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How Israel is Dealing with Devastating NIE on Iran: Two Views
Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit
[The first from Ha'aretz claims Israel accepts "90 to 95% of the NIE"
but says that the US and Israeli official will be meeting soon to
discuss (or plot) ways of coping with (or countering) the inconvenient
truths. The second, by James Petras -- which has been reposted all over
the net including rightwing and conspiracist blogs and newsgroups, but
we could not find the original source -- has a very different take. -NYTr]
sent by Steven L. Robinson - activ-l
Haaretz - Dec 14, 2007
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/934518.html
Israel accepts most of U.S. intelligence analysis on Iran
By Amir Oren, Haaretz Correspondent
Israeli and American officials involved in the intelligence analysis of
Iran's nuclear efforts will meet soon to discuss the two countries'
differing *****sments of Iran's rate of progress toward achieving
nuclear weapons.
Israel, which was surprised by the National Intelligence *****sment on
Iran released last week, initiated the meeting. Defense Minister Ehud
Barak approved the idea of a meeting, re****tedly prefering lower-level
talks that would avoid involving diplomatic positions or organizational
responsibility for the meaning or interpretation of the data.
Advertisement
Defense establishment sources said this week that Israel accepted 90 to
95 percent of the intelligence material on which the American
*****sment was based, including the assertion that Iran stopped the
development of nuclear weapons in 2003 but was continuing uranium
enrichment and the development of long-range weapons.
Among the Israeli participants in the talks will be experts at the
level of department heads in the Intelligence Branch of the Israel
Defense Forces, the Mossad, the Air Force and the Atomic Energy
Commission, mostly at the level of colonel or their civilian
counterpart.
The U.S. intelligence community will be represented by representatives
from the CIA, Pentagon intelligence agencies, the Department of Energy
and the National Intelligence Council operating alongside the Director
of National Intelligence. The main framers of the re****t were Leslie
Ireland, issue manager on Iran in the National Intelligence Council and
her colleague, Vann Van Diepen, issue manager for weapons of mass
destruction.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said at a meeting this week with the
editors of USA Today, a transcript of which was distributed by her
office, that President George W. Bush had decided to release an
unclassified version of the intelligence re****t to stress that along
with stopping the development of nuclear weapons four years ago, Iran
continues to enrich nuclear material for military purposes and to
obtain missiles.
Rice said that if the Iranians "embraced" the whole intelligence
re****t, the U.S. would want to know what program was stopped in 2003,
how far it went and what the significance of was of stopping it, "given
that weaponization is only one element of a weapons program."
Rice confirmed repeatedly that the U.S. demanded that Iran stop
enrichment of uranium as a precondition to negotiations. "The situation
we would not want to get into is where there are endless negotiations
while Iran perfects the enrichment and reprocessing capability because
once you've learned to do it - it's an engineering problem, " she said.
The Wa****ngton Post quoted last Saturday from statements made two years
ago by former Iranian president Hashemi Rafsanjani to American experts
then visiting Teheran. "Look, as long as we can enrich uranium and
master the fuel cycle, we don't need anything else. Our neighbors will
be able to draw the proper conclusions," he told his guests. The
statement was also quoted by former American peace emissary Dennis Ross
in the New Republic weekly.
Until the release of the American re****t, the defense establishment
believed Israel might find itself involved in a military conflict with
Iran in the coming year if Bush decided to act against Tehran and Iran
responded against Israeli targets as well.
In the wake of this assumption, the extension of Air Force commander
Major General Elyezer Shkedy's command, until April 2008, is under
consideration. A number of additional reshuffles of Air Force brass
depend on whether Shkedy remains in his post.
Chief of Staff Gabi Ashskenazi recently interviewed three candidates for
Shkedy's job: the chief of planning on the General Staff, Major General
Ido Nechushtan; Brigadier General Amir Ehsel, head of the Air Force
headquarters and head of the IAF's Air Directorate, Brigadier General
Yohanan Locker.
***
William Bowles Info - Dec 13, 2007
http://www.williambowles.info/iran/2007/1207/petras_israel_iran.html
Israel and Top Zionist Leaders Attack Intelligence
While governments, the United Nations and experts around the world
recognized the rigorous, systematic, comprehensive methods used to
compile the data leading to the re****t declaring that Iran was free of
nuclear weapons programs, one and only one state objected: The State
of Israel. And in the USA only one nationwide configuration of
organizations refused to reconcile itself to the absence of any Iranian
military threat to Israel (not to speak of the US, a distant secondary
consideration) and that was predictably the Zionist Power
Configuration, specifically the Presidents of the Major American Jewish
Organizations.
Speaking for the Israeli Government, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, with
the predictable arrogance and contempt that Israeli officials treat any
US policy analysis or statement that doesnt pass their editorial
approval and toe their line, dismissed the NIE: ~We cannot allow
ourselves to rest just because of an intelligence re****t from the other
side of the earth (sic) even from our greatest friend. (Guardian of
London, December 4, 2007). Though the NIE may weaken the White House
drive to war, the fact that Israel rejects the re****t means that its
war preparations will continue and that means that its entire Zionist
Power Configuration in the US will continue to pursue Israels interest
in destroying Iran.
Following Orwellian logic AIPAC twisted the NIE re****t to fit Israels
rejectionist lead (as it never fails to do) by arguing that the NIE
re****t bolsters the case for continued confrontation, belligerency and
isolation (Jewish Telegraph Agency, December 4, 2007). In fact
according to the perverse argument of AIPAC spokesman Josh Block, the
absence of any Iranian nuclear weapons threat should result in greater
pressure on Iran! ~All in all, its (the NIE) a clarion call for
additional and continued (my emphasis) effort to pressure Iran
economically and politically to end its illicit nuclear
program.(Jewish Telegraph Agency, December 4, 2007).
Once again the Israel Firsters " embracing all the major Zionist
organizations and community councils " defy all logic, and the most
comprehensive and in depth empirical intelligence re****t of the US in
favor of the propaganda emanating from the failed Israeli intelligence
agencies and the Israeli regime. In a continuous barrage of articles
and television interviews, the entire Zionist Power Configuration (ZPC)
buried the NIE re****t, refocusing attention on themes like ~Irans
nuclear program still a threat (Daily Alert, December 7, 2007).
During the entire week (December 3-7, 2007) the Presidents of the Major
American (sic) Jewish Organizations " covering the entire range of
financially powerful Jewish organizations in the USA " published an
average of nine articles (nearly 50) propagating the Israeli line. The
articles disparaged, distorted and dismissed the NIE and continued to
push for the ~military option (euphemism for launching a massive
attack on Iran) as well as new economic sanctions to destroy the
Iranian economy and the livelihood of its 70 million citizens. The
euphoria of anti-war critics who claim the NIE re****t laid to rest the
threat of a new US war with Iran is premature, as is their idea that
the ~Israel Lobby was dealt a decisive blow. The ZPC never lost a
beat: Israel Firster and Zion-Con fanatic, US Treasury Undersecretary,
responsible for terrorism and financial intelligence, Stuart Levey,
succeeded in convincing China to tighten trade credit, making trade
more difficult and costly for Irans private sector. (Financial Times,
December 6, 2007, p. 1).
Internationally, the United Kingdoms Foreign Secretary David Millband
" a long-time sup****ter of Israel with close family ties to the Zionist
state " predictably followed the Bush-Israel-ZPC line in all but
dismissing the NIE re****t and emphasizing the need to ~keep the
pressure on Iran. Millband, who on his recent visit to Israel,
refused to even pass a glance at Israels shutdown of electricity and
fuel to the 1.4 million Palestinians caged up in Gaza, spent an entire
evening exchanging pleasantries with his settler relatives in Tel
Aviv. He accused the non-nuclear Iran of being a major threat to the
international community because it produces what he called ~fissile
material and ~missiles. Every large and medium size country in the
world produces enriched uranium and possesses missiles; to impose a
sinister construction on Irans civilian and defense projects is
laughable. (Financial Times, December 6, 2007) Millband dismisses out
of hand their civilian application and parrots word for word his
Israeli mentors line about ~hidden programs and other such
unsubstantiated Zionist propaganda. Recent revelations of large-scale,
long-term Zionist financing of the highly indebted Labor Partys
electoral campaigns by millionaire moguls and self-proclaimed ~Labor
Friends of Israel (Independent, December 6 2007) suggests that
Millbands rapid rise to head the Foreign Ministry had less to do with
his minimal international affairs experience and more to do with the
~special relations between millionaire Zionist fundraisers and past
and present Labor Party leaders, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.
In France President Sarkozy appointed Zionist zealot Bernard Kouchner,
(a fervent sup****ter of humanitarian intervention including the US
invasion of Iraq), to head the Foreign Ministry after ~consultations
with leading French Jewish organizations, which had rejected an earlier
candidate, deemed not pro-Israel enough. Bernie Kouchner and Nicky
Sarkozy immediately picked up the Israeli line, dismissing the NIE
Re****t and calling for new economic sanctions even as the original
justification (Irans so-called nuclear weapons program) was found to
be a lie. They called for a new UN National Security Council
resolution adding greater sanctions against Iran (AFP, December 7,
2007). The Bush-Millband-Kouchner-Israeli logic parallels
Stalinist-Nazi logic " the more the intelligence re****ts demonstrate
the absence of a nuclear weapons program, the greater the nuclear
threat; the lesser the present threat, the greater the future threat;
the lesser the empirically verifiable threat, the greater the secret
threat. The NIE re****t made liars of the White House and Congressional
Democrats and the Presidents of the Major American Jewish Organizations
who ~knew Iran had a nuclear weapons program. Even more revealingly,
it demonstrates that for the same warmongers, Iranian nuclear weapons
is not the motivating force for their drive to attack Iran. Leaving
out the weapons motive, it is abundantly clear that attacking Iran
through sanctions and military threats is deeply rooted in the Israeli
priority of destroying Iran as an adversary to its Middle East power
grab and its assault and territorial dispossession of Palestinians.
The ZPC, Millband, Kouchner, Olmert, and the White Houses
efforts to push for a third round of UN sanctions is likely to be
rejected. On December 4, Chinas UN Ambassador, Wang Guangya,
announced that the NIE re****t called into question the need for new
sanctions, ~I think we all start from the presumption that now things
have changed. I think council members will have to consider that. (Al
Jazeera, December 5, 2007). China, with $17 billion dollars in direct
trade with Iran and up to $30 billion via Dubai, and with Iran as a
major Middle East oil supplier and with no Zionist lobby to reinforce
Israeli diplomatic pressures, is free to pursue its own national
interests. The case can be made that Russia, under President Vladimir
Putin, will follow Chinas lead and object to new sanctions.
Nevertheless, the US Congress and in particular its influential
Committee chairpersons continue to blindly follow Israeli Prime
Minister Ehud Olmerts pronouncement post-NIE: ~It is vital to pursue
efforts to prevent Iran from developing a capability like this (sic) in
the United States. Leading Congressional Israeli-American zealot,
Thomas Lantos, convoked a congressional hearing on the NIE Re****t and
invited two top ex-government advisers and ultra-Zion zealots, David
Wurmser and Martin Indyk to testify.
Conclusion
There is no question that the anti-(Iran) war groups in the US military
and intelligence agencies struck a serious blow to the ongoing war
plans of the White House, Israel and their agents in the ZPC. The
setback includes a tem****ary defeat of its massive war propaganda and
their fabrication of an ~existential threat to the world community
(Israel). Nevertheless the publication of the NIE hit the headlines
for only a few days, followed by a barrage of hostile propaganda in all
of the US mass media which called into question the peaceful intentions
of Iran and even twisted certain probabilistic phrases to contradict
the main findings.
>From the vantage point of Americans trying to free their government and
the American public of Israeli and ZPC tyrannical monopoly of opinion,
the NIE Re****t struck a blow against the credibility of the White House
and Zionist spokespeople in the Congress, National Security Council,
Homeland Security and the Justice and Treasury Departments regarding
Irans so-called nuclear weapons program. But the quickness, depth and
scope of the Israeli response especially magnified by its
representatives in the US, the French and British foreign offices,
demonstrates that the pro-war Israel Firsters are still deeply embedded
in positions of political power and willing to defy the US intelligence
and military establishment. Without shame or substance, with
aggressive outbursts and manipulative semantical skills, the ZPC moves
forward toward new sanctions, despite the systematic empirical
refutation of its principle argument. Only a blind, irrational
tribal-ethnic loyalty to Israel can account for the ready denial of the
NIE re****t and automatic embrace of Israels continued fabrications.
As in the thirties when overseas Nazi sympathizers defended Hitlers
lies about Communists torching the Reichstag and Communist fellow
travelers defended Stalins purges as exemplary judicial processes, our
Zionists continue to deny every systematic empirical re****t (like the
NIE) which contradicts Israels lies and fabrications about Irans
nuclear weapons programs.
Beyond the im****tant issue of dual loyalties (very much in evidence in
the ZPCs response to the NIE re****t) there is the re-emergence of the
question of a US-backed Israeli war with Iran. The military option
will be buttressed by an Israeli military intelligence propaganda
re****t dismissing the NIE. It will claim secret Iranian nuclear
weapons programs buried somewhere near the center of the earth and
therefore undetected by US intelligence informants, satellite photos,
UN inspectors, defecting (or kidnapped) Iranian Generals or any other
US source.
The NIE and the US Military have struck a blow against the planners of
World War III. Will this lift the US Congress off its collective knees
to finally address US interests in the Middle East? Will it re-awaken
a currently moribund peace movement, terrified to confront the most
virulent organized warmongers? Will it allow Congress and the US
public to challenge the ZPCs stranglehold on US-Middle East policy?
Will the British public and peace movement dare to challenge a Labor
Government and Foreign Office bought and paid for by the ~Labor Friends
of Israel? Will the French public and intellectuals of Paris recover
their republican credentials and reject its first and foremost Israel
First regime?
Two weeks after the Annapolis Meeting, Israeli Housing Minister Zeev
Boim gave US Secretary of State Condeleeza Rice the ~bristly
cu***ber (a Mediterranean style ~slap in the face) when she pleaded
with the Jewish state to stop building new settlements in Palestinian
East Jerusalem because, ~it doesnt help to build confidence. Boim
went on to say, ~Secretary of State Rice should be congratulated for
her efforts in re-launching the peace process (sic)]but this cannot be
constantly linked to the cessation of construction in Jerusalem]There
is thus nothing to prevent construction anywhere else in Israel. (Al
Jazeera, December 8, 2007).
Just as the Jewish state can dismiss its vague promises to the Bush
regime on the so-called ~peace process in short order, so does Israel
reject the NIE re****t on the absence of a nuclear weapon program in
Iran and prepare for war " backed by the entire ZPC.
Surprisingly it is not liberal or leftist opinion leaders who have
raised the relevant issues pertaining to the questions of war and peace
in the Middle East, the Israeli-White House threats of starting World
War III. It is the spy agencies in the US and their allies in the US
military, the paragons of past wars and present destabilization
campaigns (read " Venezuela). It is an irony of history. But just the
same, this is the real world in which we live, where Western
intellectuals and cultural heroes have abdicated their responsibility
to challenge the Zionist Power Configuration operating on behalf of an
aspiring Middle East colonial power.
[James Petras is author of The Power of Israel in the United States and
Rulers and Ruled in the US Empire. He is a Bartle Professor (Emeritus)
of Sociology at Binghamton University, New York.]
*
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