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http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/zone0/viewtopic.php?t=39590
What a double standard when the rogue state
of Israel has some 200-300 nuclear bombs
and treacherously attacked the USS Liberty
and murdered Americans in the process
(
http://www.ussliberty.com ): -
http://nomorewarforisrael.blogspot.com -
http://www.nogw.com/warforisrael.html
January 7 / 8, 2006
Them
or Us
AIPAC on Trial
By JAMES PETRAS
In August 2004, the FBI and the US Justice Department
counter-intelligence bureau announced that they were investigating a
top Pentagon analyst suspected of spying for Israel and handing over
highly confidential documents on US policy toward Iran to AIPAC
which in turn handed them over to the Israeli Embassy. The FBI had
been covertly investigating senior Pentagon analyst, Larry Franklin
and AIPAC leaders, Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman for several years
prior to their indictment for spying. On August 29, 2005 the Israeli
Embassy predictably hotly denied the spy allegation. On the same day
Larry Franklin was publicly named as a spy suspect. Franklin worked
closely with Michael Ledeen and Douglas Feith, then Undersecretary
for Defense in the Pentagon, in fabricating the case for war with
Iraq. Franklin was the senior analyst on Iran, which is at the top
of AIPAC's list of targets for war.
As the investigation proceeded toward formal charges of espionage,
the pro-Israeli think tanks and neo-con ideologues joined in a
two-prong response. On the one hand some questioned whether "handing
over documents" was a crime at all, claiming it involved "routine
exchanges of ideas" and lobbying. On the other hand, Israeli
officials and media denied any Israeli connection with Franklin,
minimizing his importance in policy-making circles, while others
vouched for his integrity.
The FBI investigation of the Washington spy network deepened and
included the interrogation of two senior members of Feith's Office
of Special Plans, William Luti and Harold Rhode. The OSP was
responsible for feeding bogus intelligence leading to the US attack
of Iraq. The leading FBI investigator, Dave Szady, stated that the
FBI investigation involved wiretaps, undercover surveillance and
photography that document the passing of classified information from
Franklin to the men at AIPAC and on to the Israelis.
The Franklin-AIPAC-Israeli investigation was more than a spy case.
It involved the future of US-Middle East relations and more
specifically whether the '",neo-cons' would be able to push the US
into a military confrontation with Iran. Franklin was a top Pentagon
analyst on Iran, with access to all the executive branch
deliberations on Iran. AIPAC lobbying and information gathering was
aggressively directed toward pushing the Israeli agenda on a
US-Iranian confrontation against strong opposition in the State
Department, CIA, military intelligence and field commanders.
Franklin's arrest on May 4, 2005 and the subsequent arrest of AIPAC
foreign policy research director Steve Rosen and Iran specialist and
deputy director for foreign policy, Keith Weissman on August 4, 2005
was a direct blow to the Israeli-AIPAC war agenda for the US. The
FBI investigation proceeded with caution accumulating detailed
intelligence over several years. Prudence was dictated by the
tremendous political influence that AIPAC and its allies among the
Conference of the Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations wield in
Congress, the media and among Fundamentalist Christians and which
could be brought to bear when the accused spies were brought to
trial.
The first blow was struck on August 29, 2004, when CBS publicized
the FBI investigation just when Franklin confessed to have passed
highly confidential documents to a member of the Israeli government
and began cooperating with federal agents. He was prepared to lead
authorities to his contacts inside the Israeli government.
Subsequently Franklin stopped cooperating. The Anti-Defamation
League's (a leading Jewish pro-Israeli lobby) Abe Foxman called for
a special prosecutor to investigate "leaks" of the FBI investigation,
because they were "tarnishing" Israel's image.
Then Attorney General Ashcroft intervened to try to apply the brakes to
the investigation, which spread into the neo-con nest in the
Pentagon: Feith, Wolfowitz, Perle, and Rubin were "interviewed" by
the FBI. Neo-con Michael Rubin, former Pentagon specialist on Iran
and resident "scholar" at the American Enterprise Institute, blasted
Bush for "inaction in the spy affair" and called the investigation
an "anti-Semitic witch hunt" (Forward Sept. 10, 2004). AIPAC
launched a campaign against the spy probe and in support of its
activities and leaders. As a result scores of leading Congress
members from both parties vouched for AIPAC's integrity and pledged
their confidence and support of AIPAC.
Never in the history of the United States had so many leading
Congress members from both parties pledged their support for an
organization under suspicion of spying, based only on information
supplied by the suspect and in total ignorance of the federal
prosecutor's case. Contrary to the bipartisan Congressional support
for AIPAC, a poll of likely voters found that 61 per cent believed
that AIPAC should be asked to register as an agent of a foreign
power and lose its tax exempt status. Only 12 per cent disagreed.
Among American Jews, 59 per cent were not sure, while 15 per cent
strongly agreed and 15 per cent strongly disagreed (Zogby
International, Sept. 25, 2004). Clearly many Americans have serious
doubts about the loyalty and nature of AIPAC activities, contrary to
their elected representatives. The federal spy investigation
proceeded despite Executive and Congressional opposition, knowing
that it had the backing of the great majority of US citizens.
In December 2004, the FBI subpoenaed four senior staffers at AIPAC
to appear before a grand jury and searched the Washington office of
the pro-Israel lobby seeking additional files on Rosen and Weissman.
AIPAC continued to deny any wrongdoing, stating: "Neither AIPAC nor
any member of our staff has broken any law. We believe any court of
law or grand jury will conclude that AIPAC employees have always
acted legally, properly and appropriately" (AIPAC December 1, 2004).
Nevertheless a few months into the investigation and with the arrest
of the two top leaders, AIPAC terminated their employment and after
a few months cut off paying their legal defense bills. Likewise
Israel's categorical denials of espionage, evaporated, as video and
transcripts of their intelligence operative receiving classified
documents surfaced.
A Grand Jury was convoked in early 2005. As the FBI's spy
investigation extended into AIPAC-Pentagon's inner recesses,
self-confessed spy Franklin's superiors Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas
Feith announced their sudden resignation from the number 2 and 3
positions in the Pentagon. In February 2005, Bush announced that
former convicted felon, defender of Central American death squads
and long-term Zionist fanatic, Elliott Abrams, would be in charge of
Middle East policy in the National Security Council.
Abrams would serve as a channel for directing Israeli policies to
the White House and as day-to-day source of the most essential
policy decisions and discussions. Apparently Abrams was smart enough
to keep his distance from the Franklin/Feith and AIPAC/Embassy
operations and deal directly with Ariel Sharon and his Chief of
Staff, Dov Weinglass. In April 2005, AIPAC dismissed Rosen and
Weissman, saying their activities did not comport with the
organizations standards. On May 4, Franklin was arrested on charges
of illegally disclosing highly classified information to two
employees of a pro-Israel lobbying group. On June 13, 2005 an
expanded indictment explicitly named AIPAC and a "foreign country"
(Israel) and its Mossad agent, Naor Gilon, who had, in the meantime,
fled to Israel.
Despite AIPAC being named in a major espionage indictment involving
Steve Rosen, head of its foreign policy department and Keith
Weissman, head of its Iran desk, US Secretary of State, Condoleezza
Rice gave the keynote address at AIPAC's convention (May 22-24,
2005). Leaders from Congress and the Republican and Democratic
parties also spoke, declaring their unconditional support for AIPAC,
Israel and Ariel Sharon. The list included Senator Hillary Clinton,
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (Republican) and Senate Democratic
leader Harry Reid. Based on previous year's attendance, more than
half of the US Senate and one-third of US Congress members were in
attendance.
Clearly AIPAC, with 60,000 wealthy members and $60 million annual
budget, had more influence on the political behavior of the US
executive, political parties and elected representatives than a
federal indictment implicating its leaders for espionage on behalf
of Israel. Could there be a basis for charging our political leaders
as "accomplices after the fact" of espionage, if the AIPAC leaders
are convicted?
On August 4, 2005 Paul McNulty of the Justice Department formally
indicted AIPAC leaders Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman of receiving
and passing highly confidential documents via the Israeli embassy to
the State of Israel. Their trial is set for April 25, 2006.
Franklin's trial was set to begin on January 2, 2006 but has been
postponed. Franklin has been co-operating with the FBI and Justice
Department in its investigations of AIPAC and the Pentagon's 'Israel
Firsters' in the run up to the invasion of Iraq and the further
plans to attack Iran. The indictments are based on a prolonged
investigation. AIPAC was targeted for investigation as early as
2001, while the indictment of Rosen and Weissman cites illegal
activities beginning in April 1999.
After Rosen and Weissman came under intensive federal investigation
as co-conspirators in the Franklin spy case, AIPAC decided to cut
its losses and cover its backside by throwing them overboard: AIPAC
fired them on March 2005, arguing that their "conduct was not part
of their job, and beneath the standards required of AIPAC employees"
(Forward, December 23, 2005). In effect AIPAC was making Rosen and
Weissman the "fall guys" in order to shake off a deeper federal
probe of AIPAC's activities. Moreover AIPAC stopped payments to
Rosen's and Weissman's lawyers sticking them with almost a
half-million dollars in legal fees. AIPAC does not intend to pay the
fees before the trial is over not for lack of funds (they raised
over $60 million in 2005 and are tax-exempt) but for political
reasons. AIPAC wants to see how the trial goes: if they are
acquitted, it will be safe to pay their lawyers. But if they are
found guilty AIPAC will refuse to pay (citing the organization's
by-law technicalities) in order to avoid being implicated with
convicted spies. AIPAC leaders are putting their organizational
interests and their capacity to promote Israeli interests in
Congress and the media over loyalty to their former officials.
Facing up to 10 years in federal prison, up against detailed,
well-documented federal charges based on wiretaps, videos and the
testimony of self-confessed spy and Pentagon contact Franklin, fired
and denounced by their former colleagues and current leaders of
AIPAC, Rosen and Weissman are striking back with unexpected
vehemence.
The defense attorneys are expected to argue that receiving
information from administration officials was something the two were
paid and encouraged to do and something AIPAC routinely does
(Forward, December 23,2005). In other words, Rosen and Weissman will
say that pumping top US government officials for confidential memos
and handing them over to Israeli officials was a common practice
among AIPAC operatives. To bolster their case of "just following
AIPAC orders", Rosen and Weissman's defense lawyers will subpoena
AIPAC officials to testify in court about their past access to
confidential documents, their contacts with high-placed officials
and their collaboration with Israeli Embassy officials. Such
testimony could likely bring national and international exposure to
AIPAC's role as a two way transmission belt to and from Israel.
If Rosen and Weissman succeed in tying AIPAC to their activities and
if they are convicted, that opens up a much larger federal
investigation of AIPAC's role in aiding and abetting felonious
behavior on behalf of the State of Israel.
In the almost two years since Rosen and Weissman came into the
public limelight as spy suspects, AIPAC has successfully fended off
adverse publicity by mobilizing leading politicians, party leaders
and senior members of the Bush Administration to give public
testimonials on its behalf. It dumped Rosen and Weissman and pushed
ahead with lining up the US Congress with Israel's pro-war agenda
against Iran. And then out of the blue, Rosen and Weissman threaten
to blow their cover "as just another influential lobby" working to
promote US and Israeli mutual security interests.
Rosen and Weissman's defense will certainly bring out the fact that
AIPAC at no point informed their employees about what the law states
regarding the obtaining and handing over of highly confidential
information to a foreign power. Weissman and Rosen will argue that
they did not know that receiving confidential information from
administration officials and handing it over to Israel was illegal
since everybody was doing it. They will further argue that their
alleged spy activity was not a 'rogue operation' carried on by them
independently of the organization, but was known and approved by
their superiors citing AIPAC's employee procedures for reporting
to superiors.
According to one former AIPAC employee with connections to the
organization's current leadership, Rosen and Weissman are perceived
as acting "like Samson trying to bring the house down on everyone"
(Forward, December 23, 2005).
"Everyone" that is involved in exploiting US wealth, power and
military forces to serve Israel's expansionist interests. What
started out as a small scale spy trial, no different from other
recent cases, is growing into a major cause celebre, involving the
most powerful lobby influencing the entire direction of US Middle
East policy. If Rosen and Weissman are convicted and they
effectively make the case that they were following orders and
informing AIPAC of their felonious activities, it is possible that
it will drive away many wealthy Jewish donors and activists, and
perhaps put some shame into the politicians who kow-tow and feed at
the AIPAC trough.
With a weakened AIPAC and its allies in the government wary of
continuing to "liaison" with Israeli intelligence on Middle East
policy, it is possible that a free and open debate based on US
interests can take place. With a public debate relatively free of
the constraints imposed by the Israel First lobbies and ideologues,
perhaps the US public's opposition to Middle East Wars and
occupations can become the dominant discourse in Congress if not the
Executive. Perhaps the $3 billion dollars plus annual foreign aid to
Israel more than $5 billion, all told -- can be reallocated toward
rebuilding all the industrially ravaged cities and towns of
Michigan, upstate New York and elsewhere.
James Petras, a former Professor of Sociology at Binghamton
University, New York, owns a 50 year membership in the class
struggle, is an adviser to the landless and jobless in brazil and
argentina and is co-author of Globalization Unmasked (Zed). His new
book with Henry Veltmeyer, Social Movements and the State: Brazil,
Ecuador, Bolivia and Argentina, will be published in October 2005.
He can be reached at:
jpetras@binghamton.edu
January 14, 2006
Iran Air Strikes
'Under Consideration'
by Sanjay Suri
LONDON -
Western powers are already planning use of the military option in
the face of Iran's insistence that it will go ahead with what it
calls its nuclear research program, a leading expert says.
''The military option is being considered already, they are just not
talking about it because it would be deeply unpopular,'' Dr. Ali
Ansari a leading Iran expert at The Royal Institute for
International Affairs in London told IPS.
''Certainly, what they are considering is air strikes, I don't think
they will carry out an invasion,'' Dr. Ansari said. After the Iraq
experience that is not likely, he said.
But air strikes will not win international support, and will not be
an option that could be domestically popular either, Dr. Ansari said.
''I think it would be a mistake,'' he said. ''It will not achieve
what they want to achieve, and I think it will make matters a whole
lot worse in the Middle East.''
British Prime Minister Tony Blair has said that the military option
is not being ruled out. He said the referral of the matter to the
United Nations Security Council was only a first step. ''Then we
have to decide what measures to take, and we obviously don't rule
out any measures at all,'' he said.
Holding out such options puts Britain and the United States back in
a position similar in many ways to that before the invasion of Iraq.
If the Security Council fails to deliver what some Western
governments want, they have held open the right to act on their own.
Any decision in the Security Council could be vetoed by China and
Russia. Russia is in fact proposing delivery of nuclear fuel to the
Iranian nuclear plant in Bushehr.
The chief diplomatic difference in the planning of an assault on
Iran now is the stronger possibility that France and Germany which
opposed the invasion of Iraq could back limited military action
against Iran. Britain, France and Germany have come together as the
"EU3" to restrain Iran's nuclear program over the past two years.
The military option is believed to have strong backing against
Israel, which carried out an air strike on the Osiraq nuclear center
in Iraq in 1981. Some reports suggest that Israel on its own may
carry out an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities, with tacit backing
from the United States and Britain.
But an air assault is not likely to be a simple repeat of the Osiraq
attack. Iran has at least 25 or so nuclear facilities that all would
be potential targets. And in anticipation of an attack, Iran would
be expected to have taken due precautions.
''But any military strike would be a disaster because it would only
strengthen the conservatives within Iran and put an end to the
reformist movement,'' Dr.. Zhand Shakibi from the London School of
Economics and Political Science told IPS.
There is a real danger that such an attack will be carried out, he
said. ''There are people in U.S. circles that will want to attack,''
he said. Sanctions may not be considered as an option because ''sanctions
are not effective,'' he said.
The fundamental problem within Iran is a lack of trust in the United
States ''because the U.S. has refused to guarantee the security of
Iran,'' he said. The United States had made it clear last month that
there can be no such guarantees, he said.
''Sitting in Tehran if you see the US going to war in Iraq, in
Afghanistan, there are people who will think in Iran that you might
want to build a nuclear defense,'' Shakibi said.
But Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad provoked alarm as much
with his statements as his actions in ordering a resumption of
Iran's nuclear program in defiance of conditions laid down by the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). He has called for Israel
''to be wiped from the face of the Earth.''
Iranian scientists have broken the seals at three nuclear
installations that had been closed down in 2004 under an
international agreement.
There are signs of political consensus in Iran over the decision.
Former leader Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said in a statement: ''Even
if the Westerners destroy our scientists, their successors would
continue to do the job. If they cause any disturbance they will
ultimately regret it.''
But any military option is likely to be preceded by a phase of
economic sanctions that could develop into sanctions as serious as
those slapped on Iraq at the end of the first Gulf war in 1991.
But with some fears that Iran could develop nuclear weapons within
as little as six months, the sanctions route may not be an available
option.
(Inter Press Service)
US fabricated case
against Iraq
now, for Israel they're
moving on Iran
by Justin
Raimondo
January 13, 2006
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=8383
As the U.S. gets ready to move on Iran,
under the pretext of a gathering Iranian nuclear threat, the news
that the War Party got creative when WMD were nowhere to be found in
Iraq should give us pause. According to a report in Raw Story by
Larisa Alexandrovna, the Office of Special Plans (OSP) a parallel
intelligence agency set up by the neoconservatives to do an end run
around the mainline U.S. agencies was sent into Iraq in 2003 in
order to cook up phony "evidence" of "weapons of mass destruction."
As Alexandrovna relates:
"Three U.S. intelligence sources and a source close to the United
Nations Security Council say that the Pentagon civilian leadership
under the guidance of Stephen Cambone, appointed to lead Defense
Department intelligence in March 2003, dispatched a series of 'off
book' missions out of the ultra-secretive Office of Special Plans (OSP).
The team was tasked to secure the following in order of priority:
fallen Navy pilot Scott Speicher, WMD, and Saddam Hussein."
The Speicher mission was a pretext eventuated by Ahmed Chalabi and
his Iraqi minions, who insisted that the downed American was alive
and not so well in one of Saddam's prisons. In addition, authorized
teams of operatives were sent in both before and after the invasion,
further masking the "rogue" operation launched by OSP, the purpose
of which one UN source described thusly:
"'They come in the summer of 2003, bringing in Iraqis, interviewing
them,' the UN source said. "Then they start talking about WMD and
they say to [these Iraqi intelligence officers] that 'Our President
is in trouble. He went to war saying there are WMD and there are no
WMD. What can we do? Can you help us?'
"The source said intelligence officers understood quickly what they
were being asked to do and that the assumption was they were being
asked to provide WMD in order for coalition forces to find them. 'But
the guys were thinking this is absurd because anything put down
would not pass the smell test and could be shown to be not of Iraqi
origin and not using Iraqi methodology,' the source added."
Is it really possible that they would plant fake WMD, in order for
the team of OSP operatives to "find" them? The answer, unfortunately,
is undoubtedly yes. For this would cloud the issue, irrespective of
whether or not the "find" was later debunked, and it would plant, in
the public mind, the idea that there really were WMD to be found in
Iraq, that Saddam posed a menace to the region and had to be stopped,
and, above all, that Bush was right to invade. The news that the WMD
had been "found" would be trumpeted from here to Kingdom Come, while
critics and debunkers would be depicted as
Bush-hatingterrorist-loving partisans. The truth, in this context,
is irrelevant. What matters is the public relations effect of such a
bold deception.
Well, then, what happened to the ersatz "evidence" of WMD? What
became of the work of the small four-to-five man OSP "team" sent
into Iraq under such extraordinarily murky circumstances? An article
by Stephen Hayes in the Weekly Standard may represent the fruits of
their labors. Hayes, a leading figure in the "Bush-was-right" cargo
cult and a regular writer for the Standard, avers:
"Saddam Hussein trained thousands of radical Islamic terrorists from
the region at camps in Iraq over the four years immediately
preceding the U.S. invasion, according to documents and photographs
recovered by the U.S. military in postwar Iraq. The existence and
character of these documents has been confirmed to the Weekly
Standard by eleven U.S. government officials."
Could these mysterious "documents and photographs" be the product of
the OSP's creative postwar tactics in Iraq? It wouldn't be the first
time the Weekly Standard had somehow gotten its hot little hands on
discarded and highly dubious "intelligence" from the OSP's
wastebasket.
Hayes' piece is a perfervid tale of raw "intelligence" vacuumed up
by U.S. forces from various sites, including in Iraq, that
supposedly documents Iraq's links to al-Qaeda. The secret of Iraq's
connection to the 9/11 terrorist attack on the U.S. is allegedly
contained in a veritable treasure trove of "raw intelligence," the
Holy Grail of the neocons, described by Hayes as "photographs and
documents on Iraqi training camps" that "come from a collection of
some 2 million 'exploitable items' captured in postwar Iraq and
Afghanistan. They include handwritten notes, typed documents,
audiotapes, videotapes, compact discs, floppy discs, and computer
hard drives."
The point of Hayes' piece is that these "secret" documents and other
items are being suppressed by evil forces within the U.S. government
who want to see Bush and the War Party discredited. All right then,
let's release the hidden "evidence" of al-Qaeda's much-touted "links"
to Saddam: I can hardly wait to see the videotape of the Iraqi
dictator playing Risk with Osama bin Laden and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi,
as the three of them chat amiably about how to nuke New York,
Washington, and Crawford, Texas.
This is the fallback theory the neocons are pushing in light of the
complete collapse of the case for WMD, which only the most die-hard
cargo-cultists of Neoconland still uphold. It's much more fluid, and
easier to "prove," if only in the minds of the president's
supporters. Although an alleged Prague meeting between 9/11 hijacker
Mohammed Atta and an Iraqi intelligence agent turned out to be a
crock, there is an infinite number of similarly tall tales on tap,
and I'm sure Seρor Hayes and other authors of the neocon school of
docudrama will rise to the challenge.
Such a ploy illustrates the three cardinal rules of warfare, both
political and otherwise: Buck up the troops and keep firing at the
enemy. Above all, stay on the offensive.
This is precisely what the neocons are doing with the current
campaign now reaching a crescendo of righteousness against
Iran's alleged attempts to develop nuclear weapons. Although Israel
doubtless has nukes aimed at Tehran, the Iranians are not allowed to
defend against or deter the threat of an Israeli first strike that
would be committing the sin of "moral equivalence."
After all, what right have the Iranians got to defend themselves
isn't their newly-elected president a Holocaust-denier, and hasn't
he expressed a strong desire to "wipe Israel off the map"? Never
mind that he seemed to have mellowed out after due consideration and
supplemented his remarks with a suggestion that perhaps Israel might
be re-implanted somewhere else say, in Europe, the scene of the
greatest crimes against the Jews. The real point, however, is that
once the Iranians get their hands on nukes, the worst thing in the
world will have happened. Yet is this really so?
Insofar as it would make all-out war unthinkable, the acquisition of
nuclear weapons by Tehran would, ironically, stabilize as much as
destabilize a volcanically volatile region. As it stands now, the
entire Middle East lives in the shadow of a possible Israeli first
strike against a perceived threat as exemplified by a recent round
of speculation about an imminent Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear
sites. This is inherently destabilizing, as it means an increase in
"fourth generation" terrorist tactics employed by Israel's enemies,
and opens up the possibility that a future Israeli prime minister
perhaps an extremist elected by a radicalized Israeli majority
might one day really pull the nuclear trigger.
On the other hand, having leveled the playing field, the Iranians
would render the Israeli first-strike strategy inoperable. A war
between Israel and its adversaries in the Middle East, rather than
ending in the nuking of Tehran, Mecca, and every major Muslim city
in the region, would instead have to mean "mutually assured
destruction" (MAD) that old specter of the Cold War that the
neocons found so insufferably irritating at the time, and which
stood in the way of their dreams of "regime change." (It happened
anyway, albeit without their intervention, but that's another
story
)
In any case, the neocons, allied with Israel's amen corner in the
U.S., are bound and determined that this will not happen, and they
have considerable backing, not only in both parties but
internationally: the UN Security Council is likely to take up the
questions of sanctions soon, and the first notes of a long prelude
to another war in the Middle East are now being heard. Rather than
defend the indefensible, i.e., the veracity and integrity of the "intelligence"-gatheringmethods
that lied us into war in Iraq, the War Party is simply changing the
subject while still employing the same old tried-and-true methods.
After all, it worked the last time
Yet another Raw Story scoop Larisa Alexandrovna is one busy gal
gives us a preview of what the neocons might have in store for us:
"Several U.S. and foreign intelligence sources, along with
investigators, say an Iranian exile with ties to Iran-Contra peddled
a bizarre tale of stolen uranium to governments on both sides of the
Atlantic in the spring and summer of 2003. The story that was
peddled which detailed how an Iranian intelligence team
infiltrated Iraq prior to the start of the war in March of 2003, and
stole enriched uranium to use in their own nuclear weapons program
was part of an attempt to implicate both countries in a WMD plot. It
later emerged that the Iranian exile was trying to collect money for
his tales, sources say."
The source of this neocon fantasy-fiction: Manucher Ghorbanifar, a
central figure in the Iran-Contra scandal, a legendary fabricator,
and a key source of much of the wheeling and dealing of phony "intelligence"
in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. The audacity of this fable is
that it kills two birds with one stone targeting both Iraq and
Iran as aspiring nuclear powers deserving of "regime change."
Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Penn.) became the tireless champion of
Ghorbanifar's guff on Capitol Hill and even wrote a whole book on
the subject, Countdown to Terror a compendium of what amounts to
neocon fan fiction, related in the breathless tone of a dime-store
spy thriller. According to the official mythology, an Iranian
informant code-named "Ali" had information that the Iranians had
sent a team to Baghdad to make off with weapons-grade uranium from
one of Saddam Hussein's many hidden stockpiles. As Ali tells it, the
Iranians had penetrated Iraq before the invasion and filched
Saddam's nukes, apparently in the nick of time and just under our
noses albeit not, according to Ali, without coming down with
radiation poisoning in the process.
This story has everything: a secret informant, a mission seemingly
impossible, and, in the end, a martyrdom. The only problem is that
it isn't credible, given its source. As Laura Rozen revealed in the
definitive debunking of the "Ali" myth:
"The Prospect has learned that the true identity of 'Ali' is
Fereidoun Mahdavi, formerly the shah's minister of commerce and,
more importantly, the close friend and business partner of
Ghorbanifar, legendary arms dealer, infamous intelligence fabricator,
and central figure in the Iran-Contra scandal that almost brought
down the Reagan administration. It was 'Gorba,' as he was known back
then to Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North, the rogue National Security
Council officer, who lured the Reagan administration into secretly
selling U.S. missiles to the Islamic regime in exchange for the
release of Western hostages."
Yesteryear's serial liars are making their encore appearance, with
an all-star cast of all-too-familiar neocons seeming to mock us,
relentless and brazen. Iraq was yesterday, but Iran is today. So are
Syria and Lebanon: the War Party is on the move. The sounds of their
war cries are already rebounding, and are heard in that inner
sanctum of "peace" and global togetherness, the United Nations.
The Security Council is due to take up the issue of Iran's bid to
build a nuclear deterrent, and this time the Americans have their
European allies, including France and Germany, on board. The
Iranians, for their part, assert that they are acquiring a nuclear
capacity purely for the purpose of power generation, and they are
trying desperately to wriggle out of the UN inspections vise that
once had Saddam in its grip.
Viewed from an Israeli perspective, of course, the existence of an
Iranian nuclear deterrent is a strategic disaster and utterly
impermissible. After all, those nukes won't be aimed at New York or
Los Angeles: they'll be aimed at Tel Aviv and, perhaps, any number
of European capitals, which accounts for the "multilateralist"
character of the latest Western crusade against menacing Saracens in
the East.
From a purely American standpoint, however, the alteration of the
nuclear equation in the Middle East takes on an entirely different
aspect, one that is, at the very least, highly ambiguous. To begin
with, proliferation of nuclear weaponry is bad in and of itself: we
don't want another Pakistan on our hands, in which we nervously
await an internal eruption to empower some Islamic nutball to launch
a nuclearized jihad. On the other hand, we've endured the Pakistan
situation for this long, and its potential consequences in terms of
getting nuclear arms directly into the hands of Osama bin Laden &
Co. are far more likely and more horrendously lethal than the
prospect of Tehran acquiring nukes.
Secondly, as I've said above, the evening out of the Middle East
playing field might not be such a bad idea after all. With the
threat of an Israeli first strike removed, the process of general
disarmament starting with nuclear disarmament can begin. Let the
International Atomic Energy Agency the UN's official nuclear
weapons watchdog inspect Israel's nuclear sites and make their
findings public. Then the Security Council can deal with the
allegations against Iran in context and, perhaps, forge the basis
for negotiating the general and complete nuclear disarmament of the
entire region, setting in place safeguards and monitoring mechanisms
that conduct surveillance on an equal basis.
The acquisition of a nuclear capacity is, for Iranians, a matter of
national pride: even the more democratic opponents of the current
regime, when asked, assert their nation's "right" to go nuclear. Yet
it is also a matter of survival for any nation that takes seriously
the American intent to preemptively attack anyone, anywhere, at any
time, in order to prevent some alleged future aggression or the
coalescence of some formless "threat." Another spoke in the axis of
evil, North Korea, didn't need to be told this, and now the Iranians
are learning it, too. To anyone who has ever looked at Uncle Sam
cross-eyed, the lesson of the Iraqi invasion is that the failure to
develop nuclear arms is an invitation for the U.S. to engage in a
little "regime change." Our foreign policy of global aggression
accelerates the natural inclination of states to arm themselves to
the teeth, thus fostering the nuclear arms race: preemption
precipitates proliferation.
Find this article at:
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=8383
http://www.counterpunch.org/frank01032006.html
January 3, 2006
Entrenched Hypocrisy
Hillary Clinton
AIPAC
and Iran
By JOSHUA FRANK
President Bush's
position on Iran is disturbing and dangerous, reads a recent screed
written by AIPAC
(American
Israel Public Affairs Committee).
Not long ago
the Bush administration accepted a Russian proposal to allow Iran to
continue to develop nuclear energy under Russian supervision and
AIPAC is downright pissed.
In a letter to congressional allies, mostly Democrats, the
pro-Israel organization admitted is was
"concerned that the decision not to go to the Security Council,
combined with the U.S. decision to support the 'Russian proposal,'
indicates a disturbing shift in the Administration's policy on Iran
and poses a danger to the U.S. and our allies."
Israel, however, continues to develop a substantial nuclear arsenal,
and in 2000 the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation)
reported that Israel has most likely produced enough plutonium to
make up to 200 nuclear weapons.
So, it is safe to say that Israel's bomb building techniques are
light years ahead of Iran's
dismal nuclear program.
Yet the major U.S. ally in the Middle East still won't admit they
have capacity to produce
such deadly weapons.
And while AIPAC and Israel pressure the U.S. government to force the
Iran issue to the
U.N. Security Council, Israel itself stands in violation of
numerous U.N. Resolutions dealing
with the occupied territories of Palestine, including U.N.
Resolution 1402, which demands that Israel withdraw its military
from all Palestinian cities at once.
AIPAC's hypocrisy is stomach-turning, to say the least.
The goliath lobbying organization wants Iran to be slapped across
the knuckles while the crimes of Israel continue to be ignored.
And who is propping up AIPAC's hypocritical position? Senator
Hillary Clinton of New York.
As the top Democratic recipient of pro-Israel funds for the 2006
election cycle thus far, pocketing over $58,000 as of October 31
last year, Senator Clinton now has Iran in her cross-hairs.
During a Hanukkah dinner speech delivered on December 11, hosted by
Yeshiva University, Clinton prattled, "I held a series of meetings
with Israeli officials [last summer], including the prime minister
and the foreign minister and the head of the [Israeli Defense Force]
to discuss such challenges we confront.
In each of these meetings, we talked at length about the dire threat
posed by the potential of a nuclear-armed Iran, not only to Israel,
but also to Europe and Russia.
Just this week, the new president of Iran made further outrageous
comments that attacked Israel's right to exist that are simply
beyond the pale of international discourse and acceptability.
During my meeting with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, I was reminded
vividly of the
threats that Israel faces every hour of every day ...
It became even more clear how important it is for the United States
to stand with Israel ..."
As Sen. Clinton embraces Israel's violence, as well as AIPAC's
duplicitous Iran position,
she simultaneously ignores the hostilities inflicted upon Palestine,
as numerous Palestinians have been killed during the recent shelling
of the Gaza Strip.
Over the past weeks Israel continues to mark the occupied
territories (they call 'buffer zones')like a frothing-mouth K9 on
the loose.
Hillary Clinton's silence toward Israel's brutality implies the
senator will continue to support
AIPAC's mission to occupy the whole of the occupied territories,
as well as a war on Iran in the future.
AIPAC's right -- even President Bush appears to be a little sheepish
when up against Hillary "warmonger" Clinton.
Joshua Frank is the author of Left Out!
US senators say military
strike on Iran must be
option
15 Jan 2006
Source: Reuters
In WASHINGTON story headlined "CORRECTED-U.S.
Senators say military strike on Iran must be option," please read in
third paragraph ... Bayh of Indiana ... instead of Bayh of Illinois
... (correcting state to Indiana).
A corrected story follows:
By Carol Giacomo, Diplomatic Correspondent
WASHINGTON, Jan 15 (Reuters) - Republican and Democratic senators
said on Sunday the United States may ultimately have to undertake a
military strike to deter Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, but
that should be the last resort.
"That is the last option. Everything else has to be exhausted. But
to say under no circumstances would we exercise a military option,
that would be crazy," Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona said on
CBS's "Face the Nation."
Democratic Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana, a member of the Senate
Intelligence Committee, said there are sensitive elements of Iran's
nuclear program, which, if attacked, "would dramatically delay its
development."
"But that should not be an option at this point. We ought to use
everything else possible keep from getting to that juncture," he
said on CNN's "Late Edition."
A growing nuclear fracas exploded last week when Iran, defying the
United States and major European powers, resumed nuclear research
after a two-year moratorium.
Iran says it aims only to make power for an energy-needy economy,
not build atom bombs. But it hid nuclear work from the U.N. nuclear
watchdog agency for almost 20 years before exiled dissidents exposed
it in 2002.
On Sunday, Iran said that only diplomacy, not threats to refer it to
the U.N. Security Council, could defuse a standoff over its nuclear
work and warned that any Western push for sanctions could jack up
world oil prices.
The Security Council's five permanent members and Germany planned
talks in London on Monday on a common strategy to tackle the
controversy.
McCain called the nuclear standoff "the most grave situation that we
have faced since the end of the Cold War, absent the whole war on
terror."
"We must go to the U.N. now for sanctions. If the Russians and the
Chinese, for reasons that would be abominable, do not join us then
we will have to go with the (states that are) willing," he said.
While acknowledging that President George W. Bush has "no good
option," McCain said "there is only one thing worse than the United
States exercising a military option, that is a nuclear-armed Iran."
"If the price of oil has to go up then that's a consequence we would
have to suffer," he said.
Iran is the world's fourth biggest exporter of crude oil and the
second biggest in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting
Countries.
Experts and officials say it may be impossible to destroy Iran's
nuclear program because much of it is underground and dispersed at
numerous sites.
In addition, they have said an attack on Iran could further inflame
anti-Americanism in the Middle East and prompt Tehran to interfere
more in Iraq and encourage Islamist fundamentalist groups to launch
new attacks on the West.
Another Senate Intelligence Committee member, Republican Trent Lott
of Mississippi, said that despite a massive military commitment in
Iraq the United States has the capability to strike Iran but it
would be difficult and other options must be tried first.
Bayh accused Bush of undermining the U.S. national interest and
creating what he called a dilemma by ignoring the problem of Iran
for four years. |
