Iran Lies
By David Swanson
Here's the latest reason they must be telling the truth about Iran and the need for a new war: they lied about the last
one. That's right, according to the latest dispatch from the Associated Press,
"No one who has seen the files has suggested the evidence is thin. But senior officials – gun shy after the drubbing the
administration took for the faulty intelligence leading to the 2003 Iraq invasion – were underwhelmed by the packaging."
See? It's just the "packaging." They've got solid proof, and they're even being extra careful in presenting it to us,
because we were so hard on them last time. In fact, you can tell just how careful these senior officials are being from
the fact that in all the articles in all the newspapers, so many of them (or is it all one guy?) are never identified by
name.
The New York Times has even abandoned its stated policies in order to rush these careful claims out without naming any
sources:
And shockingly, according to one, possibly apocryphal, account, the Times has acknowledged that its reporter Michael
Gordon is actually a voice-activated answering machine: http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/18416
This is brought into doubt, however, by an Email exchange one reader had with Gordon this weekend, in which the
apparently real reporter explained:
"I am well aware of the controversy over the WMD intel. I think this case is different. The US intelligence community is
not on the outside looking in, as was the case with the WMD intel. The US is in Iraq and this largely reflects
intelligence gathered on the battefield. At any rate, I spend some time talking to a range of officials on this issue
and quoted the intel reports accurately." [sic]
So, you see? This case is DIFFERENT. This time we can TRUST the "intelligence" sources. Because, last time, we'd merely
had crews of trained inspectors swarming the country for years, and they denied that there were any WMD there. This
time, we have amateurs observing the situation in the middle of guerrilla warfare, and they say they've got the goods
but can't reveal them. So, you see, it's DIFFERENT.
The headline on the latest AP story (a story written by Katherine Shrader and Anne Gearan) reads "U.S. Considers Proof
About Iran: Government Weighs How Much to Divulge About Iraq Connection." Shrader and Gearan assure us that there is 200
pages of proof, but that sadly and inexplicably it's classified. Of course, "No one who has seen the files has suggested
the evidence is thin." Another way to say this might be: "No one who would suggest the evidence was thin has been
permitted to see the files." It sounds less impressive that way though.
Who has seen the 200 pages? Well, Shrader and Gearan report that "officials from several intelligence agencies
scrutinized the presentation to make sure it was clear and that 'we don't in any way jeopardize our sources and methods
in making the presentation,' State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said." Now, does anyone recall any concerns that
previous presentations have been unclear? My memory suggests that the reason for the "drubbing the administration took"
was that they blatantly lied, not that they wrote poorly. And, since when does one PR flack at the State Department get
to explain the concerns of several intelligence agencies?
National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley claims the White House is the reason for the delay in making public the
"proof," and he claims the White House is trying to get the intelligence community (is it really a community?) to
weaken, not strengthen, its claims. However, the National Review reports:
"At least twice in the past month, the White House has delayed a PowerPoint presentation initially prepared by the
military to detail evidence of suspected Iranian materiel and financial support for militants in Iraq. The presentation
was to have been made at a press conference in Baghdad in the first week of February. Officials have set no new date,
but they say it could be any day.
"Even as U.S. officials in Baghdad were ready to make the case, administration principals in Washington who were charged
with vetting the PowerPoint dossier bowed to pressure from the intelligence community and ordered that it be scrubbed
again."
The AP seems to agree that the "intelligence" services, not the White House, caused the delay. Of course, we all would
know this without being told if we simply stopped to think for a moment. The AP article says:
"Privately, officials say they want to avoid the kind of gaffe akin to former Secretary of State Colin Powell's case for
war before the United Nations in 2003."
Well that's lovely, and it's nice of them to make their "private" comments so… um, publicly. But do they have no concern
over avoiding the kind of "gaffe" President Bush made in his 2002 speech in Cincinnati or on numerous television
appearances and in a memorable State of the Union address, or the kind of "gaffes" that Cheney and Rice made over and
over again to assure the public and the Congress that Iraq had WMD and ties to 9-11? In other words, has anybody noticed
that the same people are still in charge who lied us into the last war?
Now, Robert Gates is out and about claiming that he's got serial numbers that amount to "pretty good" proof of Iranian
support for Iraqis. And someone has shown something to select Congress Members, resulting in Joe Lieberman declaring
"I'm convinced from what I've seen that the Iranians are supplying and are giving assistance to the people in Iraq who
are killing American soldiers." Lieberman, by the way, voted for the last war, and said recently that he does not regret
that vote, supports escalating the war, and opposes setting any date by which to end it. http://www.davidswanson.org/?q=node/720
Among the things we have not fully looked into yet are, not only the way the White House sold the last war [ http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/investigations ] but also the way the media lapped up those lies [ http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/18395 ]. As Gilbert Cranberg asked recently, "Why did the Associated Press wait six months, when the body count began to
rise, to distribute a major piece by AP's Charles Hanley challenging Powell's evidence and why did Hanley say how
frustrating it had been until then to break through the self-censorship imposed by his editors on negative news about
Iraq?"
More urgently, why – after the AP published a full debunking by Hanley of the last war's lies [ http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/3531 ] -- is the AP playing along with the new ones? Is this all part of selling us on the idea that the old ones don't
matter? It's likely to have the effect of making them matter even more. The current display of media credulity in the
face of an absence of evidence is serving to remind the public of how we got into the war in Iraq that continues and
worsens to this day.
Here's a collection of the growing list of Iran War Lies: http://www.democrats.com/iran-war-lies
Add it to the endless list of Iraq War Lies: http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/keydocuments
But let's keep one thing in mind as we demand a thorough investigation of both sets of lies – lies made by the same set
of people: In neither case, even were every single claim 100 percent true and accurate, would anyone have established a
legal case for war. If a nation's possession of WMDs were grounds for launching a war against it, the United States
would be subject to legal invasion immediately. So, while debunking the fanciful claims of Bush, Cheney, and Gates may
be entertaining, we may actually do more good if we brush them aside and point out that it does not matter whether their
claims are true or not. Aiding a nation in repelling a foreign occupation is not grounds for war. The U.S. still brags
about having done this in France 50 years ago. If Iran were doing it in Iraq now, which no evidence yet suggests, the
crime would lie in the foreign invaders' refusal to leave, not in the aide supplied by the Iranians.
ENDS