Intelligence community learned from Iraq debacle

Sounds good, now if the new attorney general would just open a RICO investigation into the neocon’s role in fostering this debacle & treason for destroying Brewster-Jennings.

Ooh, frist. Don’t know if Larry or some of the other intelligence professionals saw this, but Steve Clemons notes that it seems ridiculously inconsistent for Move On to be hammered by everyone for rather insensitively criticizing Gen. Petraeus but yet John Bolton can slander the entire intelligence community and it’s OK?

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/002565.php

Here’s a whole lot of anti-spin:

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/12/06/countdown-special-comment-the-nie-reflects-an-unhinged-irrational-chicken-little-of-a-president/

no doubt mr. goodman makes a well intentioned and rational argument but i fear his optimism may be naive. in today’s news we learn ms. rice supposedly has obtained backing from the french and germany to push for more sanctions. other efforts are progressing as well … it is like no matter what the facts are, no matter what iran does to try to ease the tension; this adminstration will continue to push and prod to ratchet up the tension and find any excuse to use military force.

as for me, i firmly believe the only way we can stop this group of neocons is to cut the head off … we must and i repeat must start impeachment proceedings as soon as possible, if not, this group will certainly start another war.

So this guy is another Ph.D who couldn’t get a job in the real world so he winds up pushing his leftwing agenda at the CIA - under the guise of “analysis.”

The intelligence establishment, along with their fat-assed brethren at the State Department - have long forgotten who they work for. They are NOT the government, no matter how much they subvert the policy of the elected officials - in between their coffee breaks and leaking national secrets to their cohorts in the hate-America media.

The biggest mistake Bush made was not Iraq.
It was not cleaning out the worthless left-wing, globalist incompetents who infest the bureaucracy; selling out this country on their way to a fat pension paid for by me and other people who have actual jobs.

Every so often there’s good news.
“more difficult ….. for the use of military force against Iran”

Also, here’s a very interesting read; an inner look of the hows and whys behind this NIE; from the view of Joby Warrick and Walter Pincus at the Washington Post:
—
Lessons of Iraq Aided Intelligence On Iran -
- Officials Cite New Caution And a Surge in Spying

McConnell required agencies to consult more sources ….. and to acknowledge, to a degree previously unheard of, what they do not know.

” ‘Do not know’ is a new technical term for an NIE,” said a senior official…

The rest of the article gives the sense that McConnell is really genuinely trying to make IEs better.

The IE itself says in it’s own self-explanatory section:
“The NIC has undertaken a number of steps to improve the NIE process”
and
“We have made a concerted effort to not only highlight differences among agencies but to explain the reasons for such differences and to prominently display them in the Key Judgments.”

And of course as we’ve heard, it says “…but we do not know whether it [Iran] currently intends to develop nuclear weapons”

At the end on page 9 there’s a handy chart comparing it with the May 2005 assessment.

We may not all be of the same opinions as McConnell, but he does seem to be trying to bring back some integrity.

I’d like to expand a bit on my previous position stated in the thread “Get Ready for Rightwing Blowback”, that being my belief that we’re a debtor nation & financially can’t afford to fight on a third front. As I said previously much of our debt is owed to China, China gets much of its oil from Iran. China may tolerate a tactical air strike of Iran’s alledged nuclear facility, however I do not believe they would tolerate any action that would disrupt the oil supply. I guess I just don’t see it happening, it has the propensity for getting completely out of control. The MSM has been doing more man on the street stories from Iran, showing average Iranians in a sympathic light, doesn’t this signal anything to you?

What they learned was to never let the Bush administration fuck with their analysis results.

Graywolf, I’ve got a shocker for ya: POTUS is a globalist.

The biggest mistake Bush made was not Iraq.
It was not cleaning out the worthless left-wing, globalist incompetents who infest the bureaucracy; selling out this country on their way to a fat pension paid for by me and other people who have actual jobs.

That’s why they put all of those 20 year old experts in there to rebuild Iraq. All those 20 year old lawyers from a 400th ranked religious school to staff the Justice Dept.. oh hell the list is almost a endless as the igit in chief is clueless.

1Watt, I take it you think GLOBALIST is a compliment. To me it’s rubber stamping the multi national corps’ agenda of exploiting the enviornment & labor markets & has zip to do with being well traveled, educated, tolerant or anything of a positive nature. Globalism aspires to erase the concept of nation states & soverignity & replace those alligances with a desperate mobile pursuit of chump change for the masses & great wealth for the over lords. i.e. your neighbor might not be able to find a damn job & gettin ready to live under some bridge, but who cares cause youre gettin rich providing sweat shop employment for some impoverished class of people thousands of miles away. It’s a WalMart mind set, it’s toxic pet food, deforrestation, & screwing the middle class. To use a POTUS term, we’re being “regularized.” Hell, what do I know? Maybe one person’s adversion to being regularized is another persons Dawning of the Age of Aquarius.

They never quit. People who opposed them to speak out on behalf of the US need to guard their backs.

CNN is going to run a neocon propaganda piece tonight called Iran: Fact or Ficton hosted by Campbell Brown. Isn’t she Dan Senor’s wife?

The intelligence community learned from the Iraq debacle (1 million Iraqi people dead, 4 million refugees, 4000 dead Americans 40,ooo injured). Clearly the Bush administration has not.

Sy Hersh told Wolf Blitzer “It’s not over yet, there is still Israel” they are very angry about this
report and may pre-emptively attack Iran.

Sy Hersh with Wolf
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/12/05/sy-hersh-we-pay-bush-to-know-these-things-what-did-he-know-when/

Israel may pre-meptively attack their “existential” threat

http://antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=12014

December 7, 2007
Iran: Why Won’t We Take Yes For An Answer?
Israel’s amen corner tries to spin the NIE report

http://antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=12014

http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/israel-warns-iran-to-cooperate-or-pay-price/2007/12/06/1196812921134.html

This gave me a good laugh. They had to scrap this to replace it with the crap I mentioned above.

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/12/06/cnn-postpones-docum... /

CNN ‘postpones’ documentary on ‘Iran Goes Nuclear.’

Variety reports:

The latest National Intelligence Estimate concluding that Iran discontinued its nuclear weapons program four years ago has claimed one casualty: CNN has postponed speculative documentary “We Were Warned — Iran Goes Nuclear.”

The two-hour spec, which was slated for Dec. 12 under the “CNN Presents” banner, was “set partially in the future,” featuring a what-if scenario as former government officials — playing fictional cabinet members — debate how to deal with the Iranian threat.

That special was “based on a different set of rules and a different set of conditions,” said CNN veep-senior exec producer Mark Nelson, noting that the surprising NIE report “changed everything.”

news come this morning that condelezza, the old cold war warrior herself, is meeting with the russians to get their cooperation with continuing the pressure against iran. well, it aint gonna happen … bush can jump up and down, rant and rave, and hold his breath until he turns the red but the russians and the chinese are going to tell him to go to hell. rightly so! yes the blowback is quickly becoming sublime and ridiculous.

Headline: CIA destroys torture tapes.

Payback for the “bad” NIE?

Col. Lang just posted some DC insider info on why BushCo had to release the NIE conclusions:

http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2007/12/the-senate-and.html

The one, and only, reason they released the report is because they KNEW it would be leaked anyway.

These times in which diplomacy is recommended re: Iran may provide the opportunity for a nonpartisan global peacebuilding initiative i.e. such an initiative, probably in the form of UN Resolution, would factor in the health, prosperity and happiness of the ‘global citizen’. It would be refreshing to hear a set of goals for the 21st Century which could collectively include the end of war and its costs to humanity; the end of disease and pollution; efficient use of energy and adaptation to climate change amongst others. In other words, let us reinforce the concept that nations can work together on global issues. If the President of Iran claims he is a “man of the people” then a global peacebuilding initiative would ask - ‘Mr. President - just exactly what are you doing with re; to the health, prosperity and happiness of the Iranian People? If a UN Resolution were in place, a global peacebuilding initiative would prompt global leaders with the same question - a question asked in spite of the perception of liberal, conservative, sane or fanatical.

Not with rhetoric like Bush’s WW3 example.

Col. Lang reported:

The “jungle telegraph” in Washington is booming with news of the Iran NIE. I am told that the reason the conclusions of the NIE were released is that it was communicated to the White House that “intelligence career seniors were lined up to go to jail if necessary” if the document’s gist were not given to the public. Translation? Someone in that group would have gone to the media “on the record” to disclose its contents.

‘Intelligence career seniors’, whoever you are, you are my heroes. We have been waiting for someone with the courage to step up and speak the truth (that is before retiring and writing a book, while the truth can still help prevent disaster) and here you are doing it when it’s not just your job on the line, but potentially your liberty. We owe you a great debt. God bless.

Sanctions are still in place.

Their aim is to instill regime change.

This props up the Sauds and their world influence, with their longstanding closeness to James Baker.

This continues client status for Israel, Iran’s biggest potential military opponent at this time.

They drafted a Chapter 7 resolution of the United Nations Security Council calling for the disarmament of Iraq and saying in Paragraph 14 that if Iraq complies, sanctions will be lifted. Within months of this resolution being passed–and the United States drafted and voted in favor of this resolution–within months, the President, George Herbert Walker Bush, and his Secretary of State, James Baker, are saying publicly, not privately, publicly that even if Iraq complies with its obligation to disarm, economic sanctions will be maintained until which time Saddam Hussein is removed from power.

That is proof positive that disarmament was only useful insofar as it contained through the maintenance of sanctions and facilitated regime change. It was never about disarmament, it was never about getting rid of weapons of mass destruction. It started with George Herbert Walker Bush, and it was a policy continued through eight years of the Clinton presidency, and then brought us to this current disastrous course of action under the current Bush Administration

Baker set the future policy under Bush Sr. He’s tight with the House of Saud as their counsel vs. 9-11 survivors.

The West fears their bailing out of the world market to go eastward or shifting what it is they have bought into on the West.

Iran’s a block from them going east entirely. It has location and resource advantages past the peak of Arabian oil. We could probably call Arabia’s bluff on the market, there’s two sides to every business transaction.

Go ahead, turn your back on the West, watch radicals overtake your own homeland, watch others outmaneuver your market entry eastward.

For that reason they run parallel to Israel and its interests. Israel wants to be the doorway to the Mediterranean from the Mid East still. The Trans Arabian and Trans Iraqi pipelines flow through Southern Lebanon, land Israel has eyes for.

It’s still about money and oil strategically. Tactically it’s about water, but that is another topic.

We could give Iran recognition, place the region into favored trade status, and ease oil concerns internationally. The price benefit on oil alone would fuel an economic boom.

Expanding markets would accelerate transition economies to scale levels. Diplomatic demands could meet benchmarks to go with increased demand for expanded services in building infrastructure and helping NGO in offering aid.

Arabia would go along provided we channel much of the USAID moneys through their economic institutions. They need to get ahead of transitional phases in their own right.

Israel has the same need, to see moneys channeled through their institutions as a hedge against regional conflict, as both sides begin to share in the success of the future.

We could play a hard hand on Baker’s buddies(forfeiture on scale numbers for class action to survivors of the day used to justify all of our current wars). It would basically be a shot across the bow, or they can go along with us, profit along the lines of drawing interest and sharing in the development of neighbors.

Israel can get closer to their enemies by empowering buffer zones in neutral or non-declared neighbors. They can’t build walls against the rest of the world forever.

If walls worked Jericho would still be standing. Why have we not learned this? Perhaps a package of incentives could help them realize what works best for everyone’s strategic interests. Sweeten the song with some extra money and bring those walls down.