Know Nukes
Ha! Libertyblog wants to know if Iran is stupid enough to reprise Saddam’s Victor/Victoria role: A tyrant without WMD pretending to be a tyrant with WMD pretending to be a tyrant without WMD. Who will one day be a tyrant with WMD if everyone keeps falling for that tired storyline.
No nukes, or no conclusive evidence of any Iranian nuclear weapons program, anyway, declares McClatchy. Bush hyperbole balanced by ElBaradei assurances, followed by … other stuff nuke whatever:
WASHINGTON — Despite President Bush’s claims that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons that could trigger “World War III,” experts in and out of government say there’s no conclusive evidence that Tehran has an active nuclear-weapons program.
Even his own administration appears divided about the immediacy of the threat. While Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney speak of an Iranian weapons program as a fact, Bush’s point man on Iran, Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns, has attempted to ratchet down the rhetoric.
“Iran is seeking a nuclear capability … that some people fear might lead to a nuclear-weapons capability,” Burns said in an interview Oct. 25 on PBS.
“I don’t think that anyone right today thinks they’re working on a bomb,” said another U.S. official, who requested anonymity because of the issue’s sensitivity. Outside experts say the operative words are “right today.” They say Iran may have been actively seeking to create a nuclear-weapons capacity in the past and still could break out of its current uranium-enrichment program and start a weapons program.
Jan. 20, 2009 good for you? The article goes on to accuse Bush etal of hyperbole. Of course, one man’s hyperbole is another man’s painfully obvious conclusion, and really depends on what you think Iran wants nukes, and what Iran would want to do with nukes:
“I’ve told people that if you’re interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them (Iran) from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon,” he said Oct. 17 at a news conference.
“Our country, and the entire international community, cannot stand by as a terror-supporting state fulfills its grandest ambitions,” Cheney warned on Oct 23. “We will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon.”
Well, no more hyperbolic than “wipe Israel off the map,” I suppose.
Bush and Cheney’s allegations are under especially close scrutiny because their similar allegations about an Iraqi nuclear program proved to be wrong.
Iran’s promises to erase the Zionist entity, its meddling from Lebanon to Iraq to Afghanistan as it seeks to dominate the Middle East, its role in the murder of American soldiers, its leadership’s scary end time beliefs, on the other hand, get no scrutiny here whatsoever.
But Bush, while deranged and chewing rugs in the White House, cannot be entirely dismissed.
… there are many reasons to be skeptical of Iran’s claims that its nuclear program is intended exclusively for peaceful purposes, including the country’s vast petroleum reserves, its dealings with a Pakistani dealer in black-market nuclear technology and the fact that it concealed its uranium-enrichment program from a U.N. watchdog agency for 18 years.
“Many aspects of Iran’s past nuclear program and behavior make more sense if this program was set up for military rather than civilian purposes,” Pierre Goldschmidt, a former U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency deputy director general, said in a speech Oct. 30 at Harvard University.
If conclusive proof exists, however, Bush hasn’t revealed it. Nor have four years of IAEA inspections.
“I have not received any information that there is a concrete active nuclear-weapons program going on right now,” IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei asserted in an interview Oct. 31 with CNN.
Bush-bash accomplished, some Iranian nuke boilerplate ensues. Blah blah blah … “outstanding questions” … yada yada yada … “long concealed” … blah blah blah … “A.Q. Khan” … yada yada yada … centrifuge blueprints. More of the same, you know … “IAEA has been stymied” … “studied mounting a nuclear warhead on a ballistic missile” … “1,200-foot-deep underground shaft apparently designed to confine a nuclear test explosion” … that kind of thing.
It’s heartening to see that, news organizations having shamefully aided and abetted in the demonizing of Saddam Hussein in the runup to war in 2003 by guzzling Bush Koolaid, there is now an effort to give American-killing, hate-spewing, rabid anti-Semite terrorism sponsors every benefit of a doubt. Only 14 1/2 months to go!
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 8:35 am on Monday, November 5, 2007
4 Responses to “Know Nukes”
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November 5th, 2007 at 8:43 am
My goodness, what breathtaking horsepoo. Iran has 1 nuclear power generating reactor, and it’s not functioning yet because the Russians haven’t given them the fuel. So, obviously, peaceful Iran is enriching all this nuclear fuel at various sites around their country to work in their reactor, right? Well, no, actually; even the BBC for god’s sake admits that all of the material Iran is enriching won’t power their one reactor.
Insert head in sand.
Repeat as often as needed.
November 5th, 2007 at 11:44 am
And that thing the Israelis destroyed in Iran’s toady Syria, where all those Iranian nuclear scientists were killed… what were they doing there? Making baby formula?
November 5th, 2007 at 12:17 pm
[...] at The Newshoggers, Yourish.com and Jules Crittenden. For a great round-up go to [...]
November 5th, 2007 at 5:30 pm
To a large degree the article disagreed with the title. It demonstrated that the Iranians did/do have a nuclear program. Much of the article matched what Jim Hoagland mentioned in his column the other day. In other words, the article was not as bad as the headline.