BREAKING NEWS: U.S. Report Says Iran Halted Nuclear Weapons Program in 2003
By John Amato Sunday Dec 02, 2007 12:45pm
Cheney and Lieberman won't be happy.
A new assessment by American intelligence agencies concludes that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and that the program remains on hold, contradicting an assessment two years ago that Tehran was working inexorably toward building a bomb.
The assessment, a National Intelligence Estimate that represents the consensus view of all 16 American spy agencies, states that Tehran’s ultimate intentions about gaining a nuclear weapon remain unclear, but that Iran’s “decisions are guided by a cost-benefit approach rather than a rush to a weapon irrespective of the political, economic and military costs.
Instead, the N.I.E. concludes it is more likely Iran could have a bomb by the early part to the middle of the next decade. The report states that the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research judges Iran is unlikely to achieve this goal before 2013, “because of foreseeable technical and programmatic problems.”...read on
Matt Yglesias predicts what the reaction will be to it:
The only appropriate response to this is to do what we've done already with IAEA information on Iran, with IAEA information on Iraq, and with Intelligence and Research Bureau information on Iran: ignore it.
Islamofascism is on the march. Deniers and appears must be ignored. Here's the declassified portions of the New Iran NIE about how the Iranian nuclear hype is mostly hype.
I'd assume William "the bloody" Kristol is in meetings all day---red veins popping out of his neck and yelling at the White House for letting this report see the light of day.
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Frist and foremost, Lieberman is a tool!
North Korea has nukes...let's bomb them! Oh wait, they don't have oil...
Yeah, but what about it says nothing about thier nucular weapons.
Sheesh
This is not a good reason for Republicans to quit wetting their beds.
I'm sure that Cheney can think of new reasons to fear Iran, and keep the sheets stained.
The forecasted media reaction has already started. According to the AP coverage:
"Iran halted its nuclear weapons development program in the fall of 2003 under international pressure but is continuing to enrich uranium, which means it may still be able to develop a weapon between 2010 and 2015, senior intelligence officials said Monday."
According to the Reuters coverage:
"U.S. intelligence has determined that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 but believes it is continuing to develop technical capabilities that could be used to build a bomb, a government report said on Monday."
So, basically, what the mainstream media is reporting and will continue to report is "Well, our intelligence says they're not doing it now... but they could still! Bomb them!! Bomb them all!!!!
Reich-wingers will not care about this information, because it contains facts and reality. Reich-wingers just want to hear about more war, death, and murder. Give them more talking points because without them they are lost and scared children.
SHOCKING!!!
Obviously, any nation that might possibly obtain nuclear weapons in the next 5 billion years needs to be nuked now.
What does intelligence have to do with anything Bush does?
I can't even imagine reich-wingers attempting to spin this with anything but flat out denial. Amazing, reich-wingers are simply always on the wrong side of every issue.
Poor, poor, Joe....
This represents a clear success of the administration. The obvious consequence is that we must trust the administration and bomb Iran. If not, the next al qaeda strike is blood on your hands.
How's that for predicted talking point?
So what's going to happen now? Bush's rhetoric is downright stupid as it was if he wasn't planning war. But, now this? I'm having trouble figuring out the extent to which this makes us look bad.
I think all this means is that, now that the Dems have the power to issue subpoenas and indictments, and Bush will only be around for another 13 months to give pardons, nobody wants to be the next Tenet/Gonzales, and have no choice but to tell the truth.
Beurocrats respond to fear, just like anybody else. When the Republicans controlled all three branches of government, if The Shrub said 'fix the books' they fixed the books. Now, at least they've got pressure from two DIFFERENT sides, which is the way government SHOULD work.
I wonder how FOX Noise will smear this story into the ground.
Too bad Wolfowitz was run outta town in disgrace, he sure worked magic with the Iraq intellegence.
Breaking News: Condi to bring back Paul Wolfowitz to the State Department where he will once again have access to classified intellegence.
Cheney's hard on resumes.
Has there been a coup at the CIA?
Why else would they be telling Cheney to STFU?
So we threatened these people with bombings, sanctions, isolation when we knew they did not have an active nuclear program? When is enough, enough? Nancy and Harry, go fuck yourselves, you worthless doormats
Mr. T @ 3:
So, do you think Iran already has nukes???? If so, don't you think that angle would have been played by the current White House?
“U.S. intelligence has determined that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 but believes it is continuing to develop technical capabilities that could be used to build a bomb, a government report said on Monday.”
These technical capabilities are mainly improving Iran's irrigation infrastructure, which will allow Iranian kids to have better nutrition, which will help them do better in school, which will help them become scientists, which will help them upgrade the Iranian phone system, which might, according to the NSA, at sometime in the future be used to facilitate phone calls about Iran's reviving its nuclear weapon program. Possibly. Or not. In light of this information, Joe Lieberman and Bushco are calling for an immediate U.S. nuclear attack on Iran.
The White House grip on its departments is slipping. A couple of years ago this report would never have been released, and anyone leaking it would have feared for their jobs. Now mid-level bureaucrats are willing to leak such things, and upper level ones can use the imminent leak as justification for making a pre-emptive official release.
Fortunately for the neocons, the Right wing propaganda machine is adept at ignoring reality and pressing ahead with its ideological goals. If Iran were a green meadow populated by butterflies and hopping white bunnies, Liebermann and Kristol and Krauthammer and the Freepers could still be relied upon to insist that the bunnies carried anthrax and the butterflies were bugged and the whole place needed to be nuked.
'It's not too late', Lieberman shouted from the Senate floor, 'If we fire up the ICBM's now, we can launch before the official pigeons get here with the official news'.
'If we don't nuke Iran', he whispered to his staff, 'My AIPAC allowance is gonna be cut in half, and I won't get my Chanukkah bonus. I'll let you guys guess where that'll leave you! So DO something!'
(Lieberman's staff is scurrying now, trying to find some loose nukes to start the attack on Iran while the ICBM's are warming up, and the official pigeon is still en route with the official news that Iran has no nuclear weapons program)
So the BIG question is 'Who will win, the zionists again, or the forces of reason and good?'
Stay tuned, and away from outside walls and glass windows and doors.
NoOneYouKnow @ 18:
So this is just another front in the administration's war on science?
Cheney will be on with Russert Sunday, stating that the NIE is wrong. He got the straight dope from Mossad.
biff diggerence @ 22:
Then, months later he will deny ever saying that, then be confronted with video of him saying it.
And Hillary Clinton fell for this shit by voting for Lieberman/Kyle amendment.
Ya know, I'd like to believe that tis could possibly make a difference but it won't. Nothing does. Rice and Powell stated publicly that Saddam had no WMD... months before they lied about him having WMD. There are no consequences for failure and treason in the Former USA.
Please let me be wrong.
nformal talk by Reese Erlich author of "The Iran Agenda: The Real Story of U.S. Policy and the Middle East Crisis" recorded December 1, 2007 in Seattle.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXapm2CiXzY
Sweet Irony.
How much of the NIE content is courtesy Valerie Plame's former colleagues?
Maybe the CIA is tired of being the scape goat for 9-11.
The white house will spin this by saying, once long ago the IAEA was wrong about how far along Saddam was with his weapons program. Of course they won't say the reason the IAEA was wrong was because they were pulled out before they could finish their inspections. Just as they were pulled out before bush invaded in 03. Had they been able to continue their inspections in 03 the public would have known that this time there really were no WMD. Each of their reports, before the invasion, came back negative on WMD. I think the bush administration was afraid what they were reporting was going to convince the public that there was no "mushroom cloud" so he hurried up his invasion.
I remember hearing at the time one reason they had push ahead with the invasion was because the summers in Iraq were so hot and it would be difficult for our soldiers to function in that sort of heat.
So much bullshit has been fed to the American people, you would think they would be sick of it by now.
Not to worry, Cheney's on top of this crisis.
"Quick, forge a letter that Iranian agents have been discovered in Samoa, building a raft with the intent of sailing to Bikini, to pick up loose plutonium from the Hydrogen bomb blasts, in order to complete their nuclear weapons program. See if we have some ditzi blonde in the CIA who can dispatch her lover to pick up the forgery, surreptitiously, no fingerprints, and release it to the world through the Vatican, to give it maximum credibility'.
'Then put our nuclear subs on course and full alert to fire the Teheran group of missiles by no later than 7PM EST, so I can watch the nuclear shock and awe transmitted by satellite, whilde I'm having dinner with Mrs. Cheney tonight, she really gets off on that stuff, and I'm a little horny myself, fu*k the pacemaker, if you can't have a little fun, what's the point in living?'
Has someone gotten Langley back from the wacks? Any other reason they released that part of the NIE as "declassified"?
Looks to me like a shot across the OVP's bow.
Presently Cheney is filling up the tank to his waterboard with ice cold water.
Oh poor Mr McCain, his "bomb Iran" song is even less likely now to become a hit.
Now we will be able to separate the men from the suck-up boys. Let's see who tries to spin this and how.
All they want for Christmas is a new war.
Weaseldog @ 4:
Back to the IEDs and the Kud forces.
What's breaking about this ?
Either way the american people and the government have rarely cared about the truth just how to make excuses to do what they want or lies they can live with.
Patriot Actor @ 33:
I think you'll have to wait till February and then you will have it.
Are we going to hear now that Iran has been trying to buy yellow cookies from Africa?
There can be no doubt that Iran has in fact reconstituted its nuclear weapons program.
pissed off patricia @ 32:
That was already easy enough - the men are the ones that the repugs had to hire.
pissed off patricia @ 37:
The Bush administration is tracking shipments of Yellow Dye No 5, in case it is used to make their own yellow funnel cakes in Iran.
Stay tuned for more scary developments.
Ricky Bones @ 17:
"Nucular"
Sorry I got-chya with a spelling joke, Bones. It's like a "war on terra"
I'm banning myself from this site.
If Bushco gets away with their latest bullshit (Iran/nukes), then this country deserves to go down.
Okay, so who can guess what Bush's next excuse will be to invade Iran?
I'm listening to Reese Erlich. (I linked him above also...)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXapm2CiXzY
He is making the argument that we won't bomb Iran until next year, because we don't bomb on Christian Holidays.
When is the next Arab Holiday after New Year's Eve?
Mr. T @ 41:
Oh, DUH me! I should have read closer :-) Now that I actually read that, I see it. Good one!
OH BOY.
Kristol, Lieberman and Podhoretz must be really pissed off.
See The Big Picture @ 5:
Dr. Acula @ 42:
How much farther down can we go before we hit bottom? I think I can see it from here.
This won't stop Cheney and the neocons from continuing to lie about Iran. When have they ever let facts get in their way?
JR @ 43:
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad tried to kill his daddy?
Oh, and whatever happened to that factory inside Iraq that made IEDs.
INSIDE IRAQ, not Iran, not Syria?
Lets pretend we didn't know they have no nukes and take em out anyway. We can give Iran to Jenna as a wedding gift.
Wow, think about it...we now trust our secret agents more than our elected government officials. Hmmmmm.
Does Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have prisons with rape rooms and does he gas millions of his own people?
do-si-do @ 53:
How not?
Their bidness is Intelligence.
JR @ 43:
They are big fat meanies.
do-si-do @ 53:
Hell, I trust my insane old neighbor across the street more than I trust our elected government officials.
JR @ 43:
He has to look under their couches for WMDs (or is WsMD?)
pissed off patricia @ 54:
Well he is the leader of a nation that is only one letter off from Iraq. And Iraq did these things, so I'm sure it must be true.
Phony intelligence agencies!
pissed off patricia @ 54:
And sadly, we Americans have torture and rape rooms and we use phosgene on cities populated by innocents.
We have become the enemy. I am ashamed for my country.
We found out who gave CLinton a BJ, but we don't get to find out who gave Gannon a press pass, or for that matter, Tom Daschell some Anthrax?
If this press gets anymore Liberal, I'm moving.
Why does the CIA hate America? Or do they just hate us for our freedom?
Check out the comments at LGF on all this (if you can stomach it) - they're in total denial over there and claiming that '2009 is too soon for me'
ugh... I need a shower...
Where exactly is this news "breaking". I haven't seen any news broken today. Some was a little dented, but not broken.
So what does Madam Hillary think of her fu*king vote now? She's two for two when it comes to falling for the repub war traps.
pissed off patricia @ 65:
Did the Daily Show already fix it?
Bud @ 64:
I'll just have to use my imagination, no way I'm going there.
Bush should announce that he can't invade and blow the shit out of Iran until he gets more blog commenters to sign up for the military. I betcha we would hear about a lot more asses with pimples on them than we have ever heard about before.
pissed off patricia @ 67:
Hillary is going to be sworn into office, after Bush bombs Iran and our troops are taking heavy losses.
She'll bring back the draft. Losses will continue. The Republicans will blame her for mismanaging the war. They will sweep the House and Senate in 2010. She'll serve one term and the next pres after, will be a Republican.
Weaseldog @ 68:
I'm afraid whomever our next president should be, if it is a dem, he or she will be a one term-er because bush is leaving way more to clean up than can be done in four years, plus he's leaving the country in two wars too.
Weaseldog @ 68:
Well I better just go shoot myself. lol
The Bush regime is no doubt scrambling to come up with another excuse/lie to invade Iran....or they may just decide to go ahead and invade anyway just as they did Iraq when the UN dissed their bogus claims about Saddam's WMDs.
Egypt has nukes.
Syria (apparently) had nukes.
N. Korea has nukes.
Pakistan has LOTS of nukes.
Iran MAY SOMEDAY develope nukes -- yep, better git 'em now cuz we need us another war!
When Sen. Obama stated that we should talk to the Iranians, he was slammed for his inexperience. I know he won't win, but he seems to so much more often right than Hillary. If Sen.Clinton is our nominee, I swear I'm staying home.
casper46 @ 70:
Then you won't see what happens next!
Time for an orgy of anguish at the White House. Well General Hannity, how ya gonna spin this one? Jackass.
xenon @ 75:
Simple --> denial.
Dear Connecticut,
Will you please lock up your Senior Senator?
Sincerly,
America.
This is what they get for throwing the intel community under the bus.
I get this weird mental image of Cheney rampaging down the halls in Langley, looking like Baron Vladimir Harkonnen on a meth-induced roid-rage bender, while analysts and clerks cower behind barricades.
Drat! W's plan to aquire Park Place and and Boardwalk on the same corner is foiled.
Wow, I just heard about this on CNN. They actually talked about it. I didn't get to hear all they said because my dog was demanding to be taken outside.
I guess tonight BillO will send his cameras out to interview the CIA and find out how they could write such a report.
Folks, you have to read the real news from Barry Chamish. He may sound as a conspiracy theorist, but then according to him Perez has already sold Jerusalem to the Vatican.
I wonder what is Lieberman going to say about this news?
It is Eretz Israel that Lieberman is fighting for or is it giving up Jerusalem to the thugs?
Please do not delete this message because I wrote about Vatican. Soon the reality is going to hit home and it is only a matter of time.
See, this is just another attack in the war against Christmas. Everyone knows that part of the holy season is bombing some middle east country and now with this new information, that war and bombing may have to be delayed. The CIA is making the baby jesus cry.
Liebermann will siimply up his daily dosage of "crazy juice" and plow forward.
Too bad the NYT did not have this kind of reporting in the run up to the invasion of Iraq.
By the way what is Judith Miller up to these days?
Still boinking that steaming chunk of manhood Scooter Libby I presume.
Weaseldog @ 61:
Indeed you have become the enemy, and infinitely worse as a country by lying about it to appear the moral high ground.
Looks like I responded to a deleted post.
JerryM @ 84:
I worry that Bush is set to begin World War III. If he does, will you be fighting with or against the US?
People! Come On!! They still might acquire the knowledge to build a nuclear bomb. Therefore, we have no choice except to bomb them.
People aren't allowed to acquire knowledge on the bush watch. That seems to be an offense punishable by bombing.
Dr. Matt @ 76:
"This report is simply wrong. Just as the reports on Iraq were wrong. We know that Saddam has weapons. Because they haven't been found, or were sent to other locations outside of the country, doesn't mean they don't exist." - Sean Hannity
There...that's what he'll say. It's the Santa Claus argument you use on children. Just because you don't see him, doesnt' mean he doesn't exist.
JerryM @ 35:
Shame on you for lumping the American people in with the goverment. American people always care about the truth.
I wonder how many CIA agents will be exposed in retaliation for this revelation?
Proud American Liberal @ 90:
Maybe the CIA did this in retaliation for the criminal outing of Valerie Plame Wilson.
IgnoranceIsNotBliss @ 87:
Correction: Iran still has THE INTENT to acquire knowledge. So, BOMBS AWAY!
(BTW, Cheney will not go on Meet The Press and say he got the straight dope from Masood. He'll go on Meet The Press and quote The Times, because obviously that can't be a REAL intellingence estimate because it's public. Intellignece estimates are, by definition SECRET, and therefore that can't be an intelligence estimate. Furthermore, he can't quote the secret (real) one, so he has to quote the times. And the real secret one will be secret, and hence real, unless he gets caught leaking it again in order to disgrace all the people who leaked it in the first place...because if the President leaks it, it's not secret anymore because it's been declassified, unless Bush signs a signing statement making all official secrets public...and...)