White House, and particularly Vice President Cheney, used every trick in the book to stop it from being finalized and issued. There was no last minute breakthrough that caused the issuance of the assessment."

It is inconceivable that Bush was not aware of that NIE report and what it stated long before he claims to have known it's conclusions. Which means, when he was talking of WWIII and other dangers of Iranian nuclear proliferation, he was war mongering for reasons that only be speculated upon. He was certainly issuing die warnings concerning something which he knew not to be happening.

Froomkin then quotes others to show how Bush is moving the goalposts:

Trita Parsi writes on behalf of the National Iranian American Council: "Rather than adjusting policy on Iran in accordance to the reality-check provided by the NIE, the President moved the goal post on Iran. As the NIE declared that Iran likely doesn't have a weapons program, the President shifted the red line from weaponization to the mere knowledge of enriching uranium -- an activity that in and of itself is not of a military nature and is permitted by the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

"By setting a new and arbitrary standard with no root or support in the Non-Proliferation Treaty, President Bush is insisting on adjusting reality to policy rather than policy to reality. There are numerous problems with this stance.

"First, it further undermines US credibility and leaves allies and foes alike with the impression that Washington seeks a military conflict with Iran regardless of the realities of Iran's nuclear program.

"Second, Iran already possesses the knowledge to enrich uranium. Given the President's logic, this reality would permit the US to continue to pursue a military option against Iran -- in spite of the absence of an Iranian weapons program."

Similar to the logic he displayed prior to the Iraq war, as far as Bush is concerned, every new fact simply further enhances his desire to attack. Even the fact that the Iranians have stopped their nuclear programme - if they ever had one - is now given as a reason for why we "have to be tough with Iran".

Maureen Dowd writes in her New York Times opinion column: "If W. can shape the intelligence to match his faith-based beliefs, as with Iraq, then he will believe the intelligence -- no matter how incredible it is.

"If he can't shape it to match his beliefs, as with Iran, then he will disregard the intelligence -- no matter how credible it is."

And this pattern of behaviour is repeated in right wing blogs and by right wing commentators throughout the blogosphere. If the intelligence supports attacking Iran, then it is believable. If it does not, then it is suspect.

But the big story here, and the one that deserves to be further explored, is whether or not Bush knew - and it's hard to believe that he didn't - that Iran did not have a nuclear weapons programme when he was telling all of us about WWIII.

The NIE report is an attempt by the intelligence communities to take the wind out of the neo-con sails as they race to war with Iran. The scandal is that Bush has been war mongering whilst fully aware that the threat he was warning us of did not exist.

That's the same pattern of behaviour he indulged in before the Iraq war; and those who argue that he genuinely believed that Saddam possessed WMD, should look at how he has sold a possible war with Iran, whilst fully aware that the threat he was warning against was bogus.

It's well worth reading Froomkin's entire article. Click the title to do so.