Pentagon turns heat up on Iran

[CHIMO]

Pentagon hawks have begun discussing military action against Iran to neutralise its nuclear weapons threat, including possible strikes on leadership, political and security targets.

Although the United States has made clear that it would seek sanctions against Iran through the United Nations should it not meet its obligations, rather than undertake military action, the new modelling at the Pentagon, with its shift in emphasis from suspected nuclear to political target lists, is causing deep anxiety among officials in the UK, France and Germany.

Last week, US Secretary of State Colin Powell, who has just announced his resignation, told reporters that US intelligence had seen hard evidence that Iran was close to putting a nuclear weapon on a long-range weapons system.

The allegation was immediately challenged by officials in the State Department, who said the information, which had come from a single 'walk-in' source, had yet to be verified.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,12858,1356189,00.html

Wonder if C.P. didn't just throw a spanner into the works?

[FloridaPat]

1. Whose army are we going to use to invade Iran? Maybe the

chicken hawks will enlist and the right wing religious nuts.

[Ducks In A Row]

2. No that's what the draft is for, and it will take all the non-bush voters

first.

[finecraft]

3. Do you think Powell is trying to bring the Franklin case to a head?

I've thought about this a lot. Why would Powell disclose classified information? He's not stupid...it had to be for a reason. And I don't think it was to help the Mis-Administration build their case for war with Iran. He's been on their shit list for sometime now. Besides, if the admin. wanted the info leaked, they would have given it to Novak.

Let's revisit the Pentagon "Israeli Spy" story. The spy was Larry Franklin..the Iran specialist in the Middle East Bureau in the DOD, who works for Doug Feith. We know he was passing information about Iran to Israel. We know he went to Paris several times, along with another employee in Doug Feith's department Harold Rhode, to see Iranian arms dealer Manucher Ghorbanifar (from Iran Contra days) and other Iranian exiles, dissidents and government officials. We know Ghorbanifar has ties with the National Council of Resistance, the political front for the MEK. We know that Doug Feith's office was stove piping the bogus Iraq intel collected from the Iraqi National Congress and Ahmed Chalabi to the White House. We know there is bad blood between the State Department and the DOD. Could Franklin and his buddy Rhode have set something up with Ghorbanifar and the MEK, very much like Chilabi and the INC, where bogus intel would be stove piped through their department at the DOD (bypassing State and the CIA) directly to the White House, and Powell found out about it and he's calling their bluff? The classified report Powell leaked from was marked "No foreign", meaning it was to not be passed on to our foreign allies. Powell leaks the info and the first thing that happens is that the allies to postal. Why? because they don't have any intelligence that shows this. Why doesn't their intelligence show this? Because ours was cooked. Bet my bottom dollar that the "previously unknown asset" was someone sent by Ghorbanifar and the MEK with bogus information.....just like in the run-up to Iraq when that Italian reporter sent the documents to the CIA that included the forged Niger Uranium document.

From everything I've read, it didn't sound like Powell knew about this info. before he attended the briefing when the classified report was distributed. That makes me think that the guy didn't give the documents to the State Department. The CIA says that they haven't had a chance to vett the information or source yet, but in everything I've read, it doesn't say WHO, or what agency, the guy with the documents went to. Was it the CIA? Was it the DOD? If it was DOD, the documents would have to come out of Feith's office, and probably from Larry Franklin.

There's been nothing going on with the Franklin case. He refuses to talk to investigators. Could Powell be pushing the issue by leaking this informaiton...because now there is a mad scramble to get this information verified, and if it came from Feith's office in DOD, Franklin, and Feith, would again be put in the spotlight?

If Powell has a feeling (or knows) that this info is crap, and he goes public with it before the Neocons have a chance to work the plan further, it puts them in a bad place. They either have to say "yes, the information is correct" and we find out they are dealing with the MEK and Ghorbanifar...(who nobody in the world except the Neocons thinks is credible) or they say no, it is not correct and they have no basis for military action against Iran. Either way, all this happens before the IAEA meeting and possible action by the Security Council....and before Powell leaves and Condi takes over and purges the State Department and fills all the positions with Bushbots.

The harder Powell says "Yes, this is credible information", the harder the administration has to prove that it is credible, or not credible. And if none of our allies has anything to verify this in their intelligence....it would be pretty hard to make a credible case.

Sound plausible?

[CHIMO]

4. Wasn't Thinking Of The Franklin

Case. What hit me was that Bush had only given this info to Blair when he was visiting. So the information could have come back from England. It may have been meant to undercut Tony with the EU. ie. If that is the best info that you can get then what the heck is going on.
Or perhaps it was a way to get it out in the open and to show the weak basis. One would think that there are many in the CIA that are getting fed up.
Don't know. But it seems funny that he would come out with it after having been burnt at the UN.

[Gyre]

5. Actually, they've taken a BIC lighter

And tried to light a pile of soggy paper w/ it. It's a "drumbeat to war" alright, but they can't make it catch fire since everybody knows there are no teeth to it (tied up in quagmire Iraq), AND the US has squandered it's credibiity as a world "leader" that other countries will follow to war just on our word alone.

Gyre

[necso]

6. Uh, folks,

the (Pentagon civilian) neo-cons "think" that they can limit the action against Iran to "strikes on leadership, political and security targets" (as in with no significant Iranian response -- because of our "capabilities" for "retaliation" to any Iranian response).

Of course, these same neo-cons would like to invade Iran, but they "think" that we can kick Iran in the face and that the Iranians won't respond. This would be, ah, a "gamble".

And this causes some alarm in rational circles.