David Swanson: Iran Lies
Iran Lies
By David Swanson
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/18433
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
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/18432
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/18431