Black is White. And (For Bush at Least) No Nukes is Bad News
Submitted by dlindorff on Tue, 2007-12-04 23:44. General Discussion | Impeachment | Iran | Media
By Dave Lindorff
President Bush got run off the track by the CIA analysts over at the Langley, who apparently, after being trampled by Vice President Dick Cheney and his Neo-Con and AIPAC-backed hordes into twisting intelligence into lies about Iraq’s non-existent nuclear and WMD programs in 2002, decided that they wouldn’t do the same thing this time on Iran for two lame-duck warmongers.
Instead of hyping Iran’s centrifuges, which are churning out low-level nuclear fuel-grade uranium, and warning darkly of Iran being in the midst of some clandestine campaign to build a nuclear weapons capability, the analysts this time told the truth: that the evidence, public and secret, openly available and clandestinely obtained, shows that Iran ceased any nuclear weapons R&D efforts in 2003, and has done nothing since to revive them.
They said that the available evidence shows that while Iran could always risk world opprobrium and sanctions and restart its nuclear weapons program, it is years and years away from making a working nuke, even if it started today—and there is little likelihood that the country will start such a project.
The consensus opinion not just of the CIA, but also of 15 other US intelligence agencies, is that even if Iran were to decide tomorrow to start up its nuclear weapons program, it would take until 2015 for the country to produce enough plutonium or enriched U235 to make even one bomb.
To make their assessment clear, the authors of the latest National Intelligence Assessment on Iran resorted to boldfaced print to state: "This NIE does not
assume that Iran intends to acquire nuclear weapons."
This document, which was ordered up by Congress, has to be a serious blow to the plans of Bush and Cheney, who have been gunning for Iran for several years now, ever since Bush labeled the country part of his “Axis of Evil.”
more...
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/29123